“My conversations with friends who are westside realtors over the past few months (I know a few – hey everyone wanted to be a RE agent for a while, it seems) [reveal that things] are not good (for them). Telling me they are cutting spending budgets and dipping into savings now to keep things going.”
- Girlbear at VCI 11 Feb 2013 2:51pm
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- James on “I had a work colleague approach me today to ask about buying a condo in New West. She had no idea about the economics of ownership and real estate.”
- Brian on “The bank encouraged her to take the equity in her home to purchase another home. She bought a 2nd home at the peak.”
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- Nemesis on “The bank encouraged her to take the equity in her home to purchase another home. She bought a 2nd home at the peak.”
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- Nemesis on “The bank encouraged her to take the equity in her home to purchase another home. She bought a 2nd home at the peak.”
- an observer on “The bank encouraged her to take the equity in her home to purchase another home. She bought a 2nd home at the peak.”
- ex-kitsie on “The bank encouraged her to take the equity in her home to purchase another home. She bought a 2nd home at the peak.”
Type of Anecdote
- 01. He Said, She Said (247)
- 02. Profiting from the Boom (442)
- 03. Changed my Life (103)
- 04. Changed my Career (38)
- 05. Where do Buyers get the money? (962)
- 06. Held my Nose and Leapt (96)
- 07. Avoiding Vancouver (375)
- 08. Overextended Buyers (1189)
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- 10. Demoralized Renters? (366)
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- 12. Effects of Development (274)
- 13. 2010 Olympics Related (74)
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- 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
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Latest Anecdotes:
- “The bank encouraged her to take the equity in her home to purchase another home. She bought a 2nd home at the peak.”
- “Let’s remember how we got here” – Looser and Looser CMHC Limits
- Don’t Worry, I’m Sure Somebody Will Sort This All Out – “Policymakers now know better and will be a lot more proactive in preventing a collapse.”
- “Things have changed, we are not doing that type of mortgage. We are not interested at all.”
- “We are noticing our target type of housing in price decline, albeit slow, as our money increases in value, slowly as well but outpacing housing.”
- Renter Buys In West Van – “For a few hundred more per month, you could own the place. Which is what I will be doing as my offer for a place down the street has been accepted. There is some value in staying in one place.”
- A Bed in the Bathroom, Why Not? [Let Us Count The Reasons...]
- “My husband and kids are pretty happy in our rental house within cycling distance of work that we could never have afforded otherwise. We’re doin’ pretty dang well, thank you, for median income earners in this expensive city.”
- “I Wish Them Bad Luck.” – Jim Flaherty, on those who wish to profit from Canadian RE price drops
- “We asked why he doesn’t just rent the whole house. He said he can’t, it wouldn’t cover his mortgage – he’ll get more to rent it out as two suites. These new landlords are hilarious, thinking that rent will cover their mortgage!”
- “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%.
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Boo hoo…
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The lower mainland economy is so tied in with real estate activity. As the bubble begins to rapidly deflate, realtors, home constructors/renovators, mortgage specialists, and other indirect spin off industries (retail sales, restaurants, etc) will all be impacted. It will be very very interesting to see how fast this unwinds and how people adapt to this new world order.
A lot of realtors hold investment properties. I bet there’s a lot of fraught decisions being made about whether to ride it out or sell now. Wouldn’t it be super to see an index of % listings that are owned by an agent or related party?
I think the smart realtors cashed out about between a year and 6 months ago. I know of one property in Westwind in Richmond owned by a prominent local realtor. He bailed out about 6 months ago.
I mentioned that to “an observer” at that time. It sold for more than $800,000 over assessment. But we concluded, that the assessment value (for some reason) was far too low.
A friend of mine 3 years ago quit a well paying full-time job to dabble in RE. When the slowdown started about a year ago, she was lucky to get her old job back.
There are many realtors who have no experience outside of RE.
I hope they scraped and saved, because many will not live comfortably.
A close friend of our family has been a Westside realtor for nearly 20 years. A few weeks ago, while talking about a completely unrelated matter, he suddenly asked if we knew anyone who might be interested in his $2 million listing. Never before in 20 years has he tried to drum up business from us. We know a total of zero people with a spare $2 million, so this was completely ridiculous and seemed rather telling.
Your friend has made very very good money in the last 5-10 years. If s/he didn’t save for a rainy day then that is a shame. Good mortgage brokers and RE agents make 250k plus/yr
Loyal cadres don’t need post secondary!
Sheesh,
Yeah, the few good ones.
The rest are toiling at the open houses.
Every community has a dominant realtor, whom you can easily spot from by who has the most signs. Big sign with big picture.
You really only have to get caught holding that last bad house (or two, or three) to go from “wealthy” to broke pretty fast.
Like Ben Rabidoux said, if you are a Realtor who has put all your money in Real Estate, you are incredibly un-diversified.
If your source of income is real estate commissions, you should put your savings into ANYTHING IN THE WORLD other than real estate. Do not own even one property; rent. Do not buy bank stocks or developer stocks.
Property-owning realtors have bet both their savings *and* their careers that a single investment will suddenly break out of 100 years of historical performance and perform wildly differently…forever.
And given that such “savvy” real estate speculators are always highly-leveraged, realty is the one profession in which you could go from earning $250,000/year and having $1MM in equity to earning zero/year and having $2MM in DEBT…in 6 months.
What a rush that must be.
Not much different from the financial adviser, who advises you to invest into the hot risky stock that he just bought.
The all are so deep into their own crap……