the bubble book

I bring you some levity in this time of alarm bells ringing from the south. Maybe I am just hearing spooky, dis-embodied voices in my head, but I don't think so.

Back to the levity - li'l solipsist has a book for the bath called Bubble Book, and I was inspired to take a little artistic licence with it. I re-wrote parts of it, and of course, had fun with Photoshop. Enjoy.


Young James has noticed that there are several housing bubbles outside. He begins to worry. Young James has bought beyond his means, and is beginning to understand.

Little Lucy snickers as she realizes that Young James has not noticed her Rennie The Raptor poster. Well, duh! she says.


Learnin' Lenny is doing his sums. He differentiates between mortgage payments and rent payments while Young James the Reformed explains the idea of compound interest. "Much better to earn interest than pay it" he admonishes. Learnin' Lennie wonders if Young James the Reformed has heard of market cycles. He also realizes that his $1000 bills stuffed into a soup can up on the shelf are earning no interest.


Young James the Reformed invites Scared Silly Sally out for a walk while he posts his mortgage payments. She is very worried about being priced out. Young James the Reformed begins to hatch a scheme in which he sells his place to Scared Silly Sally for "2008 prices". Scared Silly Sally has never heard of compound interest, but she thinks that maybe she is not priced out forever - what with the new zero-down, 50 year amortized mortgages (I'll be paid off by the time I'm 60, she ponders excitedly).

Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment - It's Just Bubbles Down the Drain.

hype

This is normally condohype's bailiwick, but this came into my front door today, and there are two things that irk me (well, much more than two things...); wasted resources, and paper that comes in my front door, and goes directly into the recycling bin (kinda the same).

The paper that this advert. came on weighs 20 grams. I don't know how many people in Greater Vancouver (I refuse to use Metro Vancouver) received this, but let's say (very conservatively) 100,000 households. That equals 2,000 kilograms of wood pulp. How much carbon would that produce - from production to delivery to disposal? (I am not a Global Warming acolyte/fanatic/reactionary) It's a couple of trees that could be sequestering carbon, at the very least. Add in the toxic inks etc., and these chumps are chumps.

As I pointed out, I am not a Global Warming guy, so on to the advertisement itself...

The artist's rendition of the completed project has mature trees, and an established, bucolic atmosphere. The reality is always so much different. Selling dreams and fantasy, and I have the nerve to moniker myself solipsist. Just make it so - build it, and they will come.

The ad. goes on to mention granite, marble, stainless steel (isn't that passe yet?), custom crap etc., and 3.5 acres of private greenspace, blah, blah. Private to whom? The couple of hundred (or more) residents? Does that count boulevards, etc.? How private is it? Can I frolic naked, and have bacchanals at my whim?

Then, there are a couple of pic's - one has a soft focus framing of some seasonal flowers, and is emblazoned with life, the other has people walking so fast that anything less than 1/250th second shutter speed cannot capture them, and is emblazoned with style. Is it life, or style? The imagery is contradictory. The life suggests stopping and smelling the flowers, while the style suggests that it is going to be very fretful to try to pay for this junk.

Then, they admonish to take advantage of your Last Chance for 2007 Prices! There are only about 7 weeks left in 2007, and 2008 is not looking great for RE prices. Do they really think we are that worried about being priced out.

I also wonder at the claim of South Burnaby's fastest selling new residential community. How many new residential communities are there in South Burnaby?

Give me strength.

note: I deliberately blurred all contact information, names, etc. I will not help to promote this crap.

selling houses

I was digging around on Google image search for some images for some CONdo marketing spoofs that I have been amusing myself with, and came across this below. The last paragraph really floats my boat in speaking of Interesting way of turning the real estate market upside down, letting demand nudge supply in the right direction, and moving the market from push to pull. This market needs to be turned upside down (though I do believe that is starting - thanks to the "credit crunch"?) The original page can be veiwed here in it's original context.

