bill's overdue

Do we need some tragi-comic relief?

Well, maybe a trip down memory lane to January 31st of this year, when semi-anonymous bill left the nuggets quoted below, along with some other stuff about how he bought a place by borrowing the down payment from his parents, and it will only go up, and he will never lose his job, and the economy is solid, and other stuff like that. He promised to come back in the summer, and he only has 19 days left to do so.

I've got a crow on the barbie for him, and he is overdue. The crow is pretty well smoked too.

Anonymous said...
Anyways, enough of my ramblings. I will leave you boys alone to discuss *when* the market will crash, as you all have been for the past few years. Must be like waiting for paint to dry, eh?

1/31/2008 12:02 AM
Anonymous said...
PS: Please remember my posts. Really. Please do. My name's Bill. I will check back in the summertime, when things get *ugly*, as you say. Haha. In the meantime, keep posting, keep the ideas flowing, and never forget - there's two sides to every coin.

I have not forgotten your posts Bill. What a sexist! In assuming that we are all "boys" here, you excluded mk-kids, and a lot of other women. Good luck with the girls, you swinging bachelor, you.

Oh, and Bill, the paint is peeling off the facade.

Heads I win, tails you lose.

"W" is for Winner (or wiener).

being

I've been as busy as the bees captured above; hence the dearth of posting. It's not just the usual vagaries of life, diapers and baths, and paying bills, and all of that, I have been immersed in other studies (besides real estate) as well.

I'm a political junkie, and have been for many years (thanks, Grandma!). I have belonged to no party, and never will, and can swing either way, though as I get older, I tend to "dress to the left" more and more. I guess that I just am becoming mellow with age. Anyhow, there is an interesting situation coming to a head in our own Canadian politics, and I have been plunged into that (from a reading/time perspective).

I have been unsettled for quite some time (years), but now, am more so. I'm not going to turn this into a political blog (just yet), but it is the big picture that I look at, and it seems more tenuous daily. I feel that real estate is going to be one of our biggest problems, while at the same time, the least of our worries in the next few years. I fear that it is going to get much more basic than stainless steel and granite, and flippers and pre-sales.

My fascination with politics tends more to our own, but I also keep an eye towards global politics. I've had much less of an understanding of global affairs (generally hindsight), but feel that it is important to keep an eye on them. The US situation will always affect us here - and no wonder, it affects the whole world - but it is truly fascinating these days. I don't root for anyone, so much as revile the worst of two evils, but this coming election in the US in November is one of those cross roads of history, I believe, and not because Obama is a "black man", though that aspect is pivotal on the long run. I don't delve too deep, but I see little difference between the policies of the two front runners. What would thrill me, is if the likes of Ron Paul or Ralph Nader won. In the state that the US is in (serendipitous pun welcomed), either would be better for the country, and the world. I worry about what mischief Bush will get up too before January 2009.

I started reading Linda McQuaig's book The Cult of Impotence, and, whoa. It makes Dark Age Ahead look like The Sound of Music. I have not got that far into it yet, but it rather starkly confirms a lot of my weary (and wearying) rants about serfdom, etc. This excerpt greeted me in the first few pages :

AN EXPERT...on CBC Radio's "Sunday Morning"...Dr. Ian Angell, professor...at the London School of Economics, is explaining how most of the working population will soon be redundant.

"Isn't there an economic cost to writing off the world's workers?" asks host Ian Brown.

The question suggests that Brown has bought the basic parameters of the debate: that we discuss only economic cost. Brown is asking:

How does the unemployment of most of the world's population fit society's basic business plan? No one mentions human cost. Still, the question doesn't suit Dr. Angell. Impatience is detectable in his voice. "This requires a total rethinking of the institutions of the industrial age. You must throw them away;' says Dr. Angell..."All your thinking has to be different'

As the interview progresses, Brown becomes increasingly sceptical... His questions reveal that he's struggling to see how all this unemployment helps ordinary people.

Answer: it doesn't,

But that's not the issue...

An emboldened Ian Brown asks something about how people are to survive. Dr. Angell is getting a touch irritated with these repetitive questions about human needs. Brown just doesn't seem to get it, The point is that we're in a brand-new age, the information age. Technology and globalisation have made all these questions about human needs irrelevant. That's part of yesterday's menu. Today, simply watch as the technological juggernaut rolls on, squashing our needs.

"Is this a world you look forward to?" asks Brown, trying to make some sense of it all.

