“West Vancouver has definitely seen the ripple effect over the past two years. The demographics in West Vancouver are changing rapidly. The bridge kept the West Vancouver real estate market (reasonably) a best kept secret, but no longer, the flood gates are open with approx. 70% of our sales coming from Asian buyers, and add in another 15% from Iran. It has been hard for the locals with such a big shift in such a short time. Real estate prices in some of the main target areas such as Ambleside, Dundarave, Queens, and the British Properties have increased as much as 50% in the last two years. A lot of the locals have sold out, with people moving to other B.C. locations, down sizers going to strata, and some just going to rentals. Sustainable? I don’t think so, but we shall see. I have never seen so many new spec. builds on go, and the number of lot value purchases that are soon to be pulled down. I don’t think any of these small time builders have thought out demographics, and how many new builds there will be coming to the market with only one group of buyers that would buy them.
Interesting when this major West Vancouver leg up started in the late summer of 2010 we really got saved as the listing count in West Vancouver was at an all time high for single family (577) matching 1998. I thought, as well most of my colleagues thought the West Vancouver market was set for a big decline, but in August 2010 (generally a slow seasonal local market time) some big sales started to occur. I think this was started as the West Vancouver market place seemed like such a better buy compared to the West Side, and people finally figured out some of West Van’s best kept secrets. Shhhh…… can’t talk about how quiet (45,000 people, and not going to move up much), safe, proximity to downtown, lot sizing, views, and price in comparison to the West Side it is. Sales were crazy in 2011, and our inventory dropped to under 400, and prices just went straight up. A lot of these crazy sales were done with the Buyer’s realtor coming from over town, and not knowing our local market. Lol…Can you imagine your Realtor showing you properties that he has no idea where he/her is, and having to use gps, and ask the Listing Agent where his/her next showing appointment is. How could you possibly assist the Buyer, and that is partially why we have seen some down right stupid sales over the past year, and a half. We have had two countries (China, Iran) where people having been trying to move money into property in a safe haven.
It has finally slowed up. For how long who knows, but we are due for a pause. The sales have really slowed up the last two weeks of March, and the listing count is moving up(426). Interesting how many of our listings were purchased in the last two years. Did these people always have a plan to flip, or is it money laundering, or a change in monetary circumstances, who knows, but I smell a change.”
– nsguy at RETalks 3 Apr 2012 9:05am
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Latest Anecdotes:
- “I’m surprised that everyone else is so surprised to hear anyone talk about a housing bubble” – “Canadian RE 2021 worse than U.S. bubble at 2006 peak” – David Rosenburg
- “Always the Right Time to Buy!” – Cheap Rope For Vancouver RE Buyers
- Mortgage Squeeze Anecdotes – “Two days ago my mortgage holder called and told me that, after 22 years, they would not renew my mortgage.”
- Wow! – CMHC CEO Evan Siddall Points To Unsustainable Debt & Calls For 18% Drop In Housing Prices – [which of course would mean a lot more off]
- Prediction: Vancouver RE Prices Will Not Crash… Unless They Crash
- Pre-Existing Disease – COVID Economic Stress Uncovers Longstanding Vulnerability in Vancouver RE Market
- COVID-19 the Pin for the Highly Debt-Leveraged Vancouver RE Bubble?
- Vancouver Sun Headline – ‘Five more Metro Vancouver homeowners hosed in a falling market’
- Vancouver RE Prices – Where is the Support?
- Money Laundering & Vancouver Home Prices
- “Psychologically, They’re Ill-Prepared” – “Canadian Chaos Looms”
- Keeping Up With Other Bubbles – Australia Suddenly Not Running Out Of Land Anymore – “Aussie House Prices Could Halve”
- Watershed? or Dam-Collapsing? – Mainstream Media Quoting Vancouver RE Bear-Tweets, and Predicting Shrinking Realtor Numbers – “What they’re used to is not what real estate is typically like.”
