Saturday 4 Jun 2011, Second game of the Stanley Cup Finals, Vancouver Canucks vs Boston Bruins, CBC broadcast (2nd Period). The shot above shows two fans holding handmade signs, visible via backlighting, in reverse. Take a closer look…
And reversed…
“NUX TIX OR MORTGAGE PAYMENT?”
“HOPE THEY DON’T TAKE THE HOUSE” [see below]
We’re going to assume that these fans are not Vancouver RE bears doing a bit of guerilla theatre at the hockey game (although that would be cute!).
Given that they are likely showing love for their team, essentially saying “Canucks – more important than anything else”, the way they choose to express this is remarkable… More testimony to the pervasiveness of the preoccupation with real estate in Vancouver. Speculative manias saturate our psyches. When we reach for metaphors, houses and mortgages come to mind most readily. First-born children, mothers, spouses, eye-teeth, and testicles now come a pale second.
This reminds us obliquely of the animated buildings in the 2010 Winter Olympics’ kids book [‘Happy Smiling Buildings?’, VREAA, 31 Jan 2010]
We also note that the fan isn’t putting the question: “NUX TIX OR THIS MONTH’S RENT PAYMENT?”.
– vreaa
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UPDATE:
Thanks to ‘henrigolo’ for the following image, and for pointing out that the second sign reads: ‘HOPE THEY DON’T TAKE THE HOUSE’.
Anybody know anything more about these fans?
Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive 
or,
you could fly to Boston and take in games 3 and 4. Price of 995.00 includes tickets, hotel, and airfare. See Flight Centre
with a good game like last night, and you could not give your mind a break on the housing-mortgage-RE bear-renting? You still have to make something out of nothing. What next? Spot somebody’s undergarments and see what they say there? You really need therapy.
I agree Fred, in fact, most of these renters need therapy. Can you imagine living your entire life looking like this poor lost soul VREAA? Spends each waking hour obsessed with finding negative material on Vancouver real estate
…and can you imagine being like this Rusty character, spending all his free time in his pathetic little life trolling on blogs that he doesn’t agree with to look for ways to be unnecessarily mean-spirited and add nothing of value to the discourse. How sad. I feel embarrassed for him. Rusty, if you need to talk, just talk – let me know…things can get better for you. 🙂
Well, this blog is named the “vancouver real estate anecdote blog.” If you want to talk about hockey you might try different search terms.
This market is abnormal, and therefore really interesting to people interested in market behavior. Somebody could write a good PhD dissertation on this market.
We’d take a break, if the market would let us.
Everywhere one looks, people are besotted with RE.
You don’t have to seek it out, you trip over it.
In abnormal times, one is drawn to abnormal things.
This blog itself is an example of the weird distortions that occur during speculative manias.
How deliciously satisfying it is knowing i sold at just the right time(aug 2011)and guys like this are getting slaughtered right now by the very thing they said wouldn’t happen.😋
Then why are you here???
So what will be next from you..or your sidekick Rusty.
Canucks playing well and winning the cup keep the real estate prices going up forever?
More like an insecure person trying to reaffirm himself. A stronger case for therapy can be made after reviewing some of your and Rusty’s posts
Cherish your gladiators while decimating the schools and cheaping out your teachers…
Lets dance in the streets while Rome burns to the ground. (want credit with that????)
Hey, that’s what Alpine Credit and Capital Direct are for…
If you “own” your home, you can get that loan!
MoneyMart for homeowners…
Here’s another interesting story about homeowners using HELOCs in Canada… Especially relevant for BC residents who have had negative savings rates for 15 years in a row…
http://www.financialpost.com/personal-finance/Strung+line/4882091/story.html
Pretty sure the second sign says “Hope they don’t take the house”
Thanks, great image, better than those we’d captured, will pop it up above.
Paying for Vancouver Canucks tickets or real estate… they’re both expensive, overvalued and over-rated…
On the CBC site several commentators have said that the Canucks performance and the price people are willing to pay to attend that circus is actually a good thing as it “inspires” people.
I am really not quite sure what kind of inspiration commercial sport ventures bring. Maybe the aspiration to spend more money on useless fan articles? To maybe dream of a day when you can buy a ticket for a game without having to dip into the LOC?
I guess with those fans the answer is pretty clear: Aspire to live financially even more dangerously.
More hot tales of HAM…
The A with HM I previously mentioned, with the belief that Van and China prices will continue to rise… bough their property in 2009, on-line, through a website in China, sight unseen. And it was the first house they looked at. I now have no doubt that this is Total Tulip Mania redux, and the downswing on the opposite end will be spectacular. Look out.
One of the signs of the top of a bubble is that the subject of the bubble becomes the topic of comedy/ridicule. The mania has become so widespread that it requires no explanation to become the subject of a joke.
BTW the thought of a knock down on a non waterfront lot being worth $2.5 million is beyond comprehension in Calgary; unless the lot comes with about 160 acres of acreage land.
there are 49 properties in Calgary above 2Million and 28 above 2.5Million. None of them come with 160 acres.
Reckless Endangerment: Making Debt Owe-nership Easy
Todays comment from Doug Casey’s team “Man the Lifeboats”.
Mr. Casey has been prescient. Money supply and credit issues are swallowing Greece = their debt was down graded to JUNK.
Germany, Japan, and many other Countries are BROKE. UK, is in dire straits. Ireland = debt = 123% of GDP. OH swell.
How many pension funds bought Irish Bank bonds, chasing yield?
The Pension funds are already chasing yield – again!!!
Buying up garbage, and hoping to beat the bopkes they get with government paper.
We could have a Domino effect started.
This is going to be incredible, in view of the fact that so many people have been suckered with LOC’s and etc – instead of 8 K on a credit card – we’ll get a 125 K LOC – when this blows up – it is ‘gonna blow up good”.
Don’t think we have long to wait.
LOCs… The sweet, sweet debt… Money for nothing and your cheques for free…
Nothing preventing your friendly banker from yanking these LOCs during the next credit crisis…