"That's neither here nor there;' responds Dr. Angell.

"Is there some way we can stop this?" Brown asks anxiously. Is there nothing we can do to avoid this dark future?"

That's when Dr. Angell snaps. "That question reflects the thinking of the machine age" he says curtly.

Hold it. Let's play that again slowly. This line is more subversive than it first appears. It is perhaps as subversive a thought as it is possible to have. Dr. Angell is saying it's just that we can't change things, but we can't even think about the possibility of changing things; to do so is to engage in old-style thinking.

So, it's not just that we're powerless to stop being pushed over the edge of the cliff in the new global world order. But to even try to prevent ourselves from being pushed over the cliff is a sign of regressive thinking.

The new way of thinking, as outlined by Dr. Angell, requires acceptance of powerlessness, resignation to a world without solutions - a world of inaction and helplessness. That democratic impulse to assert one's rights must be contained, thwarted, rendered mute and inoperative. Never mind the democratic impulse. It's actually the human impulse that's at stake here. The human impulse to act, to build, to create, to improve, to shape our lives, to use our brains to do better. It's called being alive.

It's just got to go.

There is much more, I have just started reading, but pulling back, and applying these words to our life today, it makes one see how we got to where we are, with the mindlessness of people chasing clouds and faeries today (the book was first published in 1998). All the power of the media has been focused on people's abnegation of common sense and personal determination. "We must buy a POS before we are priced out forever", etc.

There are 117 banks in danger of collapsing in the US at present, with more to come. Trillions in debt needing servicing, and the money is becoming ever scarcer. This is what McQuaig's book is really about (as far as I can discern so far), the power of money, and the powerlessness of governments to make sure their citizens lead a decent life, let alone on an individual level.

It has been a tough week, and I have been doing some tough reading, thus my somewhat dejected outlook right now. I'm finding it hard to be passionate, or even interested in RE these days. Hopefully, the weekend will refresh me.

she's come undone

She's come off the rails, and it doesn't look like it's going to be a slow-motion train wreck. Everything is looking down from here.

Calgary had a major project cancelled on Friday. I read a snide comment somewhere wondering if Calgary had run out of oil. Infinity Towers in Vancouver sounds rather uncertain, and anecdotal to what I read over at Rob Chipman's, sales prices are dropping in the double digits. The smart ones have bailed already, and the hangers-on are starting to catch on. Throw in Death, Divorce, Transfer, and add a dollop of economic downturn and unemployment, and things are looking grim for the last fools out.

Sheesh, even mohican got metrics to work for him, and bought at a twenty percent discount.

Yee-haw! I'm looking forward to the autumn apocalypse.

broaken dreems

I heard a piece on CBC Radio today about Brian Howell, who has been taking photographs of abandoned houses in Surrey. At first, I was wondering at why there were abandoned houses in Surrey; is it really that bad in there? Has the market really melted down, and it just escaped my attention? Upon reading the article (linked above), I realized that it was old (1950s, and '60s, and '70s) houses - on large lots that were being subdivided to build a bunch of small houses.

It is poignant to look at the photographs though - at one time, these were brand-new houses that people were proud to build and own. 50 years of Christmases, Hanukkahs, Easters, Diwalis, whatevers, birthday parties, first kisses and gropes in dark basements, fights, divorces, deaths, births, grandparents and kittens. Good grief, I'm getting maudlin and overly sentimental...

Really though, it's just about densification -

The population of Surrey is approaching 420,000. The city gains 1,000 to 1,500 new residents each month. Within 20 years, Surrey's population will be greater than Vancouver's.,

and houses are not (yet) being abandoned by distressed RE debtors.

That comes later.

fud (edited for accuracy)

I can't make any sense of anything anymore. Everything that I read says something different. Over at Rob Chipman's, there are some claiming that prices are down 15%, while The Financial Post says "The result was Vancouver home prices actually fell 1% in July from a year earlier...with an average price of $575,256.".

So, varying numbers, depending on what one reads. The only number I pay attention to is an MLS search for houses between $300K-$400K in all of East Vancouver. There is still only one, which I reported last week - V726309 - $335K on a 55 x 37.22 lot. Rented out at $945/month, an investor only stands to subsidise the rent by $1505/month (with 5% down). Wow! What a deal. I don't really plan on spending that much money when I do buy a place, but $400K was my drop-out level on the way up, and I won't be grabbing at any knives on the way down. When I can buy a renovated Craftsman bungalow in the Commercial Dr. area for $300K, I will be thinking we are near bottom. Unless, of course, there is a cataclysmic meltdown of some type, and then, none of us will be thinking much of buying anything.

