metalhead at RE Talks 24 Sep 2010 5:06am – “The neighbour’s kid fell on some bad times and is having to sell his house in Chilliwack. He has it listed for less than he paid 3 years ago. He also did quite a bit of reno’s. No interest. He’s facing bankruptcy.”
Chilliwack stats from creastats.crea.ca –
“Residential sales totalled 145 units in August, down 29 per cent on a year-over-year basis. The average price of home sales in August was $263,596, down 15 per cent from one year earlier. However, the large decline may well prove a temporary aberration due to an outsized 81 per cent year-over-year decline in sales priced from $400,000 to $500,000 in August. The combined dollar value of home sales in August 2010 totalled $38.2 million, 40 per cent below the dollar volume reported in August 2009.”
Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive 
Unfortunately I think that bankruptcies will become commonplace. A couple distant relations of mine just filed for bankruptcy, apparently. They are under 30 and bought a condo in the valley a few years ago. Along with huge consumer debt, I guess they just couldn’t handle it (their family income is in the range of 60-70k per year, I would guess).
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I can count enough people on both hands who are one or two paycheques or missed mortgage payments away from real disaster. And that’s from a group of about 200 people (I’m in the financial industry therefore have specific financial information about these people)…and if that’s all the people I am aware of (wide range of ages, incomes etc) there must be many, many more.
Pingback: anonymous1 anecdote headlined
People are in deep water, but human nature being what it is, these about to be displaced, and penniless, are putting up a good show. There are still fools leasing cars and spending big money on wide screens and new furniture, but it is all debt driven.
The age of the HELOC are over, and since we are a consumer driven society, that spells disaster for the wider economy.
People are going tow orgy about eating, not what kind of TV they have, and it will happen with breathtaking speed.
Look around Vancouver and note all the street people. This in an era when money is basically FREE and Governments have been raking in the tax bucks – and we still can’t care for our weakest. This all portends a tectonic shift in Society, as we see more and more people go from a pretense of the good life, to the curb, in a nonce.
Then there will be HELL to pay. Unemployed, broke, and without a glimpse of hope, people tend to make mistakes. Take a look at Europe in the Thirties.
History doesn’t echo – it rhymes.