This could blow craig's list, VOW, MLS, etc., out of the water if implemented here. Hmmm. Anyone interested in a .com startup? I just don't have the giddy-up-go these days. You can give me 1% as a finder's fee though (grin). Google Inc. is probably all over it already...

Igglo combines large amounts of real estate information into a customer friendly package that could alter how the housing market operates, by letting potential buyers 'pre-order' houses that aren't yet for sale.

The Finnish company has photographed every building in Helsinki, with more towns to follow, and combines these photographs with satellite images and maps. Every property is listed, not just those that are currently on the market. (Their tagline is: "Your house is already on Igglo.")

Potential buyers can earmark a building, street or neighbourhood they're interested in, and post offers online. This lets potential sellers find out how desirable their property is, even if they weren't actively considering selling. Buyers also receive an alert when a property in their earmarked building or area comes up for sale.

If demand and supply meet, Igglo handles the transaction for a lower fee than is charged by regular real estate agents (less than 2%). Lower fees are made possible by the fact the Igglo agents don't get involved until buyers and sellers have found each other. The company is looking to expand the service to other big cities.

Interesting way of turning the real estate market upside down, letting demand nudge supply in the right direction, and moving the market from push to pull. One to watch!

(emphasis mine)

rennie's rodeo roundup

Bob Rennie does Edmond(ton)

Bob Rennie is moving on to Edmonton. I suppose, because the lack of land in Vancouver. Or maybe Vancouver is just saturated with inventory about to be available? Isn't Edmonton heading for the crapper?

Nifty website (aren't all of Rennie's sites nifty?). Whatever one thinks of Rennie, ya gotta hand it to him, he does what he does well. I read the other day that he is behind $2 billion in projects. That's a lot of donuts.

Speaking of Rennie, and Edmonton, and donuts, the site for Century Park exhorts one to visit with Taylor - who will fix you up with a donut and coffee - to help you "to understand the century park difference". "As you take your next sip of coffee" she'll mention a "recently approved LRT station right at your front door". How fabulous! That can't be literal - what if you live on the tenth floor? And do CONdo's have back doors? Back to Taylor - after being astounded by having that LRT at your front door (what about the pan-handlers?), you're likely to be famished, and you are offered another donut! By now, your eyes are wide from too much coffee and sugar (glazed, even - like donuts!), and the sight of the kitchens and bathroom will open them even wider, "more coffee?".

On to the fitness club - you don't really need cardio exercise, your heart is already racing with caffeine and sugar. But weight! Uh, wait! "c'mon have one more donut". That's better, now you are so bloated with coffee and donuts, the fitness centre is starting to sound good.

As you approach the building model, "you may notice a lot of red on the availability board because phase one is already sold out". Well, I'm glad to know that it's not from a coffee-induced explosion of an aneurysm.

It's interesting to see the marketing shift with the demographic. Taylor looks like a wholesome girl (in stilettos) who works evenings at Chaps and Spurs (or whatever) as a hostess. No hip yuppies on Vespas drinking Okanagan's finest rotted grapes, it's cowgirls coffee and donuts in Edmonton, and none of that fancy dee-zyn coffee like Vancouver.

Well, I was just doing a little digging on this new development, and came across a blinking forum dedicated to it. The superlatives are almost as bile-inducing as the coffee and donuts

This project will blow the doors off of the Edmonton market.

Can't wait for this bad boy.

I am watching this development with baited breath. I really like the potential to have a signature highrise community visible from our southern entrance. What a way to dispel this pimple on the prairie moniker...

I hope that the breath is not "baited" with prairie oysters and Old Tyme Pilsener. And with those towers sticking up, the "pimple on the prairie" will start looking more like a badly lanced boil. And, aren't the doors already off the hinges in the Edmonton market?

Bye bye Bobby. Don't look back.

Thanks to bearclaw for the link.

the grab bag # 7

Illegal tree removal costly for local realtor (redacted)

By Cheryl Rossi-Staff writer

A local realtor will have to pay $205,000 for the removal of 72 trees from three adjacent Point Grey properties.