I have been thinking of physical gold and silver lately, and that is kind of weird, as I am pretty leery of commodities. Maybe I'm just fatigued by it all. Gold is down some 20% since Rubberbladder was pumping it a while ago, and the US$ is inexplicably up. I read an interesting article on the subject of the US$,

Economists who now see American troubles spreading around the world are predicting that foreign central banks will ignore the gathering inflation threat and follow the Fed down the rate cutting path. Similarly, they argue that since the downturn began here, the U.S. recovery will likely be underway while the rest of world is still decelerating. These assumptions have prompted a rally in the dollar, a sell-off in gold, commodities and foreign stocks, and have cast doubts on the ability of foreign economies to “decouple” from the United States. Investors should not take the bait.

Read the whole thing if you are interested. This article on gold was interesting, stating that the US Mint has suspended gold coin sales. From the article;

The suspension is overwhelming evidence that the futures contract price of gold on the commodities exchanges is substantially below the physical market price and that, indeed, the commodities exchanges are being used as GATA long has maintained -- as part of a massive scheme of manipulation of the precious metals, currency, and bond markets.

I just can't make any sense of all of this gobbledy-gook. It is just FUD, to me.

the view from here

Things still look stoopid out there. Prices and quality are all over the place. I gave up on trying to keep track of asking prices for comparison a while ago, I just don't care that much. My new criteria for judging how things are going is to do a search in the whole of East Vancouver for places under $400K. I found one today; MLS V726307 It's a crack shack on a 55' x 37.22' lot for $335,000. Monthly payment (with 5% down) is $ 2,450, Household Income Required $ 91,866. Great deal for that high school principal. The adjacent lot is for sale as well, and I presume for much the same price, so a 110' x 75' lot will cost you less than $700K! Don't worry about the dubious address, something good will happen.

I have noticed that I don't get the flyers in my door telling me that such and such agent has a buyer for my house (whether it's for sale, or not), and I don't get the free note pads from William Wat and his cohorts anymore. The heady days of lots of paper for shopping lists are over. A free note pad to whomever can guess what the picture above is!

My neighbour had her flipper house for sale for the high $800's, for a couple of months with no bites. She cannot sell it for less without losing money. It doesn't show up on MLS anymore, though the "For Sale" sign is still up. It is now some kind of rooming house that violates the zoning. I am not a jerk enough to complain to the city, and it's kind of cool living next to a rabbit warren anyhow.

It is getting easier to spot flipper houses, the prices don't seem to drop, and they sit empty. People are reporting serious price drops over at the cool blogs like the pope's and Rob Chipman's, but I don't follow individual places closely enough to comment. I still see some old favourites on MLS, but I can't make comparisons to 3 months, or 6 months, or longer ago. Could be a slow bleed. We will have to wait for the economy to worsen. Or, not!

It sure looks like down from here. I heard it on the news!

UPDATE


The picture is of the interior of a plastic watering can with the setting sun high-lighting the tulip pattern embossed on the side. I dunno, there is something poignant about the setting sun, black holes, tulips, RE... I just played with it a bit.

tony danza and blue skies came closest in the contest (the only ones! sheesh!), in that their conjectures involved aqueous solutions.

Unfortunately, the contest is now over, and no note pad prizes were awarded.

monkeys and money

Tom Waits interviews himself on NPR, and leaves us with this pearl;

Q: What's wrong with the world?
A: We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. Leona Helmsley's dog made $12 million last year... and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio, made $30,000. It's just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains. We are monkeys with money and guns.

Yeah, so, whatever that means, Tom. Your hazmanhatten is a treble clef.

