nonREgirl at vancouvercondo.info 30 Aug 2010 1:06 pm – “CBC radionews at 1pm reported “The Mayor of Vancouver is worried about sales of Olympic Village condos. He says they are not selling fast enough and worries about another real estate slump.”
[Any reader with a soundclip or verbatim transcript, please send it along. -vreaa]
Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive 
Gregor Robertson is a moron. The thing about politics is that to be elected, you have to know how to win popularity contests. If you spend anytime learning something that might actualy help you do the job you are trying to win, you don’t stand a chance of winning the election. The current form of democracy is broken.
To be fair, the City of Vancouver’s legacy of masquerading as a hedge fund isn’t really Robertson’s fault. That stupid experiment is the fault of the previous government. Robertson’s conceit is refusing to abandon the project and to bail out Fortress all in the pursuit of some nebulous notion olympic ‘legacy’.
Robertson is the least qualified mayor to be elected in Vancouver for decades.
Gregor Robertson is unfortunately an intelligent business man that must now make decisions that aren’t always the right ones… but the popular ones.
Gergor clearly isnt ready to be in the RE business. Rule 1, never say slump/crash/downward prices, etc. The more you have people thinking about a slump, the more likely it is to happen.
The city is going to lose about $500 million dollars before this is all done. I don’t blame Gregor. It was done before his time. It is what it is – sad for all of us.
davers,
Please – no more of this “the economy is all emotion” crap. It is a huge load of crap. This is why we have so much boom and bust in the economy. Real Estate is falling because it is over valued and people don’t have the money to buy it like they did. Period. Cut the Bull bull.
What business does the Mayor have being a condo salesman? Doesn’t he have a city to run, like, with municipal services? If the condos aren’t selling fast enough, you, duh, lower the price until you reach the market clearing price. If that results in a loss to the city, so be it. Waiting and hoping, and carrying financing costs into the indefinite future, when there is no reason to believe that market conditions are going to improve within a reasonable time frame, is not helpful. Think damage control. The time to be worried about whether the things would sell was before the city committed to the project. It’s a sunk cost. If it was a mistake for the city to be involved in spec built condos, as appears to be the case, then let’s have some transparency on whose bad (corrupt or incompetant) decision it was, and make sure that they never ever are entrusted with decision making authority again.
Maroons live by leverage and hubris and die by the same. Wait till you see the number of people that can’t refinance their homes in the next 18 months. The carnage will be breathtaking.
The Mayor is a Marxist. he believes he knows how to spend your money better than you do and you have no say on how he spends it. Want a bike lane….? You got it bud, tough.
This Oly Village debacle was predictable.
Weevie,
Don’t you think the statement is a prelude to lower prices? Are we not to assume that the City must sign off on the lowering of prices because they are now moving from “break even” to a financial loss. Isn’t that what is significant about the move – not that he made the statement?
Good point. This is likely a public ‘go-ahead’ for the marketers to look for buyers at lower prices.
Hi Junius,
I don’t think the state of the market (whether prices trend up or down) is wholly dependent upon the mayor having an ephiphany. I think the responsible thing for him to do is to get out in front of all the other sellers-cum-bagholders and liquidate. Promptly. As if there is no time to lose. Because the longer he dithers, the worse it gets for the taxpayers. In my opinion.
Perhaps he realizes that announcing and doing the responsible thing is going to be controversial. Probably he’d rather not fall on his sword.
But that could be the responsible thing to do. Courage, mayor!
Junius,
I was mostly just kidding, but you cant honestly believe that the market is based souly on peoples ability to pay a mortgage?
If everyone believes theres a bubble and prices are coming down, more people will sell and less people will buy, regardless of interest rates or how much money people are making. At the same time, if everyone believes prices are on the rise people will bend over backwards to get a place.
A lot of it has to do with peoples ability to pay a mortgage, but there is more to it than just that.
Here is the video: