Wednesday, December 24, 2008

mull

Oh!
Hey!
Hi! How ya doin'?
Still there?
Ya, me too.

I have not written much lately, I've been considering where to go from here. I've had a lot of fun with the zany, the zowie, the zip and the zing. Jertains in my curtains, and zillows on my pillows... but the RE market is toast. That is not news anymore. Well, maybe it is - to some...

I got an e-mail yesterday from condohype alerting me to this article in The Gastritis and Mal-absorbed. I suppose I ought to be more charitable - given the Season of Blissful Consumption, and given that the writer, Timothy Taylor, gave a (favourable?) mention of condohype and vancouver (un)real estate - let's call it The Globe and Mail.
THE CITY: A BIWEEKLY LOOK AT LIFE IN VANCOUVER

The upside to the bubble bursting: Sanity returns
The bloggers had it right - B.C.'s real estate market was due for a correction. At least we can stop obsessing about house listings
TIMOTHY TAYLOR
I could not agree more. Further, he writes;
...Meanwhile, bloggers are gloating. I'm talking about those real estate death watch sites such as Vancouver (un) Real Estate (vancouverunrealestate.blogspot.com) and Condohype (condohype.word- press.com). After the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver called off its 2009 conference and trade show two weeks ago because of the downturn, the blogger-in-chief of Condohype wrote, "Too bad the party's cancelled because that activity sounds awesome. In my book, it's an invitation to show up in my 'The Blogger Was Right' T-shirt with my dogs Case and Shiller. I'm devastated this can't happen now."

The sarcasm is perhaps a little undignified, but you can hardly blame them for feeling satisfied. They diagnosed market madness. And, with varying degrees of insight and eloquence, they were correct. That bull market really had distorted our view of certain things. It had changed us, or at the very least it had changed the way we relate to the places where we live.

It's nice to be noticed by such (an august) publication as the Gripe and Mewl, but I have to say that, well never mind, it's Crassmess, after all. Personally though, I think that the hypster's sarcasm is brilliant, prolific, and consistent, but never undignified. And Timothy, it's all lower case on the title for a reason. Do I feel sorry for flippers caught with their trousers down? No. I do, however, feel for the naive and ovine - whom were sucked in by the hype. I feel for those who have no idea what a recession is, let alone a depression, and have a huge mortgage with no equity, and will lose their jobs.

We were right - all of us; VHB, the pope, me, mohican,... Even Rob Chipman hedged his bets. You the readers were right too, and that is why you sought a different view. But gloating? Nah.

Now, where to go from here?

There is much to write about, always. Politically, I could dedicate to a career in print. I alienated a lot of readers in that though, because I expressed my very explicit views of Harper, and a good bunch of the Conservative Party. There is little gained from such rants though, it just tires me, and inflames others. Most couldn't give a hoot.

I could write about the coming depression, but that would just depress all of us, and waste a bunch of time that could be spent more judiciously - like canning fish, and salting pork, and stewing fruits, and pickling eggs, and learning how to plow with a dog in harness, or darning socks, or repairing boots, or distilling corn mash.

Maybe, I could just continue to post whatever suits my fancy. It might be about gay penguins. It might be severed Internet cables under the sea (and the perceived portent). Maybe you need an herbal cure for halitosis, or want to know about non-local effect. How to skin a rabbit, or pull a grouse's head through it's rectum. Maybe I will relate something that you have already read over at The Turner Report, or Greater Fool. I ripped this from there -



The Detroit house, on the left is going for $300 (three hundred dollars). The Vancouver house on the right is going for $998,000. Detroit must be the Worst Place on Earth, wot? They need some steenking Oleempics.

For now, this will remain vancouver (un)realestate (because it is still unreal), but in the future, it may morph into something like vancouver re-instated, and I will report on Bridge scores, or such. Who knows?

If you send me money, I might even be compelled to write more. If the Grey and Mangy wants to hire me, great! In the meantime, you can hook up for the RSS feed so to save a fruitless click - only to find nothing new.

Best of the season to all, whatever your affiliation.

4 comments:

Wayne said...

Darning socks and repairing our shoes is a start. If it gets to the point where we can't afford to pay Shaw for cable and internet the VPL could be a very busy place.

Anonymous said...

What concerns me is worldwide internet service providers consolidating to control web sphere and make is pay per click. Could it be? By 2012 along with the Mayan calender predictions? Obama the anti-Christ? Forget about all that...controlled internet though? Looming global depression? Someone taking away my access to vancouver unreal estate and pornforfree??? Lose of job, feeding the kids boiled grass from the back yard, but WWW harnessed??? ahhhhh

All the best for 2009 :-)

pbell

Anonymous said...

soli:

photoshop tutorial for you

enjoy

http://tinyurl.com/7qqp84

blueskies

J.Son said...

I hadn't seen much movement in prices as I've primarily been looking at Richmond/Vancouver properties. I was a little worried the slowdown wasn't happening fast enough. But I just checked out Surrey, and wow.. those prices ARE dropping fast. All those new Whalley condos are popping up, and for a good 20% less than they were listing for 6 months ago. Happy Holidays!