bleak friday

At least the weather was not bleak today. In fact, it was another beautiful day on the Lower Mainland. That's why we live here. We can see the mountains on these beautiful days, and dream of the Olympics, and maybe even go up to the mountains, and shout across the whole delta that we are here, and it's the best place in the entire freaking universe. Forget condo appreciation day (kind of like nurse appreciation day), we have condo appreciation years.

Is it unravelling? Rob Chipman's numbers are all over the place, and other realtors who comment haven't got a clue either. The stock markets are all over the map too, up and down, shaking out, teetering on the brink of collapse. There just has to be trouble when the TSX consistently outpaces DJ. It is like Vancouver holding out in RE when all around is falling.

None of that is real news though, the real news (on CBC, anyhow - which I staunchly defend - for all it's shortcomings) is the border line-ups as Canadians return from pumping 100's of thousands, millions even, of dollars into the American economy on it's biggest shopping day of the year. Christmas shopping early! The sales are fantastic! The coverage is breathless. (where is all this money coming from?) So sorry Vancouver retailers - we don't need you. We are rich on RE, and all we need is a few baristas to make our lattes, and a few pool boys for whatever they do. We'll just drive down to Bellis Fair to do our shopping and turn all the empty retail spaces in Vancouver into store-front condo's.

I've been hearing rumblings too of the BoC dropping rates by as much as 1% over the next year. The principle driver of that outlook is not the high dollar, so much as the economy is flagging, and some say (sorry - no links) already in recession. But is it the dollar that is putting the squeeze on the economy? or flagging exuberance? The end of a bull run? That would, of course, exclude Vancouver, because it's different here, and we have all this construction, and mountains, and the weather.