Paulo Leung of Regent Park Realty pleaded guilty to 72 counts of tree removal without a permit and was fined $205,000, or $2,850 per tree, May 10.

Rosy Palace Investments, which owns the multi-million dollar Belmont Avenue properties, was found not guilty.

In November 2005, neighbours called the city to complain that 82 Douglas fir, holly, maple, weeping willow and fruit trees had been removed from the lots that sit above Spanish Banks and edge the University Endowment Lands.

"The surprising thing was that the complaints didn't come until the job was done," Jackson said.

The three properties were listed for sale at $14.8 million at the time the trees were removed.

Following a police investigation, the owner and realtor were charged with 82 counts under the city's private property tree bylaw.

The city, Greater Vancouver Regional District and Department of Fisheries and Oceans were left wondering how the clearcut would affect the stability of the nearby slopes and the salmon-bearing Spanish Bank Creek.

"The one comment that was made on this was that the amount paid exceeded the [realtor's] commission in the sale, so I thought that was interesting," Jackson said.

Leung continues to work for Regent Park Realty. He did not want to comment on the case. (from the Courier)

Also from the Courier, this letter:

Condo dweller living good life with clenched teeth

To the editor:
Re: "Centrepiece bowl of Granny Smith apples essential part of urban lifestyle," May 16.

Finally someone has said it. With humour and tongue planted firmly in cheek, Michael Kissinger has shone a light on the murkier aspects of developers manufacturing reality while marketers gleefully, albeit unimaginatively, sell the illusion.

Living in high-priced ghettos is even more laughable than considering apples in a bowl as the enticement. The hilarity of materials advertised in glossy portfolios, substituted by inferior products, rock bottom standards of construction and finishing is ever so amusing. For the novice to the pushy condominium concept of existence, please know that the vision of warranty inspectors will see no defects. Lilliputian-sized spaces that cannot accommodate furniture are augmented by the laughable absence of storage space.

I also enjoy the comedy of square footage that includes the balcony in the price point. Since marketing has become a euphemism for deceiving, living in a condominium in Vancouver is a clenched-teeth smile. Yes indeed, I'm living the life.

A. Gould
Vancouver

Could'na said it better myself...

condo culture

I have taken swipes at marketing - specifically of real estate in the past. Recently, there is a new blog on the block - so to speak - condohype which is a very good read. Their most recent thread brought marketing into focus, and then I came across an article in one of my favourite publications - The Republic of East Vancouver. I will excerpt some of it below for illustration, as I think that it is particularly well written. Read the whole thing for a lucid take.

Vancouver's condo industry has embraced "culture" and "art" as a fundamental part of many sales pitches. The cultural allusions run thick in local ad copy. Where once the real estate industry emphasized a residence as a good place to “raise a family,” today they use “lifestyle” to lure prospective buyers.

By correlating cultural commodities of distinction with the people of distinction who purchase them, the marketers construct its imagined clientele at the same time it makes its pitch. Who is this new clientele?

...in a recent New Home Buyers Guide article, Susan Boyce enthuses, "When you're ready to explore, you're at the very heart of what makes Vancouver a vibrant, truly world-class city. Perhaps a night at the opera or symphony? Or an afternoon pondering the latest showing at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Maybe you'd prefer wine tasting . . . .”

...this strategy "inspires a new language dealing with difference" and "a coded means of discrimination." The mobilization of taste as a mark of distinction appeals to a specific type of resident in the downtown, one who has had the time and money to invest in developing these tastes, tastes developed outside the exigencies of the labour market. Put bluntly, the ads employ coded class appeals to differentiate their target audience.

Condo Salesperson seeks cool, authentic, risk-oblivious people, either sex, for fun and debt-bondage.

It goes on, and I don't want to reproduce it here, but it's worth reading.

Ack. Choke. Please, tell me who I am, tell me what I want/need. Ack.

frothing at the fingertips

What's he so happy about? Did he get a free kite? Or is he the nephew of the Chairman?

