“I never thought I would actually hear the words spoken flat out. But, I did. “It’s different here!” and, “EVERYONE wants to live here; that’s why prices will never go down.”
This was yesterday afternoon at a Port Moody BBQ. People in their late 60′s-early 70′s.
So, the meme is still alive and kicking. (I think it’ll take quite a while time to steer public perceptions in the other direction).”
- Boombust at VCI 29 Jul 2012 9:42pm
Most Recent Comments:
- hcg drops on Gord Goble in Local Newspapers – Vancouver RE ‘House Of Cards’ Will “Implode”
- china il on British Columbians Selling & Moving To The US – “It was just too good of an opportunity to turn down.”
- tfcu oklahoma on British Columbians Selling & Moving To The US – “It was just too good of an opportunity to turn down.”
- Real Estate Tsunami on Chat Thread
- 604x on Chat Thread
- Monserrate on David Dodge – “Look mister borrower, you’ve gotta have an equity stake in this as well… so that if things go really bad, it’s not all on the Canadian taxpayer, part of it is on you.”
- 604x on Chat Thread
- 604x on Chat Thread
- Nemesis on Chat Thread
- neonatal nurse Jobs on ‘Giant Bubble Bursts Into The Record Books – “Screams of excitement followed gasps of astonishment as a giant bubble rose up and surrounded the participants before bursting in spectacular fashion.”
- What And When To Purchase Langley Real Estate Langley Real Estate Agents Can Be Busy Because Of The Completely New Building Around The City! | Bookworm Room on Author Of ‘Real Estate Investing for Canadians for Dummies’ “jumped into the market 3 years ago with a 2 BR apartment in Mount Pleasant”; Reports Ownership Cheaper Than Renting; Leaves Out Math
- rod_jonsson on Chat Thread
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Latest Anecdotes:
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- Graphic – Degrees of Housing Overvaluation in Canada
- The Rare Individual With A Negative Ownership Premium
- Advice Regarding Renting In Vancouver, Please – “Unfortunately, the Vancouver rental stock is absolutely atrocious. It just seems like every landlord is looking for someone to pay 100% of their mortgage on a crappy place through rental income.”
- “I just visited Manhattan for a week, and happened to snap some real estate ads on both the Upper West and Upper East sides of the island. Compare to Vancouver. It simply doesn’t compute.”
- Ben Rabidoux In Vancouver Next Week
- “The mortgage company told me they were calling in my 40-year, 0-down mortgage. I have paid nearly sixty thousand dollars towards it, but, nearly five years in, I have yet to touch the principal.”
- ‘Vancouver City Hall: Housing Report Card 2012′; Plus Revised Version
- “My folks find themselves at 65 still owing half the value of their home and recreation property to the bank. After almost 30 years of ownership in the BPOE and a number of boom markets, they have very little to show for it.”
- “Rent for $2,200 a month or buy and have a mortgage of $4,310 per month. Why would anyone buy?”
- “They were talking about two couples they knew who had recently bought a lot and planned to each build a house on it and live as neighbours.”
- Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association Annual First-Time Buyer Seminar Attendance Plummets
- Mom and Pop Get It Wrong In All Markets, Time And Again
- The average British Columbian homeowner is not going to pay off their mortgage by the time they retire.
- “He’s sold all his properties except his current one, which is now for sale. He explained that the market’s currently in crash mode, worst that he’s ever seen.”
- “One of my old high school buddies finally got her mother to sell the family home in Kitsilano – sold for over $1M, monies realized after debt paid off $185K.”
- “I know someone who just declared bankruptcy because her condo was assessed at $150k and she bought it presale north of $250k in 2005 or 2006.”
- Sturdy, With Views – “Calling Froogle Scott!… Is Dr. Scott ‘In The House’?” [Not In This One, Certainly]
- “She said the market was dead in Victoria and that it would remain so for a very long time. I asked how she knew. Her answer was fascinating and should scare the pants off the real estate crowd.”
- Kits Notes – “I’m pretty sure that this is the first 3+ bedroom property of any type that I’ve seen in the 5 years I’ve lived here that is priced below $700K.”
- “A beautiful Belfast home, in the equivalent of 1st Shaughnessy, bought at their RE peak in 2007 for £3.5 million, has now sold for £800K, almost 80%-off. The market didn’t suffer any significant economic shocks. Rates & unemployment didn’t skyrocket. They didn’t build more land. Sentiment just changed and the prices fell and fell.”
- “Two family members of hers are trapped, underwater, in condos on the East Side.”
- “Interprovincial migration is not saying good things about BC’s economy.”
- Vancouver RE: Not As Expensive Provided You Don’t Think – “It’s clear that our perception of affordability has been coloured by living on a continent where housing is unusually inexpensive.”
