“He said that he is currently managing about 337 foreclosed/court ordered sale properties in Mission and Maple Ridge.”

Posted on 14 March 2013 | 19 Comments

“Bought a court ordered sale in Mission…
Property manager for the Banks came by, wondered why we were in the house…
Bank had not told him it sold… two weeks ago.
He removed the lock key holder.. we talked a bit…
He said that he is currently managing about 337 foreclosed/court ordered sale properties in Mission and Maple Ridge right now… that’s right… I asked three times just to make sure he didn’t mean 37… 337 is what he said.
… said he was not able to provide a list of the properties as the banks had forbidden him to disclose the list as part of his contract…, that’s in Maple Ridge and Mission… alone…
Yikes…
That was Three Hundred and Thirty Seven property’s in just the two districts…
WOW…Don’t see that in the news… or the real estate/assessment tax vultures sales lists…”
– Silver at VREAA 14 Mar 2013 10:08am

This entry was posted in 08. Overextended Buyers, 15. Misallocation of Resources and tagged Anecdotes, Banks, British Columbia, Bubble, Canada, Debt, Housing, Real Estate, sellers, Vancouver. Bookmark the permalink.

19 responses to ““He said that he is currently managing about 337 foreclosed/court ordered sale properties in Mission and Maple Ridge.””

Bo Xilai | 14 March 2013 at 2:35 pm | Reply

And don’t count on CMHC providing you with a list either… Taxpayers are just the dupes who are providing the backstop to these megalomaniacs.
HAM Solo | 14 March 2013 at 2:51 pm | Reply

The longer foreclosure growth stays secret, the greater the advantage to a select group of in-the-know short sellers, and the greater the disadvantage to mom and pop common shareholders. Want to know why Canadian Western Bank shares cracked? Go ahead CMHC, GVREB, keep your secrets. But the truth will out.
Cyril Tourneur | 14 March 2013 at 2:53 pm | Reply

Brown stuff beginning to hit the ventilation device.
Wolfie | 14 March 2013 at 3:08 pm | Reply

Is this an unusually high number of foreclosures for the area? It’s not clear to me that this is the case…
Brian | 14 March 2013 at 3:12 pm | Reply

So the question is why is the RE industry so secretive in this country? This information is all out in the public in the US.
- Ralph Cramdown | 14 March 2013 at 3:55 pm | Reply
  
  The first thing to remember is that this stuff isn’t national. Foreclosure and power-of-sale law is written by the provinces and states.
  
  The second thing to remember is that, in many places, the creditor has a legal obligation to get the highest possible price for the property. This is important to keep Fred the banker from selling the property to his brother for a nominal sum (and in some places pursuing the debtor for the difference.)
  
  The third thing to remember is that CMHC is us. I.e. solvent, taxpaying entities are ultimately responsible for its debts.
  
  I think that many of the auction-on-the-courthouse-steps laws in US states date from a time before MLS, when wide exposure of properties was difficult to guarantee. A law stating that an ad needed to be placed in the local paper of record followed by a public auction achieved that better than any other method at the time. These days, MLS is probably a better route than a court auction for cash, simply because so few people have cash.
  - Snats | 14 March 2013 at 4:12 pm |
    
    Unfortunately in the US, this quickly became a game for people with cash to invest. Young home buyers who could scoop up these houses at bargain prices weren’t in the game. Lots of people with capital bought homes as investments to rent out. Big investors are buying pools of them to rent out. It’s a shame that so many people who just want a home to live in can’t compete for foreclosures.
  - Silver | 14 March 2013 at 5:24 pm |
    
    Reference was made to the acceptable loss CMHC would take when our foreclosure was purchased by us and the Master took that into account as part of the debt/loss settlement process…
    
    Silver
Ralph Cramdown | 14 March 2013 at 3:18 pm | Reply

This isn’t quite on-topic, but I have to share.

A few years ago, I looked at a property. It was a very small (850 sqft main?) semidetached bungalow, probably about 80-90 years old, in a very good neighbourhood in Toronto. The seller had bought it, completely ripped out the interior to the brick/block walls and the roof, taken out the basement floor, the HVAC and all the plumbing, done a little framing badly on the main floor, and quit. He left it that way for two years, then put it up for sale.