Thanks to the pope for the cool picture! Read his rant.

Thanks to black'n'brownedout for this link.

Inflated by the Olympic spirit

THE transformation of China's capital over the past few years has been astonishing. This year the effect will be giddying...Amid an Olympics-fuelled frenzy, Beijing's economy is booming and its house prices soaring. Many fear their return to earth will be bumpy.

Ah. What me worry? You can't lose. And I'm so giddy, I can't think straight anyhow.

Olympic cities usually experience an economic surge before the games. And with under 18 months to go before the games open in Beijing, China's economy as a whole is growing nearly as fast as Beijing's: 10.7% last year compared with the capital's 12% (its eighth consecutive year in double digits). Central-government leaders worry that the pace could be reckless, but are loth (sic) to apply the brakes hard.

I'm too indolent to look up the stats for how much our economy has grown, but it seems to me that I heard that it was in the neighbourhood of 3%. That's crazy growth in Beijing!

Communist Party ... leaders will be trying to stress how much in sympathy they are with the suffering of ordinary citizens.

Oh, so solly full you! Throw the dogs a bone.

For the past two years, the central government has introduced a series of measures aimed at cooling property markets in Beijing and elsewhere. These have included new taxes on property deals and higher mortgage downpayments. Last month new restrictions were imposed on property purchases by foreigners. In Shanghai, these moves have achieved some success (diverting speculative money to the bubbling stockmarket), but not in Beijing. Last year property development still accounted for more than half of all investment in the capital.

So where will the money go now? Off-shore. Vancouver sounds good. Golden Mountain. We buy it all. It's a global frenzy of liquidity. The only bright light that I can see is that the sub-prime market is melting down, and will take a lot more down with it. It's sad that the idea of a depression can seem like a bright light isn't it?

Speculators are betting that property prices will benefit from the tightness of land supply

Oh fulak! The land shortage thing. It had to be there with the friggin' Olympics thing, didn't It? Can I even type Olympics without being sued for copy-right infringement?

Moreover, in order to keep the city clear of unsightly cranes and dust-billowing building sites during the games, Beijing has been discouraging new construction projects. This has reduced the expected supply of properties and helped to drive up prices. Last year the total floor space of new housing projects was nearly 6% less than in 2005. For poorer residents the outlook was particularly grim. The floor area of newly launched low-cost housing projects was down by nearly 57%.

I think that loathesome regime is doing better than our own loathesome regime regarding housing the poor. Slavery never really went away, but now people are proud to be mortgage slaves.

According to press reports this week, the central government recently called a special meeting to discuss ways to tame Beijing's property market. Among its suggestions was an increase in the housing supply.

Is it just me?, or does that not make sense? Just above, they were moaning about the shortage of land, but now they want to build even more. Look what happened here. Thousands of new condo's, houses and townhouses, and the market just keeps on exceeding itself.

Officials estimate that the Olympics have been contributing more than two percentage points to Beijing's annual growth since 2003. After the games, they insist, the city's new infrastructure and additional glamour (including the egg-shaped theatre, which hopes to attract international stars) will help keep the economy rolling. The flow of investment will be sustained, they say, by further infrastructure development, and by the pent-up demand for property, which will be supported by a continuing large influx of migrants from the countryside.

La la la. Guns and roses and sweet dreams in a shovel. Pent up demand, and glamourous peasants flocking to Beijing on their ways to Aurean Mountain to partake in our Aquarian Sporting Event, in the town between Pemberton and Squamish, in the year between 2009 and 2011. (That is as clear as I can be, because it seems that the season between fall and spring has been copy-righted - along with quite a few other words and place names - including that word for the distraction involving boards, cards and chance, hockey, basketball, head, etc.. The one that starts with a G, and has an A, an M, an E, and an S.)

