Excerpts from article and video: ‘Richmond home prices skyrocket’, CBC News, 6 Mar 2011 –
“The median price for a detached home in the Garden City is now hovering just above the $1-million mark, up from $885,000 just six months ago.
Patsy Hui, a Richmond real estate agent, said although it is “such a lovely place,” it’s not the inherent beauty of Richmond that’s driving prices: It’s the investors. “All kinds of people, but mostly people originated from mainland China,” Hui said. The prices may seem high to us, she added, but present a “Real deal… real deal from world point of view.” One home that sold last year for $1.2 million brought $1.73 million this year.
Ivan Krpan, who makes custom-built homes in Richmond, says more than 80 per cent of his clients are from mainland China and that most buy older houses and knock them down. He said the surge in demand has “Certainly pushed a lot of Richmondites out of Richmond” – “It became very attractive for them to make some extra money on the properties, on the values and move to the Valley, to White Rock and south Surrey. It has become too expensive for ordinary people that live and work in this community.”
We all know the metrics. Why not call the ‘investors’ what they are?: Speculators betting on higher.. much higher… prices. -vreaa
Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive 
Maybe there won’t be a crash, maybe we will just get a lot of inflation and 1 million will be the new 100K
Your joke isn’t that funny to anyone who’s saved money in the past decade in the UK where they are trying to inflate themselves out of a recession. To the point that the Governor of the Bank of England has publicly apologised to savers for diminishing the value of their savings.
The Governor of the Bank of England and all other banksters can take their apologies and shove it up their fat asses.
Matt i did not mean this as joke, me and my family lived through inflation and a currency devaluation crisis in another country before moving to Canada, where many extended family members lost their life savings in a matter of months.
At least in the UK they admit it and apologize. Not so in the US.
That’s what negative real interest rates are for.
Will the Chinese eventually go to the Okanagan/Shuswap where they have 2 or 3 years of MOI?? I know a lot of people who would be grateful….
“Real deal… real deal from world point of view.”
I always suspected that most realtors, real estate bulls and the “Vancouver is the best place on Earth” crowd don’t travel much and don’t know shit about the world. Now I’am almost convinced that my suspicions are correct.
“real deal from world point of view.”
Agreed, this is gold.
“the inherent beauty of Richmond”
This is also gold. By “inherent beauty”, did she mean the complete lack of hills? The dyke? The ditches running along most residential streets?
A few years ago my company sent me to audit a factory in a small city in the US Midwest.
The entire time I was there, I couldn’t get over how much it felt like Richmond. It was flat, had ditches, big-box stores, highways cutting through, business districts, trees, a big river, houses, condos, hotels…
Don’t forget the soil that will liquefy during an earthquake. A builder friend said there is an increasing problem with older homes and flooding, since all new homes must be built above a certain grade so they tend to drain down into the older lots. Not only will old-time residents be priced out, but also flooded out.
Actually I am guessing she means the north shore mountains that you can see on a clear day.
I admit, it look spretty, but I see them much better from my Westend Apartment.
“Actually I am guessing she means the north shore mountains that you can see on a clear day.”
Agreed, the mountains are nice, but they are not a feature that makes Richmond stand out from other parts of the lower mainland. As you point out, downtown Vancouver itself get a much better view.
I do like Richmond, but for inherent beauty, there are plenty of other places I’d choose (La Jolla, Bel Air, the Berkeley hills, etc.)
Please spare us the crap. The “inherant beauty of richmond” ? riiiight. Let these morons come here and pay a million dollars for some home that in reality is nothing but icing and no cake. Just remember what goes up must come down, especially when its just all hype driving the prices up. Sooner or later this will all come crashing down and I’ll be there laughing my ass off.
Hey all you hard working ordinary people, please get lost, you’re ruining the view.
barf.
Yeah, with all this whining our new multimillionaire friends can’t even hear the airplanes overhead which they so clearly paid to hear.
In other news Gold Coast properties not selling. Realtors blame (insert cause here).
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bd8c248ca2&o=1
[TripoliGraph] – Hated Pariah Urged To Stand Down
{click ‘Play’}
http://tinyurl.com/4nyahef
In a related development in Anchui hamlet, Rongshui Miao county in Southwest China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region… Deferring to ‘equine nous’, Tong elders enact a time honoured/popular ritual to identify/select the citizen best suited to represent/lead their collective’s deputation/foray into Richmond, BC property aquisition:
[ChinaDaily] – Wild horses couldn’t keep me away
http://tinyurl.com/4kppvzp
you are hilarious, man
look at the expressions of glee as the dude gets hooved
i once had a chinese girlfriend (ahem.. ‘a’.. )
we were standing outside The Cambie having a smoke – an old homeless man was playing his guitar, hat on the ground in front of him, busking.
one of the lower mainland’s infinite number of pituitary gland retards wearing a Tap Out t-shirt walked up, grabbed the man’s guitar and broke it over his knee. then he threw it on the ground, and with his arms jutting out to the sides as though he were carrying two packed Samsonites, he stomped off towards the Bourbon.
everyone was shocked – jeers and catcalls, the homeless man is crying.. i turn to my date – and she’s laughing. she thought it was hysterical that this poor man was crying over a ‘cheap guitar’.
not exactly the kind of girl i want to have a family with.
last time i checked i think she was getting the double eyelid surgery. talk about ridiculous.
there are a lot of kind, sensitive people in china, probably in the majority – but the kind and sensitive types the world over are regarded as chumps and suckers. i know i am.
i believe the sort of american-style 50s boom we’ve witnessed in china (really it’s more of an industrial revolution but with the huge rise in the middle class, comparing it to the US in the 50s is the only comparison i can make) is so similar that when discussing the very-occupied and almost aloof younger generation (who are not cynical of the state at all) that this old Hunter Thompson quote from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas comes to mind.