- More Undisclosed RE Industry Insiders Publicized As Clients – “In 1995, Allan and Karin Hoegg were mortgage-free. But no more. Today their Vancouver home is a valuable source of income as they plan for full retirement.”
- Rumor that some OV units will be reduced by 20%.
- Downside Weights On The Vancouver RE Market – “One of the older guys (over 60) mention to the guy beside him that he and his wife were thinking about selling their family home, and renting, in order to get some of the money that was locked up in the house.”
- “My buddy was looking to upgrade to a house in the Coquitlam area. With 200k extra for a home, that’s half of lifetime saving between him and his wife.”
- “I was walking in the Fraser neighborhood yesterday, I noticed that the population, on average, seem to be composed of workers. I belong to the top 5 percent in terms of income. Nevertheless, I cannot afford any of the houses for sale in that neighbourhood.”
- “Vancouver is an urban resort whose value mostly resides in its real estate and not much else.”
- “Rogers Communications is expanding into RE; aiming to relaunch website; providing critical data that can help potential buyers assess the value of a property from the comfort of their home computer.”
- I’m only 50 and I can just about retire if I want to, all because of a single simple decision – “When prices rebounded to their former highs, then rocketed another 30% higher to what I considered to be totally unsustainable levels, I decided that only a fool would pass up a second opportunity to harvest such a massive non-taxable capital gain, and in 2011 I sold my place.”
- The Vacant Lot of Versailles, Richmond.
- “I don’t think that most people think things are going to crash, just that there is going to be a slight correction, but it was amazing to me how sentiment has changed, and the fact Vancouver RE is too high was just understood.”
- “The ‘investor’ who purchased our house put it up for sale two months later, in January 1981, but the bubble had burst.”
- For A City To Have That Kind Of Vacancy, It’s Like Cancer – “Downtown, the vacant unit rate is so high that it’s as though there were 35 towers at 20 storeys apiece – all empty.”
- “What’s the worst that can happen? You can’t pay your mortgage, so sell your house! No fear.”
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I’ll admit I’m too young to hang around with that age group. However, I was also at a party on the weekend, a house-warming one in fact. One of the guests told me about how she lives in a ground floor apartment with no yard in Pitt Meadows. She has 2 kids, and she’s glad they’re both girls so they can share one of the apartment’s 2 bedrooms. She would love to live in a house with a yard. But she knows that they can’t afford it. She also told me that if she were to sell now, the price she would get would cover the remaining balance on their mortgage, resulting in zero equity gained. Once she factors in strata fees paid, she figures they would have been better off renting.
Those distant suburbs will be disaster zones, if not already…
Barbecuers unite! Pull your listings now! LOL
The coming collapse in RE is going to hit boomers especially hard for a couple of reasons. First, as a group they are banking almost entirely on real estate to fund their retirement. Second, their income-earning years are behind them.
I’ve actually met a few 60+ boomers who are nearing retirement with DEBT and have no pension. They’ve explicitly told me that their house is their pension plan and they intend to pay off their debt after selling.
Most boomers I know are loaded and their home equity is an afterthought.
When you think about, how do you live through a 50 yr boom period, literally a once in a Millenia cycle, and not come out ahead. You have to be doing something seriously wrong. Or be really unlucky.
But that’s Nature.
Bob, I think boomers HAVE done something very wrong: They’ve placed most of their eggs in the RE basket.
Maybe the boomers you know are especially well-off. I would suggest that the *average* Canadian boomer is comfortable, but not loaded. Strip out the coming decline in their home equity, and add living expenses during another 20+ non-working years, and I see trouble…
People in their 60s and 70s have for the most part reaped the rewards from real estate and see it as a “no lose” proposition. My parents are the same and are in that age group.
It’s like asking a 14 year old if Justin Bieber is the most talented singer – you have to consider the source.
Boombust gets the BBQ Bingo win!
As a boomer I would expect most other boomers to have a mortgage free home, some savings and some pension income. If they are in trouble they probably have only themselves to blame.
I fully expect my principal residence will drop dramatically in value over the next couple of years but I’m okay with that because I bought it cheap and I never planned on it being part of my retirement package, those that did weren’t thinking very clearly.
BTW, I am happy that prices are probably going to drop significantly. It is important that younger people have the opportunity to enter the real estate market if that is their choice. Having people locked out of the market causes unhealthy social stresses which we don’t need.
Wait, a boomer being reasonable? Get of these forums! It’s destroying the stereotype.
In all reality, the boomers with kids in their 20s right now usually understand how difficult things are. My parents point out that they never had to work as hard as I did for such low pay and job security with cost of living being so high. They shake their heads and will take other boomers to task when they complain about how easy kids have it today… And they were the “arrive in Canada not speaking the language and dirt poor” immigrant generation. It’s not like things were a breeze for them getting started.