- “Within artistic communities in Vancouver it’s hard to spend more than 15 minutes at a social gathering without talking about the cost of rent or knowing of someone who is being evicted.”
- Macleans Wakes Up – ‘This is how Canada’s housing correction begins’ – “We’re not ready for what happens next”
- Vancouver Detached – Sales Down, Prices Down
- Bloomberg Calls Vancouver ‘The City That Had Too Much Money’
- “Our family loves Vancouver, but we’re leaving because the struggle to live here is simply too hard”
- Tendency Towards Corruption Is Inevitable – How Do We Minimize Its Existence?
- Hard Earned Home Savings? Hardly.
- “You know your real estate is in bad shape when there is a game app that displays Vancouver’s Science World and teaches you how to be a money hungry real estate developer.”
- “It’s sinking in that Vancouver is sinking” – “Westside prices have fallen 17% from 2016 & 11% this year; sales volumes down by 80%; 3 years worth of >$3 Million inventory”
- The Carrion Have The Carcass – “I’ve lived in Vancouver since 1968; my wife was born here; we are about to leave; this town has priced us out. All that is left are the investors and the very rich visitors.”
- All Time High, And Climbing… $251 Billion Personal Debt Borrowed Against Canadian Homes
- “I asked a group of young people how many of them thought they’d be in Vancouver in two years, and 17 out of 18 said that they would be moving.” – Mayoral Candidate Shauna Sylvester
- Off-The-Charts Unaffordable – Greater Vancouver Price-To-Income Ratio 28 (average home price: $1,071,800, median one-person income: $38,164)
- Conflicts of Interest – BC MLAs Heavily Invested In RE Making Laws About RE
- File Under Tags: ‘Tolerant Vancouver Renter’ and ‘YouGottaBeKiddinMe’
- Vancouver “an international housing-affordability basket case” with “RE bubble risk the worst in the world” – Maclean’s
- Vancouver Economy Over-Dependent On Debt Spending
- Vancouver City Councillors Wake Up To ‘Fierce Speculative Demand’ – “There is significant evidence speculative investment has the biggest impact on housing costs in the city.”
- The Dance Around Foreign Ownership of Vancouver RE
- Information From Outside The Vancouver RE Bubble – U.S. Senator Lives In (don’t laugh) $500K Home
- “The Position Remains Unfilled”
- Jessica Barrett – ‘I Left Vancouver Because Vancouver Left Me’ – “Like Living On An Abandoned Film Set.”
- “I’ve thought since early 2010 that Vancouver housing was in a bubble, and have refused to buy a house for this reason. I’ve felt that the risk of mean-reversion was far higher than the risk of missing the upside.”
- “It is very difficult to live here.”
- “We want young people to buy Real Estate.” – Vancouver’s Mayor
- “Vancouver RE Balloon Pricked; Median Price Detached Home Down >$500,000 to $1.7 million; Prices Need To Be Slashed”
- Detached Price Trend Remains Up, For Now. Speculators Hold Their Breath?
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Isn’t Iran in Asia?
Persia, if you’re fussy about nomenclature…
Farsi if you speak the lingo.
Not all of Iran is Persian. Not all of China is Chinese.
Not all of Canada is…?
can’t answer the riddle. no brain left.
Demographics? Why would West Van be immune to the speculative mania that has swept the Lower Mainland? Substantial profits to not concern themselves with how communities, cities and regions are transformed in a real estate bubble. How else are people expected to make an honest living in a resort town? With some listings boasting eight digit stickers prices, why wouldn’t a speculator want to cash in on that mania.
Raise mortgage rates.
(Hey Ray, this is for you.)
