“My conversations with friends who are westside realtors over the past few months (I know a few – hey everyone wanted to be a RE agent for a while, it seems) [reveal that things] are not good (for them). Telling me they are cutting spending budgets and dipping into savings now to keep things going.”
– Girlbear at VCI 11 Feb 2013 2:51pm
Most Recent Comments:
- Arnie Carnegie on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- Arnie Carnegie on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- white_angelos_orange_apocalypse on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- Arnie Carnegie on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- Arnie Carnegie on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- The Auteur on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- Arnie Carnegie on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- Arnie Carnegie on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- white_angelos_orange_apocalypse on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- The Auteur on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- The Auteur on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- Arnie Carnegie on Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
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- 20. The Limitless Demand Argument For Ongoing Market Strength (70)
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Latest Anecdotes:
- Miloon Kothari, Former UN Investigator, Reviewing Vancouver Housing Crisis – “Hyper-speculation. Casino Capitalism. Gentrification. Collusion. Corruption. Criminal Investigations. A Lottery Which Reduces A Social Resource Like Housing To A Commodity.”
- ‘Flip Vancouver’ Speculator Invite Flyer
- “Local Speculators Are Cashing In While We Blame Foreigners” and Other Truths – Geoff Dembicki, The Tyee
- “Nuthin’ That A Good Ol’ 75%+ Price Crash Won’t Fix…” – BOC Governor Stephen Poloz *
- Reconsidering High-Rises – “These people do not want a neighbourhood. They want a locked gate, a gated community in the sky.”
- Wake Up Canada! – Countries By Population Density
- Low Interest Rates, Foreign Capital, Local Speculation
- Unstoppable?
- Vulnerable
- Toronto Bursting? – “People need to ask themselves very carefully, “Why am I buying this house?”
- An Economic Boom “In All The Wrong Places”
- A Few Charts
- A Reader’s Perspective
- “B.C.’s economy relies on the selling off of real estate instead of actual jobs. It’s reached the point where we don’t have much to sell, other than the land itself.” – filmmaker Charles Wilkinson
- ‘Poor’ Parenting – B.C. Liberal Housing Minister Rich Coleman – “My advice to my teens, start saving for the down payment.”
- The Value Of The Dirt? – “In condo crazy Vancouver, downtown’s last gas station for sale”
- Spot The Speculator – “I can’t imagine a bubble bursting where over six months you see a decrease of 30 or 40 percent”
- Leverage Turns Bad – ‘Vancouver homebuyers lost almost 50 per cent on their down payments in 1 year’ – Global News
- ‘Game Changer’ BC Court Ruling Extends Capital Gains Tax Risk To Buyers And Realtors
- Crucial Question: Will People Be As Eager To Buy Homes If Prices Are Flat Or Dropping?
- A Real Estate Economy – “Real estate inflation in the Lower Mainland in 2016 is greater than the entire provincial GDP — the actual goods and services produced by all British Columbians”
- Eight of the Top Ten Donors to the BC Liberal Party are RE Industries
- CTV Headline: ‘All hell is going to break loose in Vancouver’: Ex-trader’s real estate forecast
- Vancouver Sun Headline: “Vancouver real estate prices face double-digit drop in 2017: LePage”
- CTV Vancouver Uses ‘Prices Plunging’ In News Headline
- Young Canadians And Homes – “What happens if we all decide we can’t afford this shit?”
- Vancouver Home Buyers Will Require About 27% More Income To Qualify For Mortgage On Average Priced Home
- Selling What’s Left of Our Soul – Vancouver Seeking More Corporate Labels
- “I went to Berlin because it was a place where you could afford to have space and time, which was a tricky thing in Vancouver. Time to work on my art because I wasn’t on this insane anxiety of the financial pressure of the city.”