But some observers are worried. ...two Beijing academics...said the end of the Olympics would coincide with a cyclical downturn in China's economy, exacerbating the risk of a post-Olympics slump in the capital. Beijing's Olympics-related spending of around $35 billion, they calculated, would make up more than 43% of the total for all the games since 1976. This could make the post-Olympics investment downturn all the more pronounced—especially if the speculators are busy bailing out.

No worries here though, that kinda shite does not happen here. And, there aren't that many speculators...

So, I think that we are competing with the City of Beijing for the place that everyone wants to be. And we don't have no stinking French-designed, egg-shaped theatre to attract international stars. We couldn't even give the Ford Theatre enough business to keep it going. Beijing is building a mag-lev train system for it's festival, and the network is planned country-wide. We get the RAV, lose BC Rail, and watch almost weekly derailments. Third World Class.

Excuse my cynical rant. I'm tired. I will have another rant for you in the coming days.

making deals with the devil

I have scoffed at Bob Rennie in the past, and even got creative with his name. I never saw him as the anti-christ, or such, but his marketing stance always irked me. I feel better that he is Vancouver's "Condo King", and Brad Lamb, Toronto's "Condo King", is not, after I read this article at the Glum and Malcontent. What a piece of work this guy seems to be. I am going to give some exerpts below from the article.

When Brad Lamb was 10, he used to steal the small national flags that adorned military graves in a cemetery near his house and sell them to neighbouring kids.

The celebrity condo salesman, developer and aspiring reality-TV star tells the story without a hint of shame. “I would gather them up and sell them for five cents outside my house,” he says in an interview. “It always amazed me that the kids didn't realize where they came from.”

Not a hint of shame... Stealing flags from military graves and selling them. I began to despise him right away. Too bad there is a statute of limitations. The little bugger should have been to reform school.

He and a childhood friend would put on summer fairs in Beaconsfield, Que.,...“Kids were bored,” he recalls. “The same suckers would come very time.”

Now he sells condos to the same type of suckers...

Now, at 48, he's a multimillionaire whose Toronto real estate brokerage has sold $2-billion worth of condos since 1988

And that's the problem - scumbags selling inferior (or stolen) product to suckers. Is this the mind-set that you would buy property from? No wonder real estate agents and developers are often seen as sleazy, when guys like this trumpet their sleaze in national newspapers, and are proud of it.

From the tax man's point of view, someone who buys and sells a lot of properties in a year is a real estate trader and subject to the full force of income tax...

But those seen by Revenue Canada as investors will pay only capital-gains taxes...

“People overthink it. But there's a lot of dumb people making a lot of money in real estate.”

True enough.

Mr. Lamb has a personality made for TV: he's...vain (he always wears a crisp suit and gives away his shoes after wearing them for two months).

La-de-da. I like what Aesop said - 'clothes don't make the man, his talk dives him away'.

He's given to colourful rants on unexpected topics, like coffee.

On the show, he blasts a couple of sales associates who want to pick up some java, saying coffee is “for the weak.”

His irritation is directed at the inordinate power of one little bean, he explains in the interview.

Is this guy scared of beans? especially little ones?

“It bugs me that somehow this one bean has a monopoly on the world's morning beverage market. It bothers me that it's got such a hold on our cultural life. . . . People think they're more productive on it but they're not. They're dreaming of the next cup.”

I guess he might want to monopolize that. Maybe he can just steal kool-aid from the kiddies, market it, and change his shoes every month - instead of every two.

His friendships, he notes, are based on getting rich together.

Who are his friends? Satan's Choice MC? The Diablos?

If you're one of the 50 or so people he knows as friends or regular investors, you'll get the chance to pay the lowest prices and have the best selection of suites in the roughly 40 condo projects in which he's currently involved, either as exclusive broker or as co-developer.

By the time suites are offered to the public through official launches, two groups of people will have had a chance to buy at more favourable prices — the regular investors he knows, followed by real estate brokers and their preferred clients.