I watched a re-run of The Passionate Eye last night, in which it stated that there were 2 million families in the US whose houses were in foreclosure. That was in October 2007. At ~ 2.4 kids per family, that is around 9 million people "out on the street". That is a huge number of people. Add on the people who were displaced (oh, so gentle and sanitized a term) by Hurricane Katrina, and the smell of civil unrest begins to permeate. Of course, that has nothing to do with us here. We have the moun...the Olym...the weath...running out o..., well, you know... We're special.

anon. left a link to the Seattle meltdown in the comments section of the last post (go look, I'm too inebriated to provide a a link - just kidding about the inebriation), and I particularly liked the reduction on this one;

Total Loss: $132,000 Percent Loss: 19.4%
Asking Price: $548,000
Bedrooms:3 Baths: 2.5 Sq. feet:1888

Previous Sales:
Sold on 2008-04-25 for $680,000
Sold on 2007-02-26 for $1,850,000

Some of the numbers don't quite jive, the listing detail says that it was built in 2008, but the sale of February 2007 says that it sold for $1.85 million, and it is now listed for $548K. That's about a 70% reduction from peak, by my quick math. Yikes!

Last week this reckless, classless little blog got the most visitors in one day, ever, as far as I know. I don't pay too much attention to those numbers, but it made me curious; was it some kind of notoriety, or infamy, for my part in taking out a blog that spewed more nonsense than I do?, or is the general populace exhibiting a sense of the trembling of the tectonic shift in their "net (if un-actualized) worth" - vis-a-vis their RE holdings, and checking the Interwovennet for anything with the term Real Estate in it? I guess they did not read the (un)real part of the blog title. Did they read that 40 Year/0% down contract comprehensively?

Something about Waits' allusion to monkeys and money starts to become more clear.

The keyboard has been drinking, not me...

shrink wrap

I feel like my head is shrinking. Mrs. solipsist calls it baby-head, I call it brain dead.

The blogging pool has shrunk, a bunch of bears chased a disingenuous realtor off the web, which was never my intention, but c'est la vie. There is a lot of talk of this being a buyers' market, but I don't see it that way. I see it as being a faltering market teetering on the brink. It is not even a balanced market according to Rob Chipman.

The CBC has been reporting that sale prices have shrunk 2.1% over last year - erp, that is since May./edit This morning I heard Cameron Muir being interviewed, and he had the regular spin-sheet in front of him, from what I could hear (li'l solipsist was making a racket). I also heard the head of Freddie Mac throwing out some astonishing numbers, and contending that the US market is only half way to the bottom. It's a good thing that Vancouver is not subject to market cycles, and...oh, wait, sale prices are down YOY, and inventory is way up. Ah well, it's a buyers' market now, and prices are as low as they will go.

CBC Newsworld had an item the other night about the treatment of Beijing residents in the run-up to their Olympic Games. There has been a lot of squawking in Vancouver about SROs being converted ahead of our Games, and their tenants being evicted, but it is nothing compared to what has happened in China's capitol. Something like a million people have had their homes bulldozed, and they have been turfed out without any compensation. Businesses are not immune either, with many being forcibly shut down so that the marathon runners do not have to look at them as they run by. Beijing has been gutted. It could be a lot worse here if we had a totalitarian government.

India's economy is reversing and shrinking (and China's probably is too). The demand for oil has been shrinking, and along with it, the bbl price. Tourism is shrinking, but the gas prices at the pumps are not. When the bbl price of oil goes up, the prices at the pumps go up within 24 hours, but even with decreased demand, higher than expected fuel inventories, and the bbl price down over 20%, our pump price is just slightly less than it was when oil was trading at almost $150/bbl. We are being screwed, as usual.

Air Canada, Bell, GM, Ford, forestry, etc., have all been shrinking their work forces, and a lot of people are out of their jobs. The plywood mill that burned down in Prince George will not be rebuilt, and hundreds of jobs there are lost. I suppose that the demand for plywood has been shrinking too, with the demand in the States having shrunk so much.

I was considering shrink wrapping this blog, what with my available time to read, think and write having shrunk so much, but I am loathe to do so, with things just starting to get interesting.

I caught this shrunken house in my perambulations, and thought to share it here. There is something about it that makes me think of the future of Vancouver RE.



Everything shrinks.

the jean gibson fan club

It is still a buyer's market. The number of homes on the market has increased and the asking prices have adjusted to the market. Now is a great time to buy, while Vancouver homes are at rock-bottom prices.

Good grief.They must have started adding mind-addling fluoride (or something) to the water when I was not looking. The above quote is from the Kerrisdale Real Estate blog. The picture is a screen-shot of the blog page.

The previous article, entitled Buy The Dream has seven things that jean (the realtor/author) has learned about Real Estate. They sound to be from Ozzie Jurock's latest $1599 RE Action Week-end, or maybe just from his Insider Alerts.