- Where Life Is Absurd, We Need Art – “Why I pranked Torontonians with fake condo signs”
- We’re Number One! – Vancouver RE ‘Overvalued Since 2007’ – UBS 2016 Housing Bubbles Report
- Vancouver’s Housing Market Not Crashing, Just Frozen, Says Realtor
- “You Have No Idea How Angry I Am” – “A generation of people has been screwed. It’s so obvious. Everyone I work with is so angry. A select group of people have profited from this”; “I am very angry at the system.”
- Average Vancouver Detached Price Loses Last 12 Months’ Worth of Gains In One Month.
- Zerohedge: “Vancouver Housing Market Implodes”; “Devastated”; “Slammed Shut”; “About To Get Very Ugly”
- 15% Tax on Foreign Buyers – Enough to Change the Narrative?
- Analyst on Global – “Sheer insanity…You’re pricing local, hardworking people out of the market… It’s fueled by a money laundering bubble that politicians, in cahoots with the real estate industry, don’t want to end.”
- Trudeau States The Paradox: “The inflated housing market must be stabilized, but any action must not completely devalue those people whose retirements and equity are tied to their homes.”
- Question: “Why should a condo in Vancouver cost more than a condo in Toronto (or any other big city in Canada)?”
- The average price of a single-family detached home in the Greater Vancouver area has increased as much in the past five months as it did from 1981 to 2005.
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Boo hoo…
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The lower mainland economy is so tied in with real estate activity. As the bubble begins to rapidly deflate, realtors, home constructors/renovators, mortgage specialists, and other indirect spin off industries (retail sales, restaurants, etc) will all be impacted. It will be very very interesting to see how fast this unwinds and how people adapt to this new world order.
A lot of realtors hold investment properties. I bet there’s a lot of fraught decisions being made about whether to ride it out or sell now. Wouldn’t it be super to see an index of % listings that are owned by an agent or related party?
I think the smart realtors cashed out about between a year and 6 months ago. I know of one property in Westwind in Richmond owned by a prominent local realtor. He bailed out about 6 months ago.
I mentioned that to “an observer” at that time. It sold for more than $800,000 over assessment. But we concluded, that the assessment value (for some reason) was far too low.
A friend of mine 3 years ago quit a well paying full-time job to dabble in RE. When the slowdown started about a year ago, she was lucky to get her old job back.
There are many realtors who have no experience outside of RE.
I hope they scraped and saved, because many will not live comfortably.
A close friend of our family has been a Westside realtor for nearly 20 years. A few weeks ago, while talking about a completely unrelated matter, he suddenly asked if we knew anyone who might be interested in his $2 million listing. Never before in 20 years has he tried to drum up business from us. We know a total of zero people with a spare $2 million, so this was completely ridiculous and seemed rather telling.
Your friend has made very very good money in the last 5-10 years. If s/he didn’t save for a rainy day then that is a shame. Good mortgage brokers and RE agents make 250k plus/yr
Loyal cadres don’t need post secondary!
Sheesh,
Yeah, the few good ones.
The rest are toiling at the open houses.
Every community has a dominant realtor, whom you can easily spot from by who has the most signs. Big sign with big picture.
You really only have to get caught holding that last bad house (or two, or three) to go from “wealthy” to broke pretty fast.
Like Ben Rabidoux said, if you are a Realtor who has put all your money in Real Estate, you are incredibly un-diversified.
If your source of income is real estate commissions, you should put your savings into ANYTHING IN THE WORLD other than real estate. Do not own even one property; rent. Do not buy bank stocks or developer stocks.
Property-owning realtors have bet both their savings *and* their careers that a single investment will suddenly break out of 100 years of historical performance and perform wildly differently…forever.
And given that such “savvy” real estate speculators are always highly-leveraged, realty is the one profession in which you could go from earning $250,000/year and having $1MM in equity to earning zero/year and having $2MM in DEBT…in 6 months.
What a rush that must be.
Not much different from the financial adviser, who advises you to invest into the hot risky stock that he just bought.
The all are so deep into their own crap……