“This is a dangerously innocent generation.”
get the sheers out! fleece fleece fleece
You can tell they are pointing to the chart to show house prices are going to go “off the chart,” which is entirely untrue. The chart shows an imminent housing correction. Right now people will believe anything.
I swear, you just can’t make this stuff up… earlier today, the Chinese Communist Party’s offical/national English language daily newspaper, ‘The Global Times’ unintentionally revealed an ulterior motivation for their citizens’ apparently voracious/insatiable appetite[s] for Richmond, BC property – in an OpED entitled…
[GlobalTimes] – Charlie Sheen is not filial
“Chinese family, coworkers, or the authorities would have taken firm steps to make sure someone like Sheen did not make a public spectacle of himself… The fact that Sheen continues to embarrass himself unabated, becoming even a hero to many, points to the vast differences in cultures…
Sheen goes on television and boasts that he has two girlfriends, who both sleep in the same bedroom. ***Is he too poor to set up his wives and mistresses in different houses? In Chinese society, these problems are dealt with delicately and privately.***
http://tinyurl.com/4bkd9p2
ROTFLMAO.
As you say, you can’t make this stuff up.
If it wasn’t real you’d swear it was a parody.
WOW unbelievable, Nemesis where you you find all these links, I think you should start a blog for all the cool links you find 🙂
Put’s an entirely new spin on, ‘My husband buy three, I buy three!’ – Doesn’t it?… 😉
Links are a byproduct of Nemesis’ ‘avocation’ – daily/prodigious investment focused, GlobalMacro economic/geo-political analysis employing open-source techniques/methods… You’ve probably heard of Quants – but not qualitative analysts (the boyz/girlz who work the ‘voodoo’ side – but are more often right than wrong)… It’s more of an art than a science – with the added advantage that you don’t require an exchange-colocated Cray Kraken.
http://tinyurl.com/6zb3lyg
The Economist has an interactive map slowing all the parities in China
http://www.economist.com/content/all_parities_china
Recent sale of a C$1.5M penthouse in Richmond was bought by a native of Shanghai, who also bought a SFH of similar value in Rcd.
[CBC] – Address numbers could hold key to fortune
“Last year, 135 Vancouver homeowners opted to change their address number and the trend is continuing, according to Bonnie Lee, the City of Vancouver’s addressing coordinator… – “The number four may seem innocuous, but for some cultures the word sounds similar to the word for death. In Chinese, it is pronounced as sssss, and the Chinese [word for] death is zssss, that is why people do not like the four.” – Vancouver realtor Alec Zhang
http://tinyurl.com/6y6gzp4
I am happy for those who have invested well, but it saddens me to see their children bring up their families in 950 square feet apartments because they can’t afford to buy a house in their hometown. Something is wrong. Alot of us 30 somethings are kicking ourselves, damn we should’ve bought. But no, it’s all wrong now. I can’t imagine living in a municipality that grew on greed to become a city. But for who? It’s valued citizens? Or it’s investors? It’s so funny too, because civic workers that live there now can’t afford a house unless they have 3 other jobs. Why would you want to be a part of a ‘community’ that doesn’t speak your 2 official languages anymore. I moved out of Richmond, I still love my favorite spots when I go visit my mother there who is in a care home now…that’s another joke…”we don’t have enough staffing/funding to spend more time with your mother” that’s what the home tells me in a city that sells homes for 1 million dollars. Something is wrong and I’m going to be a part of this revolution when we polite Canadians finally stop bending over the barrell. We are too nice! Why? We must respect the people and families that built and worked in this municipality, we must make Richmond a place for families to build and grow again. If it just becomes an ivestor heaven and prices rise and rise, no one will go to school anymore, no one will want to work here anymore. ‘community’ is not a word I use anymore. I moved and work in Surrey now, it’s still affordable and growing. My heart will always belong in Richmond, but I simply can’t afford a home there and it saddens me. Something is wrong.
i think you are correct, something is wrong.
not sure if canadians are all for a revolution – or are you one of those northern tea party types?? lol
getting canadians organized is like herding cats. good luck. 😉
“Something is wrong and I’m going to be a part of this revolution when we polite Canadians finally stop bending over the barrell.”….
http://tinyurl.com/4fjaygb
hey, people who wear that shirt are smart, you know.
i like seeing people wearing che shirts as they do things that are totally socially unjust or ecologically harmful.
it’s a basic irony but you can get a hoot out of it.
Just stating my feelings on the matter.
The times they are a’changing and I just can’t keep up. It is what it is I suppose, but I have lost most values for what my home city held. I’m glad I had it when I did though. I suppose I should feel fortunate. I encourage all to move east!! What else can I do organize a rag tag revolution, no drinking or smoking at the rallies! Please!
again, there will be no revolution in north america – never again, at least not in our lifetimes.