“My family sold my mother’s old Vancouver West house in November 2011… a year ago. Thank god all three of us siblings agreed to sell at that time.
I still have kids living in BC who refuse to believe that this is anything more than a hiccup in the Canadian market! (I live in the US)”
- JimH at greaterfool.ca 30 Nov 2012 8:48pm
Most Recent Comments:
- Nemesis on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- 4SlicesofCheese on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- LadyInWaiting on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- LadyInWaiting on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- bailinginbc on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- Real Estate Tsunami on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- Real Estate Tsunami on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- LadyInWaiting on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- Nemesis on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- terminalcitygirl on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- Xyz on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- rod_jonsson on “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
Type of Anecdote
- 01. He Said, She Said (247)
- 02. Profiting from the Boom (441)
- 03. Changed my Life (103)
- 04. Changed my Career (38)
- 05. Where do Buyers get the money? (958)
- 06. Held my Nose and Leapt (96)
- 07. Avoiding Vancouver (375)
- 08. Overextended Buyers (1183)
- 09. Delaying Buying (315)
- 10. Demoralized Renters? (362)
- 11. Regrets about Investing in RE (417)
- 12. Effects of Development (274)
- 13. 2010 Olympics Related (74)
- 14. Social Effects of the Boom (1256)
- 15. Misallocation of Resources (958)
- 16. Missed The Boat? (236)
- 17. The Froogle Scott Chronicles (27)
- 18. Spot The Speculator (171)
- 19. BlastRadiusPostCards (17)
- 20. The Limitless Demand Argument For Ongoing Market Strength (70)
- 21. Vancouver RE-Verse [Found Poems] (8)
- 22. RE References In Popular Culture (41)
- 23. Jumping The Shark (1)
- 24. Policies On Housing (10)
- 25. Epigrams For The Bubble (1)
- 26. Premature Calls Of "Bottom" (3)
- 27. Seller Panic (3)
- 28. Erroneous Causation Theories For Falling Prices (7)
- 29. Bubblespeak (1)
- Uncategorized (176)
Blogroll
- 01 Vancouver Condo Info
- 02 AmericaCanada [retired, no archive]
- 03 Housing Analysis
- 04 RealEstateTalks BC
- 05 Vancouver RE and then some
- 06 Whispers from the Village on the Edge of the Rainforest
- 07 Greater Fool
- 08 Canada Bubble
- 09 Rob Chipman's blog
- 10 YatterMatters
- 11 condohype [retired; archives available]
- 12 vancouver (un)real estate
- 13 Agent Will's Stats [retired]
- 14 Landlord Rescue
- 15 The Economic Analyst
- 16 Canadian Housing Price Charts
- 17 Hoodsurf [retired Jun 2011]
- 18 World Housing Bubble
- 19 Vancouver Price Drop
- 20 North American Economics
-
Latest Anecdotes:
- “My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.”
- Chat Thread
- Taking A Break
- “My best guess: this property is now an ‘investment hold’ and will be built ‘when prices recover’. Good luck on that!”
- Man Loses $745,000 Vancouver Condo Deposit
- 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.”
Follow vreaa on twitter
- "My neighbours, in their late 60s, just put their house on the market. They had said they would die in that house, but now they are worried… 1 day ago
VREAArchives
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- October 2008
- September 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
Tags
Anecdotes Banks Bears blogs British Columbia Bubble Bulls buyers Canada Capitulation China CMHC Construction Debt Economy Employment Fear Foreign buyers Fundamentals Government Housing Interest Rates Landlords Life Media Mortgage brokers Okanagan Olympics Ownership Prediction Real Estate Realtors Relationships Rent Retirement RE_ATM sellers Sentiment Speculators Toronto US Vancouver Victoria Visual Anecdote Whistler
…”kids living in BC who refuse to believe that this is anything more than a hiccup…”…
Indubitably. And many of them probably also think that “Yellow” means “GoFaster”.