…”is it money laundering[?]”…*
[Xinhua] – China probes 7 ministerial-level officials for corruption in 2011
…”Prosecutors nationwide investigated a total of 2,524 officials above the county head-level, with 198 at the prefectural level and seven at the provincial or ministerial level, said Cao Jianming, China’s procurator-general, while delivering a work report at the annual session of the National People’s Congress…. In a separate report to the parliamentary session Sunday, China’s chief justice Wang Shengjun said courts nationwide convicted 29,000 people for embezzlement, bribery and malfeasance last year, “further deepening the anti-corruption drive.”…
http://tinyurl.com/7ru9owp
*2011 Convictions ScoreCard: China: 29,000 Canada/BC: 0
*It’s only fair… Economic Historian’s aside… How many DearReaders recall the ‘other’ Ricardo’s seminal contribution to the DismalScience (pre NeoClassical VooDoo economic theory, there was “BaBaLu!”).
**When the ‘screens are dead’ and the ‘space of flows’ is dormant, some of us should, clearly, try to find more productive things to do with our holiday mornings. Guilty. TeeHee.
Ha! Nice one.
(This is the space I was tempted to post Soulja Boy’s Outerspace Flow video to.)
If this isn’t a call to arms to keep out the socialist hordes I don’t know what is.
“More just it is, doubtless, if it come to force, that a less number compel a greater to retain their liberty, than a greater number, for the pleasure of their own baseness, compel a less most injuriously to be their fellow slaves.”
– Milton
SocialistHordes!? No problem.
“Let them eat Pasties.”*
Today’s last…. and our Quote O’ TheDay… again, thanks be to the ‘other’ Cameron (who, by the way, is actually taking pointers from our VeryOwn ‘Hot’ and ‘Pasty’ Electioneer, PM Stevie – just google, “ministers told to focus on minorities in key seats”]…
“I love a hot pasty”. – David Cameron PM
[UK Telegraph] – David Cameron remembers his last pasty: The Prime Minister attempts to justify the ‘pasty tax’
http://tinyurl.com/6rbozzz
*Favourite treat of Britain’s VanquishedWorkingClasses and now subject to UK VAT @ 20%… and the moral of the story is, why discuss child poverty, burgeoning inequality, homelessness, declining real incomes, library closures, school privitisation, aircraft carriers without aircraft* (*sound familiar?), national strikes, ‘attitude’ problems amongst the ThinBlueLine or WhatHaveYou… when you’ve got a looming PastyCrisis to deal with?
Renters Revenge:
Very interesting clip, thanks:
“For property owners, during boom times, it’s been possible to clawback a lifetime’s taxes in just three years (via property price appreciation).”
Could someone check the deets for this property below, there was a prudential sign up last Friday that said “open house cancelled” and yesterday the sign and post are both down. Maybe it sold, maybe not ? There is some interesting price history too, 900k in 2008 and now 1.7m.
4012 BAYRIDGE Ave, West Vancouver, British Columbia
MLS#: V887369
The lack of easily accessible tax rolls really puts a crimp on citizen investigation in to money laundering.
Pingback: West Vancouver – “A lot of these crazy sales were done with the … | Steve Latham – Vancouver's Best Realtor – Phone 604-220-9695
Personally, i think the speculative rampage the last year has got a lot to do with Jupiter’s placement in Taurus. Jupiter’s key word is Expand. It gives benefits, but it can be taken to extremes. Taurus rules the 2nd house of money, possessions and values. Put the two together and here we are. After about a year wandering in Taurus, Jupiter moves into Gemini June 11, where it will greet the Sun, which moved into Gemini May 20. Jupiter is in its detriment in Gemini. Perhaps by then, being out of debt would be a prudent thing to consider.
@Loon
You aren’t going to believe this when I tell you. The house sold for 1.9 mill in April and was previously sold in July 2011 for 1.5 mil. What the hell is going on here …
Does the record show arm’s length or not?
It does not specify.
Cheers Deuces,
Was that April 2011 ? Sounds flippin crazy selling for a loss only 4 months later!
Last sale was 2011 July 21, for $1.51M
The $1.9M sale is likely to be current month & year.
Where do you get a loss in those numbers?