Posts tagged "property"

February 12 2011
Tags: property

As reported in the fall, Millenium water, the second name for the briefly proud Olympic Village of the 2010 Winter Olympics, went bankrupt after 6 months of trying to sell itself as an overpriced luxury condo village.

This month, the former Olympic Village has been renamed yet again to the ridiculously parochial "The Village on False Creek" and will try once more to lure unwary buyers. Funny how marketers are convinced that all that's required to smooth away a debacle is a new name and brand statement.

They might want to try something else.


November 18 2010
Tags: property

Like the expected death of a sick and elderly relative, the demise of Millenium Water in Vancouver---expected for months by many housing realists---is still a shock. Perhaps we secretly hoped that the laughable boosterism of the Vancouver Real Estate industry was somehow going to pull it through. RIP


October 14 2010
Tags: property

For the last 100 years houses have primarily provided shelter and a hedge against inflation. It's only recently that they've become a widely used source of speculation and --- via home equity loans --- collateral for collosal household debt.


September 14 2010
Tags: property

Talk about closing the door after the horse has bolted...

The Paris-based OECD, a club of wealthy nations that includes Canada and 32 other economies, suggested Ottawa could require home buyers to put up bigger down payments if they want their mortgages federally insured. The government could also consider forcing banks to disclose the sensitivity of their mortgage revenues to rate hikes.


September 05 2010
Tags: property

Finally, media stories are starting to confess what the data has been showing for more than two years. The Vancouver bubble is bursting. In fact the recent stimulus-induced bounce (a temporary reverse in the decline that was just getting started) has boosted the peak even higher, which makes looking over the precipice even more vertigo-inducing than it was two years ago.

Nice to see the usually smug Bob Rennie looking seasick for a change...


June 08 2010

"Our analysis depicts a coming generational transition in the housing market that will upset the historic balance of buyers and sellers. Residents in most states are net buyers of homes well into their 50s. The resulting upward pressure on demand by the large baby boom generation will soon peak, and after age 70 they will be net sellers in all except three states."

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March 05 2010

Robert Shiller thinks the risk of a double dip recession is not great with the exception of the housing market....


"I think there is a definite risk of a turn down again in home prices, if home prices decline 10% or 20% more, we are in big trouble."


February 16 2010

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty finally decided he would have to do something that the Bank of Canada can't, or won't: tighten the availability of easy mortgage financing.


February 09 2010

Despite major Canadian banks urging caution, neither the Finance Minister nor the governor of the Bank Of Canada are willing to risk the public wrath of forcing property price declines by raising interest rates.

Of course by not doing so, they are deferring a much bigger financial and political problem for the future---precisely the behaviour that led to the global financial crisis in the first place.



February 09 2010

$3.5 Billion erased by buying at the top of the market in 2006 and walking away at the bottom in 2010.

From the Globe and Mail

It's a deal so big and so bad that one observer mused it was the city's worst property transaction since a group of Native Americans were swindled out of the island of Manhattan by Dutch settlers.

That means the investors who put up the original equity among them two California pension funds and the Church of England have seen their investments wiped out. Those who provided money for the mortgages, depending on the level of risk, will also take heavy, and in some cases total, losses. The owners defaulted on their loans, and at the end of January, said they would hand over the property to creditors rather than file for bankruptcy.


February 08 2010

In the days before the housing crisis, the idea of a bank foreclosure filled any homeowner's mind with dread and shame. Now, with so many Americans owing more on their homes than they're worth, some people are taking a whole new approach: essentially saying, "Foreclose on me, please." It's more technically known as a "strategic default."


January 25 2010
Tags: property

Garth Turner

In Vancouver and the Lower Mainland right now, not being a real estate crackhead is weird. Thinking people who pay $900,000 for an unrenovated schleppy Fifties bung in a dodgy area are delusional is weird. Not succumbing to the pressure of helicopter parents and nesting spouses to throw yourself into a pit of mortgage debt for your entire adult life is weird.

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