There you go. The public gets the dregs at inflated prices, and if you are "in the loop" you get filthy rich. That's part of why I call them CON-do's. What blows me away is that this guy is so in-your-face about the fact that we are all chumps. Good grief. You can bet your last dollar that a lot of those friends are politicians. Hey, isn't Gordo a developer? Was Jean Chretien not involved with some real estate deals?

Go and read the whole article. It is quite outrageous.

Addendum - I forgot to add this little nugget from VHB's place -

alpha bear said at vhb

I hear many youth refer to "appearing successful", and spending money they don't have on expensive clothes and flashy cars. Whatever

happened to BEING successful? Perhaps the latest RE boom has been all about inflating egos?

Well put alpha. This wolf in Lamb's clothing is successful, but he has no shame. I'd rather wear rags and walk, than be a scammer.

the grab bag #3

I'm just grabbing lines and more that I have come across having some relevance to my notions.

Regarding the MSM - and marketing (one of my biggest peeves!), I came across these lines on Discover Vancouver Forum (by way of RE Talks) - in reference to a recent Bollywood screening. An (apparently) East Indian girl wrote about how "white" people outnumbered "EI" people, and wondered why. Bollywood and White Folks was the thread.

El Duce Posted - 1/20/2007 4:57:16 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's trendy right now, and we live in the biggest bandwagon town on the planet. There's been a lot of mainstream press on Bollywood in the last year or so.

Trendy. Like dot com and NorTel stocks, beanie babies, granite, and investment properties.

I think there is a "bubble" of people looking for new experiences.

This nugget from The Republic goes well with my
posts about RE opportunities on the Moon.

I am looking at it as a business investment, but the ultimate dream is to go and live there, without the baggage of the past. I’d like to open the first Israeli restaurant.

Tsiki Nasftaly, Israeli computer programmer, who bought a square kl of land on the moon slated for future settlement

And you thought I was guffin'.

And this, also from The Republic, regarding the expansion of the aquarium at Stanley Park. It catches a few things of interest to me - including a lack of public consultation, and the main industry in Vancouver - tourism. No mention of baristas and burger flippers (not to mention condo flippers), but I think they got a few things right.

I wonder if Kirk and Company asked Vancouverites if they'd favour their taxes going to subsidize a tourist-related service that was too expensive for many of them to attend.

Public subsidies, private profits

With an international reputation, about 750,000 paying customers in 2005, and an income of around $24 million, the Aquarium is an essential part of Vancouver's tourism-industrial complex. As Vancouver has evolved into a resort city, its primary industry is tourism. The only rival to the tourism complex is the real estate development industry, and in many ways they are related (many of the largest real estate investments are simultaneously investments in tourist related projects, e.g., the new "Shangri-La" investment downtown, among many others). There are massive public subsidies to the tourism industry in the form of government grants to the Canada line, designed to transfer tourists from the airport to downtown; the Convention Centre, designed to attract large business groups to Vancouver; and, of course, the underwriting of the 2010 Games.

I have not gone into my rant about the Olympics, and I don't think there is much point. I'm preaching to the choir here, so to speak.

And from Mohican's blog - something that we are all thinking, I think.

dingus said...
Great post, great blog. A great evolution from the housing blogs for those that have been around and around on the discussions there on the lack of value in that market and are trying to figure out what to do with funds they have if they don't have a mortgage to pay down.

I can only make so many crappy jokes, I'm not into whining, so I've been thinking of where to go from here. I can't even begin to imagine what will transpire. Over the last year, it seems like all bets are off (except the one that freako won over at VHB).

I have a growing feeling that things are going to unwind quickly. I thought that a year and a half ago, but I am reminded of hunters' anecdotes of making heart shots, and the prey continuing to run - not realizing that it was already demised. A chicken without it's head is another analogy.

Beware the Ides of March?

Finally, looking at Rob Chipman's numbers, it is starting to look much more like a buyers' market. But we can guess and guess and guess until spring. We will have a better idea then.

I'm bullish on this real estate!