Now, I'm not usually vindictive, or even nasty, but I am feeling a bit ornery lately (I have my reasons). Jean looks to be a nice, grandmotherly type (In a W.A.S.P.ish way), but how can she believe the crap that she is writing? Will anybody else believe it?

I would like to see every person, who reads this, own their own home. Preferably using me as their realtor.
I hope I have nudged you to go out and buy that dream!

Now, that is just elitest. She wishes every person who reads her article will own their own home. What about the other 3.999999 million people in BC who will never read those words? Too bad. And I love the plug to use her as your realtor. (She forgot the capitalization, and TM. I am more deliberate)

I don't get a huge number of comments here, and I appreciate the ones that I do get, but this lady had ZERO comments until today (other than spam), when a bunch of readers of Rob Chipman's blog trooped over there and started laying on a bunch of snark for her. So, why not join the jean gibson fan club, and mosey on over to leave your good wishes? I am sure that she will be gratified by the traffic.

Just be nice, she is, after all, someones Grandma.

good and cheap, and fast

Well, the lawns have withered, the trees are thirsty, and the bloom is off the rose. No real relief in sight. Oh, a few raindrops over-night, but that is nothing compared to the rains that are needed, and will come - as sure as November will.

Waidaminit! I am I writing of the weather? Or the RE market? Both, really.

I don't bother checking inventory much any more, I see a lot of "For Sale" signs, a lot have regular open houses marked, but all that traffic on the streets must be heading to Well-mart, they sure are not going house shopping from what I can see. I don't see enough "REDUCED!" signs though. Very few in fact. They will come in November too.

My neighbour finally dropped $35 and had the grass cut, but still, no takers. She has not lowered her ludicrous asking price - I don't think that she can, and still get away clean. The renters moved away, and now she is renting the place out furnished. It seems that a few people have come and gone, so I don't think that it is working out so well. Stagnation seems to be an appropriate descriptor.

Inflation rhymes with stagnation, and I came across a link to an article entitled The Great American Nightmare. I won't rehash it here, but it is worth a read. The author talks about "shadow inflation" - as opposed to official figures, and talks of how the numbers are twisted to make things "look better" than they really are. We all know that though, and it is the same with unemployment numbers.

The article is in relation to the US, and some may be quick to point out that we are somehow insulated from it in Canada because we are special, and have the oil sands, and timber, and weather, and the mountains, and the Olympics, and, and... But we know how goes Amurika, so goes the world. Globalization is just that. No doubt that power and influence is shifting, but he who has nukes, well, still has power.

The US has Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae, and we have CHMC. They have subprime, we have zero-down/40 year amort. Oh yes, and then BoC buying junk bonds, or ABCP if you will.

The US has hundreds of banks failing, and we have noises of deregulation of banking, and the big five buying ABCP. I don't even want to touch that.

Inflation is a lot higher than reported in Canada, and we "smart ones", who did not buy in, are seeing our savings erode. Maybe the 0%/40 Year bunch (or at least some of them), are not so stupid after all. The dumb ones are about to lose a lot more though.

Oh well, at least I am sure that the next shoe to drop is higher interest rates. Hopefully, they will be high enough to off-set inflation. But they never are, are they? Maybe randombabble was not so wrong on the future of gold.

I'd rather buy tins of food and ammo.

The title of this post was a lame attempt to tie the picture to the post (it is cheap, and sort of fast, but good? Huh?). We all want to see houses get good and cheap, and fast, do we not? But I can't help but think that anything built in the last five years will not be good - no matter how cheap it is. Too fast.

I ripped off the photo at top from another blog, but at least I straightened it, cropped it, and adjusted contrast, etc.

our kittinger moment

On 16 August 1960, Joe Kittinger jumped from a balloon into the stratosphere (102,800 ft.) to make the longest skydive from the highest altitude in history. He reached a peak velocity of 614 mph (988 km/h), a mark that still stands as the fastest speed ever reached by a human without a vehicle. Though Kittinger fell short of supersonic speeds, he did get pretty close.

Automatic camera recording Kittinger as he leapt from the Excelsior balloon

I see this as analogous to the RE market that we have. It is stratospheric, and record-breaking. It is very cold and lonely up here, and there is only one way down - free-fall, and hope that the parachute works.

Despite the planning of NASA, USAF, etc., no one knew just how it would go. Kittenger's pressure suit sprang a leak, and he suffered intense pain in his hand. Between 90,000 feet and 70,000 feet, Kittenger had great difficulty in breathing. Jayzus, 614 MPH straight down.