SundayMorningZen & QuoteO’TheWeekEnd!, for Nekkd, et al…
“It’s absolutely necessary to set up a road safety day.” Li Keping, professor in traffic engineering at the Shanghai-based Tongji University
[ChinaDaily] – 67% admit running red lights: survey
…”BEIJING – In an online survey released on Sunday, 67 percent of 10,682 participants admitted to running red lights. At the same time, 72.1 percent voted such violations “the worst behavior” on the road, according to the results published on minyi.net.cn… …As to the reason for such violations, 63.4 percent said they were following what others did and 40.6 percent believed that they would never be punished for their actions. According to the ministry, running red lights caused 4,227 road accidents in China, involving 798 deaths, in the first 10 months of 2012.”…
http://tinyurl.com/cuy33ue
Well, here in Ditchmond, the German drivers with their L and N stickers are actually driving far too slow.
But that doesn’t stop them from never bothering to use their signal lights.
Yeah, what is it with drivers in Vancouver not using the signal lights? So annoying!
Loyal cadres! Root out the disharmonious splittists!
My favorite are the ones that drive through red lights to make left turns even though they were three cars back in the line
Because the guy behind you in the lane you want to change to will suddenly speed up to prevent you from entering? Because you know, if he let you in then he will be delayed by like a second, maybe even have to wait that extra red light. And if you wait 1 red light, it means you will have to stop at every red light so best to make that other guy merge in behind you.
If you look at a long term, nominal real estate price chart, how can it be anything but a hiccup? Coming to another conclusion would require a lot of thinking about inflation, demographics and the fundamental drivers of demand. Who’s got time for that when all around you are people who (up to their eyeballs in the scheme as they are) swear it’s only a hiccup?
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever
in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”
—Kenneth Boulding, Economist
Mankind will find a way. Finite is a relative term. We will dig in the next galaxy if opportunity, technology and luck combine.
Simon,
Very funny. How much will a Condo cost in the next Galaxy, and will it be leaking?
I don’t think so. One of our main faults as a species is overconfidence.
Every one of us is descended from two unbroken lines of winners.
“is either a madman, an economist or a Vancouver realtor”
Disharmonious! The yellow helicopter is outside your window, comrade!
Will it be leaking? Certainly not! I don’t think the inhabitants will take any chances with any leaks. If it leaks you die, from the gases or radiation or by having all the air sucked out of you.
How much will it cost? I would say IF our paper currency still retains its value, having our first colony on space would be in trillions of dollars. It will be a joint venture of governments, state controlled companies and private corporations.
This just in.
The overseas Germans set up a display suit on Mars.
The plan is to build 20 condo towers, each 500 stories high.
In charge of pre-sales is Bob Rennie, Vancouver’s Condo King.
Better hurry. On the first weekend, 80% of the units sold out.
I simply look to my E. coli cultures for inspiration. OD600=0.1 to OD600=1.0 are fun times (Or ~OD=5.0 for those who understand how to use a spectrophotometer properly ). Then it gets ugly…. and smelly. Post-log phase E. coli really do “smell like ass” when they’re eating each other because they’ve consumed all the nutrients in the broth.
Useful likes for those who aren’t microbiologists:
http://www.qiagen.com/Plasmid/images/GrowthCurve.gif
http://www.science-projects.com/PopGrowthCurve.GIF
Nemesis, I challenge you to find a poignant youtube video related to primary scientific data.
The ‘BackStory’….
The DataCollection….
[NoteToED/BordelloDweller: If I had written that picture’s LogLine… “He became the experiment… The experiment… became him.”
Nerd-a-liscious
Phew, dramatic stuff, Nem. Makes me want to see the whole movie. So I also have a video. Much shorter and scarier. It is an anology for the human race.
We all know we are screwed, right?
So true Anymouse. And so we are collectively heading for the wall. There is no way to avoid a nasty conclusion at this late date either. Whether that date comes in a month or thirty years we have pretty much reached the exhaustion point where population growth and resource demands merge. We all know it too. That is why we don’t usually discuss it.
Today is special Christmas ale brewing day for me. (This does have a point, I promise.)
Plenty of work today for me to prepare a yeast paradise, clean environment, plenty of food, no competition. Never in their little yeasty minds did they imagine things could be so good!
The yeast will be added in about three hours time. First 12-24 hours is their pioneer stage, not much is visible from outside, but inside they are busy colonizing, setting up home and procreating like crazy. Life is hard, but rewarding.
Next comes steady growth, not wild expansion, and activity is evident. All the dissolved oxygen is long gone, and the yeast has to switch to anaerobic metabolism, which is how the alcohol is produced as a waste product. (waste for the yeast, I like it!). No problem yet, life is good, plenty of food, they can “smell” the other yeast, but that just means a stable happy industrious population. Families are smaller, but the population still grows.