The Bedroom...

One day perhaps, we will all make it to the Moon. But given that the trip is probably not imminent, we thought you would enjoy a picture of what the view out of your bedroom window may one day look like. Here it is: (moonshop.com)

Back in December I wrote about the next boom in real estate here. At that time, NASA announced plans to build a permanent base on the Moon. The idea is to have a base that can be used for further forays into space (Mars is on the agenda), and to facilitate the exploitation of resources present there. One of those resources is Helium3, which can be used in nuclear fusion to provide clean energy here on Earth. With oil taking such a precipitous tumble this last week, people may be thinking less of alternative energy sources. But that's not the end of it - not by a long shot.

There is a group called The Lunar Embassy selling plots on the Moon. You can buy one, I can buy one, anyone can. The "Head Cheese" of the Lunar Embassy is a guy named Dennis Hope, who in 1980 went to his local US Governmental Office for claim registries, the San Francisco County Seat, and made a claim for the entire lunar surface, as well as the surface of all the other eight planets of our solar system and their moons (except Earth and the sun). Obviously, he was at first taken for a crackpot, until, 3 supervisors, 2 Floors and 5 hours later, the main supervisor accepted, and registered his claim. link Is he a crack-pot? A pot-head? A crack-head? Can't say, but he purportedly was awarded a Prestigious Republican Gold Medal for his derring-do. It's a pretty bizarre tale all-in-all, but the guy does seem to make sales, so he is making money. He even charges a "lunar tax" on all purchases.

Now supposedly, NASA has said that Mr. Hope has no right to sell these plots, but it seems to me that the UN, Russia, US, have made no objections, and as stated above, Mr. Hope purportedly won a gold medal from Congress, so who the flak does NASA think they are? netcheck.com (the Better Business Bureau for the Internet) says that they are legitimate, and Moonshop reports that a couple of Presidents of the United States are among over 1700 satisfied customers. They have a plethora of items for sale (besides Moon plots), but here is what 1 acre of prime lunar real estate will cost you -

Prime View Lunar Properties (1 acre)
Normal Deed US$ 19.99
+ US$ 1.51 Lunar Tax (tax payable only once)
Shipping and Handling are: US$ 12.50 (For up to 5 of them, going to the same address).

Like any realty company interested in moving product, they are even offering incentives - in the form of a brand new Chrysler Prowler to be won (they don't say whether they will deliver that to your lunar address). You can even buy a "town site" of some 4400 acres for a paltry ~$5500 US.

It sure does sound crazy (it will cost you about $900 million dollars for a charter flight to the Moon), but what if space travel becomes popularized, and the costs drop? Wouldn't you feel silly? If there is Helium 3 on/under your patch of the Moon, you could be a zillionare if you only but plunked down ~$20 US. Just don't forget to claim your mineral rights.

I'm pretty bullish on this RE. I might just buy 5 acres. I may not get to walk it (I wouldn't really want to), but my great-great grandchildren might think that I was a pretty adroit investor 100 years down the road.

Note - this guy has also laid claim to all of the planets and moons in our solar system - with the exception of Earth...

Finally - sorry to disappoint anyone who waited two days to find out what "the next big thing in RE" is - expecting that it might be Naramata, BC, or Flin Flon, Manitoba, but I've been up to me arse in alligators, and there's nothing like a little suspense!

Houston - there is no problem. Over and out.

clippings

I am posting some clippings from The Republic of East Vancouver newspaper that reflect some of my feelings about the Olympics, the changes foisted upon this city by corporate kleptocrats, self-serving politicians, etc. There are some strong statements, but if one doesn't shout, who will hear?

These writings (albeit some of which are a bit out of context, and edited to my own purposes) reflect how we came to where we are. This insanity did start shortly after the announcement of Vancouver's 2010 bid being accepted. I foresaw where that would take us, but no one seemed to care. I am not entirely sure if the Olympics are 100% causative though, because there is a global RE boom, it's just that things have really gone off the rails here.