Here is the formula that describes his acceleration:

where

v = terminal velocity
v/0 = initial velocity, which is zero in this case
a = acceleration, due to gravity in this case
Deltax = change in distance, 12,800 ft (3,900 m) in this case

I wanted to write a formula that would describe the potential of acceleration once this market starts its free-fall, but my calculus sucks. It will be horrific though, and will likely reach a velocity heretofore unheard of.

Canadians owe $100 Billion in unsecured credit card debt, and who knows how many billions in mortgage debt. Our manufacturing sector has imploded, and continues to burn. Job growth in recent years is mostly in the government, and of course, part-time and service industry jobs. Our federal government has no cookies in the cupboard for when things start to get tough in the next year or so. The US (our biggest market) is already in free-fall, with $1 Trillion in unsecured credit card debt, and of course, a 15% decline in property values (nationally - with some markets down ~40%). That $1 Trillion is not so scary - it is 10x what Canadians owe, but they have 10x our population. Per capita, we are in the same boat.

It is a long, long way down from here, and I think that the fall is going to be very swift.

No parachute either.

604 it's over

or, more signs of the times


I rather liked the last post picture, with allusions to perversion, a black hole sucking in the 604 area code, y'know.

The picture for today seemed emblematic as well - a sign advertising "quality homes" that has a mean list to it. I hope they build homes better than they put up signs. It does not instill confidence. Most of us are well aware of the preponderance of cheap construction and poor workmanship these days. Having a sign like that is like going to a job interview downtown unshaven, and unwashed.

Shortly after taking that picture, I saw a roofing crew re-doing a residential roof. The truck driver did not seem to know how to operate the boom crane to load the new shingles onto the roof, and I watched in dread anticipation of a work place accident. Nobody seemed to know what they were doing - the roof was not properly stripped, and it looked as if they were going to shingle over the remaining nails and detritus from the old roof. I had to keep moving.

Somewhat disheartened, I came across this place -


and my heart sang again. I like the style, and the use of the lot. It was refreshing to see after seeing so many dreary New Vancouver Specious - er, Specials. They look to be quality built, it is apparent from the curb. I like the whimsy of the upper floor windows, and half-expected to see The Cat in the Hat lurking about somewhere. It looks like Dutch Modern meets Harbour Grace, NFLD, or such. Why can't tasteful, quality construction be codified? If we are going for density, let's do it right.

A bit further on, I passed another house under construction, and saw a guy putting up the fascia above the front entrance. It was uneven, and there was a gap. I fully expected to see the guy leave it that way, but he actually pulled it off and fixed it! I commented to him as I passed, and thanked him for making it right. Why should that make me so happy? I am just so tired of seeing crap being built, and having to look at it.

Then again, maybe I am just manic today.

the tug of gravity...

...or signs of the times



I found this one in my peregrinations. For rent, and for sale. I know that there is some twisted logic to that - such as if it's rented, the revenue income will be a selling point! There has got to be some great big fool looking for an investment property... Thing is;

a) Who is going to rent a house that will be sold out from underneath them, and have to put up with open houses every Sunday, and other showings? I wouldn't rent it. And who is going to buy it if tenanted?

b) Rent would not cover much more than 1/2 of the mortgage payments on this POS.

Meanwhile, the house sits vacant, and sucks money down an ever bleaker black hole.

The only signs that seem to be missing, are REDUCED, and/or FORECLOSURE.

Weird.

$890,000.00

Thanks to R.Di for pointing out this travesty @2630 FRANKLIN ST, Hastings East, Vancouver East. v718488



$890,000.00?!!! WTF are these people smoking down on Franklin ST.? It reminds me of The Charge of The Light Brigade, or the Kamikaze Cult. No guts, no glory.

IT IS OVER! Shave your price by $600G's, and you might get a low-ball offer of $225K.

I have a mind to get a real estate license - just so that I could arrange to take your 75% off, low-ball offers to people like this. Any bored agents out there?

Actually, I wouldn't buy the place for an even $200K.

Any FTB better hurry to get in on this one to be a FB - as of October 15th, forget about that zero-down, 40 year amort., cash-back action, yer going to have to slap down 5% with a 35 year amortization. The handy Royal Bank mortgage calculator tells us that if you make accelerated weekly payments of $1,245.09 (a measly $4930.86/mo.), you can own this puppy outright in 27 years. It will take an annual income of about $200K to buy this place at these terms. Is here a surgeon in the house? A CEO of a middle corporation?

