These comments from a recent thread at greaterfool.ca archived here to record observations, and the current tenor of sentiment and discussion. -vreaa
moloko at greaterfool.ca 1 April 12:55am and 1:09am – “I live in Vancouver’s West Side and I can tell you that almost every house that’s listed is selling over asking and to mainland Chinese. Apartments on the other hand are not flying off the shelves like the houses are, nor are the townhouses.
It’s a drag to see such a beautiful neighbourhood change so drastically:( beautiful old heritage houses being knocked down to build ugly modern boxes that take up the entire lot. It certainly is not the Shaughnessy that it used to be. I believe that “old timers” and “locals” are just taking their money and running now.” … “I’m not saying the market isn’t going to crash in Vancouver, I’m just saying that right now that letter feels pretty “dead on” if you’re living on the West side of Vancouver. It will correct, It’s just unfortunate that the correction is being delayed once again.”
Joe Clarke at greaterfool.ca 1 April 2011 1:08am – “He is right. I live in Coal Harbour, one of Vancouver’s more elite neighbourhoods. It’s Asian, Asian, Asian owners as far as the eye can see. The numbers are simply overwhelming. You can pooh, pooh all you want. Canada’s population is soooo infantismally small compared to the populous wealth in the BRIC countries (well, ok – China alone trumps us in spades) – our housing market, starting with Vancouver will be distorted for decades.”
Veej at greaterfool.ca 1 April 2011 1:13am – “I watch the BC lower mainland real estate like a hawk. It peaked in sales volume and price in April 2010 and began a steady decline into December 2010. Port Moody dropped over 18% from Dec 2009 to Dec 2010 for example. In December 2010 two relatively major events took place. A) Flaherty announced the changes to CMHC which were the ammortization period down to 30 years and the CMHC no longer insuring HELOC loans to use your house as an ATM to buy whatever the hell you want, and the real big one… B) The Minister of Immigration re-opened the door for the “Immigrant Investor Program”. … “Do you think this has anything to do with it? Vancouver and Richmond absolutely took off after that date.”
Left Vancouver and Happy at greaterfool.ca on 04.01.11 at 2:07 am – “You need to take the blinders off regarding Vancouver and maybe spend a few days there going to open houses to see for yourself who is attending them. Let me know if you hear an English spoken. Even 4 years ago when my wife and I went to a few open houses for new towers in downtown Vancouver – the realtors basically turned their backs on us whenever we tried to talk to them, so they could talk to the foreign buyers instead. They had next to no interest in trying to sell a unit to us. While we weren’t ushered out, we may as well have been though. And it wasn’t like we didn’t have the money to buy, we were earning $160K/yr at the time…”
Runawayscreaming on 04.01.11 at 2:08 am – “Whatever happens with the bubble in China there seems to be no end to the dirty money flowing from China to Vancouver real estate. The damage is done and appears to be getting much worse. PRC Chinese have now purchased a substantial area of the west side of Vancouver, which is most of the geographic area of Vancouver. Wealthy, corrupt offshore Chinese are displacing people who earn their income in Vancouver. Legitimate businesses are fleeing Vancouver because of the real estate bubble and unemployment in Vancouver is rising. Indeed local fools are contributing to the devastating Vancouver bubble but it is very obvious on the ground that upper-class robber baron ne’er-do-well’s from the People’s Republic of China are having a tremendous impact. Vancouver is the first Canadian city to create refugees out of its own citizens by inviting wealthier people from China to replace them in the “Best Place on Earth”.
mad vancouver at greaterfool.ca on 04.01.11 at 2:09 am – “Vancouver is beyond sanity. Next to my place, Polygon is selling 2 bedroom condos for 1.3 million $, condo fees at $700 a month! And there is not even a nice restaurant or shop in the neighborhood. Waiting for Hot Asian Money to snap them. No line up so far. Not even a few cars.
If only Chinese are buying in Vancouver, it proves one thing: the Ponzi scheme is running out of local buyers.
Nevertheless, the media craze about HAM is creating ethnic tensions in my surroundings. It is frightening. The place feels dislocated, like a camp site in a shopping mall, nothing left of a town, of a community, or of a local culture. Everything is about money. A giant Monopoly game.
It seems some buyers in Richmond have recently realized it is THE place where not to be in case of an earthquake… Tremors are felt in their wallets…
Either the China’s economic dream falls flat, and the tide will recede here, or I am gonna have to run away from that madness. My formerly treeded neighborhood has been completely destroyed by condos, in less than 5 years, and the local school has a new immigrant population. Fancy cars driving everywhere, students and broke retirees speculating… I feel completely out of phase, and I am far from being the only one. Lot of anger in delusional Vancouver.”