It was mind boggling. You could see that the roof was rotten from inside the house. There were no permits for anything. There wasn’t any insulation anywhere — including on the party wall, which was just studs and the plaster and lathe on the neighbour’s side. The poor neighbour was a schoolteacher, and had fixed her place up nicely, but was so ignorant as to homeownership that she’d been paying a fortune to heat the great outdoors through the party wall (and part of the common attic space where renos had disturbed insulation) and not realized or done anything about it.

Then one day the realtor’s sign came down, the lockbox changed and an “In case of emergency, call…” note got posted on the window. Back to the lender it had gone.
Village Whisperer | 14 March 2013 at 3:45 pm | Reply

It would be great if we could get the property manager’s name, company and follow up on this.
- Silver | 14 March 2013 at 5:19 pm | Reply
  
  Whisperer
  wow… just was expecting some comments… to help me get my head around this…
  The conversation was to weird… and came really fast at me…
  To deeply shocked to really think about asking then,
  
  … and if the manager has a signed contract as stated … he can’t legally show the list.
  … and it bugged me so I posted this to see if I could find any truth to the comment…
  But I know the Banks do have lists…
  … ours was held by a bank out east…
  and that would be the best truth…
  I personally hope he was bragging,
  … but when I bought our Court Ordered Sale there were at least 10 others that day being settled as well… it kind of fits what I witnessed there.
  It was a well oiled machine, very familiar to some who were there… which is what scares me…
  
  Silver
outrigger | 14 March 2013 at 3:51 pm | Reply

I was told by a friend today that there is an app for smartphone, (and maybe even a site)call foreclosure.ca or something like that, that will alert you when a foreclose property is in the market. It only shows you the area code of the place, so you have to look it up through MLS yourself. It is also a paid service. I think he mentioned that last time he checked there are over 150 foreclosure in Burnaby according to this apps. It would be great if someone have more info on this.
- Told-you-so | 14 March 2013 at 7:46 pm | Reply
  
  This must be it: It’s called “Foreclosure Search Canada”. The app is free, but it looks as if there’s a monthly fee to acces info. Haven’t used it myself, so can’t comment on its usefulness.
  
  http://tinyurl.com/acgyavn
  - Told-you-so | 14 March 2013 at 8:05 pm |
    
    Addendum: aforementioned “free” app appears to be a bit of a scam (surprise, surprise). If you want address, full listing details, full agent/contact details, and full legal information, you must pay to “upgrade”. Looks as if there are a hell of a lot moremforclosuresin my area than I thought, though… about 50.
bill barilko | 14 March 2013 at 4:06 pm | Reply

Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and TreasSec Tim Geithner flew to Canada on a hunting trip. They chartered a small plane to take them into the Rockies for a week of hunting moose. They managed to bag 6. When they met at the plane to return, the pilot said he could take only 4 moose.

The two officials objected strongly. “Last year we shot six. The pilot let us take them all and he had the same plane as yours.”

Reluctantly, the pilot gave in and all six were loaded. The plane took off. However, while attempting to cross the mountains, the little plane couldn’t handle the load and went down. Somehow, surrounded by the moose bodies, only Ben and Tim survived the crash.

After climbing out of the wreckage, Ben asked Tim, “Any idea where we are?”

Tim replied, “I think we’re pretty close to where we crashed last year.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-usa-housing-realtytrac-idUSBRE92D06920130314
rod_jonsson | 14 March 2013 at 4:43 pm | Reply

http://tinyurl.com/bz49h66 … ps nem i think robo responds better to elvis songs
- Nemesis | 14 March 2013 at 5:22 pm | Reply
  
  [NoteToJonnson’sRod: Just between the two of us, my editing suite’s €6K broadcast reference monitor went SuperCritical, ‘ChinaSyndrome’ today. Ergo, I was initially ‘somewhat peeved’… and then I remembered that’s what TaxAccountants are for… and took a deep breath. I needed the target practice, anyhow.]
  - Aldus Huxtable | 14 March 2013 at 10:24 pm |
    
    Nem, always keep legacy equipment around for these purposes. PC Load Letter my arse.
C. Renee | 6 October 2013 at 12:37 pm | Reply

I heard 66% of the vacant homes in Mission are due to being Grow Operations. Who wants that. This sticks with the house’s disclosure forever. Who wants that.