OK, I know that it is only really move-up buyers that are buying these places, but I am curious as to exactly from where someone would "move up" to this place. The Cecil Hotel?

I'm not normally subject to schadenfreude, but I feel a big, smug smirk coming over me.

strange fruit

I was out wandering with li'l solipsist today, and noticed a lot of strange new fruit (depicted below) amongst the flowers and trees that he demands identification of.

Joe Chan (in the first picture) has had that place for sale for months. Ellie Chan joined him next door, and Winnie Lam is next to her. Two doors down, a house struggling to be completed will soon be for sale (I photoshopped its sign). Half the damn block is for sale! The Joe Chan, and the Winnie Lam both appeared to be vacant. On the block behind me, at least two places were for sale - one of which is vacant.

The new crop continued to flourish, and I could only take so many pictures. I ended with the Wong consortium when I noticed that the wee gaffer had fallen asleep in boredom. Yawn.





There is something wong with this picture (sorry, I could not resist that) - it is starting to look like the pictures we were seeing from California, etc., where everything looked to be for sale - and no buyers.

Strange fruit, come early. I predict a bitter harvest by the time the Harvest Moon rolls through the sky. Especially with the October 15th !Surprise! of revised qualification requirements for mortgages.

It is finally over.

bestial book ends

(click the pic for biggy)

I spotted these evil twins on Copley - just east of Nanaimo. Good grief! They look like raffle prizes from a monster truck show, or worse. Side-by-side slaps in the face.

I have noticed a "deteriorating" trend in the finishes on these now ubiquitous press board boxes. Gone are the heady days of Mandarin Orange, Venous Red, Fecal Brown, etc. stucco, the final push into oblivion is vinyl siding. I guess that maybe there was a deal on it before the carbon tax kicked in. Way to go on mitigating your carbon footprint folks! (and building hideous houses while you are at it) Way to go on maximizing your profits even further. It's just too bad for you that you are too late to the party. BEEP!

But who would buy such candy floss crap? Really ugly twins? What were these builders thinking? Or not? Do they not realise that the days of buying sight-unseen are over? The half-dead tree liability is a nice touch too. Shoulda been more careful with the excavator.

Vancouver is being left with a sad legacy of soul-less, cheaply built (but very expensive) buildings - from leaking, rotting, crumbling condos to this kind of offense. There ought to be a law.

888 state

Yesterday I was out and about, and noticed more "For Sale" signs than I have seen for a while. It seems that there are 4 or so on every block. It seems that it is sinking in that it is over.

My neighbour has had open houses the last three week-ends in a row. It seemed that it was mostly Chinese looking (I can tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. 19 times out of 20 +/- 3%). No Mercedes, Lexus, BMW, mostly small, less expensive vehicles. Maybe that indicates they are more frugal, and can afford a $900K house on a smallish lot in East Van.? Maybe not. I enjoyed doing yard work while my stereo pumped the Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Forgotten Rebels, etc., out my window. Hey! fore-warned is fore-armed. Right? The asking price is 20% higher than it was bought for last year. And the defects are starting to show. Good luck with that.

So, I was all juiced up, and did some MLS searching. Still no houses in East Van. under $400K. I guess we will have to wait for fall for things to sink in. Prices and quality are all over the map, with tear-downs listed in the same price range as new construction, and big lots in the same range as small lots. A little price compression before the price depression sinks in, me thinks.

What I found interesting was all of the houses listed with a bunch of eights. I counted 10 places (out of 160 or so) that were listed for $888K. That is kind of blatant, and if I were Chinese, I would be somewhat offended. Do the listing agents think that they (Chinese) are that stupid/naive/superstitious? You would not want to mess with over/under bids on a place that was listed for $888,888.00 would you? I'll give you $888,888.88 plus my lucky rabbit foot. No Deal? I'll throw in a four-leaf clover!

Sadly, many who over-extended themselves to buy in the last couple of years - with the hopes of insane appreciation - did not see the credit crisis, doubling of energy costs, accelerating property taxes to pay for Olympic cost over-runs, food inflation of 30%, etc., coming when they factored their top line.

Why don't we just start bidding $300K with a bunch of conditions on these $800K places? Let us bring it down!

There are deals ahead. Keep your powder dry.