This lasts about 48 hours, towards the end a few wild-eyed crazy yeasts start saying “maybe we should slow down on the whole endless expansion thing, think of sustainability”. They are mocked and jeered at.
Quite suddenly everything changes! Food is suddenly scarce, the environment is choked with waste products, yeast are dying, starving in the streets. another day and almost all the yeast have entered their fall-out shelters, gone dormant until better times come again. But nobody could have seen this coming, and the few bearish yeasts die alongside the rest.
A few still roam around, scavenging the last scraps of food, with zombie yeast cells eat the brains of the dead and dying.
From my god-like perch I watch at laugh! One more day to allow all of that previously thriving society to drift down to join the rest of the corpses (in reality most are still alive, just dormant. In a commercial brewery the thick layer of yeast at the bottom would be washed and used to start the next batch. They didn’t learn a thing and would repeat the cycle.) I draw the clear liquid off and discard the yeast, carbonate it, let it age a couple of weeks and enjoy a sweet rich strong slightly spiced 10% alcohol special winter warmer ale!
Exponential growth to infinity my ass!
UBCgd/Alex -> Spot on, great examples. And not simply broad metaphors, better than that… the running out of fuel causes the downfall.
…
Individuals with hands-on understanding of natural processes like population growth, gravity, forest fires, Texas Holdem, Beanie Babies, mob behavior, cults, family dynamics, cattle herding, the weather, tides, storytelling… to name just a few… all have advantage when identifying bubbles and assessing probable price trajectories.
To Vreaa, Alex and UBCgd
Value of Vancouver real estate aside and despite what the doomsayers say, growth is not going to disappear because we have a “finite” world.
The yeast anology reminded me of what Thomas Malthus predicted in the “Principle of Population”. How very wrong he was. To be frank, I feel insulted to be compared to microorganisms whose only purpose is to procreate.
In 1800s, when we were an agricultural based world, it was difficult for us sustain a population of 1 billion. Could the people living in those times have imagined that in only 200 years later, our world population would grow by 7 times and these future generations would on average have a better standard of living than them?
Like the industrial revolution which enabled us to have such awesome lives, we are the midst of another revolution which will have a greater impact on humanity in a lesser time period. I believe the internet has been our greatest invention to date and will be the launching pad from which other great invention, innovation, freedom and general overall enlightening goodness will spread.
We will be so much greater when everyone has the opportunity to be educated, have the freedom we take for granted and be able to tap into their unique talents to live a fulfilling life and make the world a better place.
Have some faith and don’t discount the human potential.
[NoteToEd: "Hope runs deep." But as we used to say in the DarkArts, "Optimal event modelling is a poor paradigm to employ when contingency planning for worst case scenarios."]
lol … hope indeed alive only where humility trumps grandeur … oh, the backup plan: demonstrated capacity (i.e. resolve + wmd) to exterminate pro re nata
Ha Ha! Simon you really cracked me with that comment. Your optimism is endearing. I hate to burst your bubble though but we are on track for a cataclysmic end to population expansion and it is coming soon. Seen a long term pop chart recently?…..no bubble there either…..keep shopping…..everything will be juuuuusst fine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_curve.svg
Farmer, please find a chart that shows the carrying capacity of human capacity. Unlike every other species, who are stuck competing against each other within an unchanging limiting factor (such as food, land, disease etc) scenario, we have been able to dictate our own destiny by redefining our limiting factors. With each generation the carrying capacity is increasing at a greater rate than the population. Thus, we could sustain the current population . Obviously, this won’t be the case forever but like an optimist, I believe technological advances in the renewable energy sector and behavioural changes (eating more veggies for example) will let us sustain a healthy population of 9-12 billion.
The lack of population growth is more worrying than vice versa. Japan only produces 1 kid per couple, most European countries are less than 2. Economics is at work! In developed countries, kids are an investment, and that too an expensive one. Strictly financially speaking, their ROIC is terrible. So fear not, the population equilibrium will be reached when the time comes.
I fined that most owners never think prices will go down. Also I fined people in my age group (early 30s) never think prices will never go down because they haven’t since we were in high school. I hear all the usual things like not a lot of land,everyone wants to live here ect.