We live in a nation dominated by salesmanship (commercial, political, religious). The salesman's credo is: a facile mendacity trumps a stubborn truth, because an honest mode of being would cause the buyer to become wary of the giddy lie of the pitch.

and -

We've become ... a land of suckers and criminals with a cultural landscape peopled by corporate scam artists

and -

All human beings have a talent for denial, but we ... have turned denial into genius. There is no need to burn books if the public is ignorant of their existence. link

From another article in the same publication;

Like America’s commander in chief, BC’s elected premiere is a privileged, nepotistic, drunk-driving, beady-eyed corporate crony. But the similarities don’t end there. Though it is beyond Gordo’s purview to wage war on foreign nations (that’s Harper’s job), the Work Less Party’s brave new documentary, Five Ring Circus, exposes the myriad ways that our government is using the 2010 Olympics to wreak havoc on BC itself.

The movie centers around the well-publicized mandate to make this the greenest, most sustainable Olympics yet. With pinpoint precision, the film goes through the specific promises, one by one, and reveals our government’s vicious mendacity in filling the pockets of real estate, construction, and hospitality interests under the absurd guise of showcasing Vancouver to the world. But the movie makes it clear that the insidious logic of this operation is that we have to ruin North America’s most livable city in order for it to have its dubious day in the sun.

Who would have guessed that the construction firms that lit up their cranes with YES 2010 signs didn’t have our best interests in mind? The ugly truth is that the construction and real estate tycoons care about Vancouverites about as much as Boeing and Halliburton care about the troops and taxpayers.

and -

There’s another dimension to the hideous Yaletownification of Vancouver that the film astutely addresses. As Vancouver’s affordable housing is converted into condos and the cost of living in this already expensive city continues to rise, a gulf is opening up between the haves and the have-nots. And this is having all kinds of hitherto unthought of repercussions on Vancouver’s vitality. link

I have been wanting to rant about the Olympics for quite a while, but I become apoplectic when doings so, and I don't think you are interested in hysteria. Just slightly less than 50% of Vancouverites voted against the Olympics, and interestingly, the divide was between the West Side, and the East Side.

We have had a $2.5 billions boondoggle shoved up our arses in the RAV line, when an at-grade LRT on existing rights-of-way would have cost as little as 1/10 of the RAV. Whose pockets are getting fat on this huge disruption of hundreds of businesses, and traffic nightmares while we meekly bask in our "good fortune"?

bubblicious

Oh, I am out-doing myself today! Or maybe I've had too much bubble tea, and my brain has turned to foam...

First, I have re-dubbed Bub Rainy - Bubblicious Rainy.

Dub, Bub, Bubble. Toil and Trouble.

Second, I have figured out a new contest to get rid of that glut of condo's.

BR and The Sun are having a condo-give-away contest in which 6 condo's will be won. But that is not enough. There will still be a surfeit of condo's to move. So why not have a two-for-one sale? That would take care of the excess supply, and address the affordability problem. A family of 4 could hardly live in a 430 sq. ft. condo, but if they had two of 'em, they could just spread out a bit. It would help too when the divorces spurred by cash-strapped couples start to kick in. It's a win-win-win solution!

Third, I have figured out what got this bubble going in the first place!

This RE bubble seems to have started with the advent of Bubble Tea Houses in Vancouver. I believe that a bunch of very rich Asians moved here, and hatched a plot to cloud the minds of us Occidentals. Feed us Bubble Tea until our brains turn to spume, or we choke to death on those little balls of Tapioca.

To really create hype, I reckon that the incentive should end on December 31st, 2006. Kind of an ancillary to buy now before you're priced ot forever. I'm sure that people will get very excited, and we can kick-start this market all over again in these Dark Days of December.

Of course, it may be necessary to double the price of a condo - so as not to lose money- but we've seen that already, and the value is there! We understand these things much better now, and expect it.

Hurry, Hurry, Hurry!

*photoshop image by author