Comments on: Where Have I Heard This Before?

By: womp

womp — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:56:15 +0000

Great stuff MikeC. You could probably write the VREB reports every month too.

“We continue to return to a balanced market” says VREB president Tony Joe…..

BTW you can follow inventory stats and discussion on my blog at http://www.restats.ca. Thanks for mentioning Victoria twist!

By: MikeC

MikeC — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:45:26 +0000

Hilarious news article template, Twist!
All the moreso because it is so true!

By: Poirot

Poirot — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:34:41 +0000

As a rule, the only time someone should panic is when someone else in a position of perceived authority says, “Don’t panic”

By: twist

twist — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:08:51 +0000

MikeC-

It’s enough to make you start singing the song from the children’s show Barney, Everyone is special, everyone is fine… as the “too special to fail” excuse is repeated over and over.

Having read so much of this stuff for years, I now feel qualified to write for newspapers about real estate markets from throughout the English speaking world. All you need is the following template:

Real Estate In [Insert city here]Is Stabilizing.

Home sales are finally stabilizing here in [Insert city here]says [Insert rookie agent or local realtor's association name here] While sales may be down [Insert huge double-digit drop here] year over year, we are up slightly from last month. [Do not make any mention that this is a seasonal phenomenon here.]

“Last year’s pace was simply unsustainable,” says [another rookie here]. “We welcome this return to normalicy.”

It’s true that the median prices have dropped [Insert ugly negative number here]from the peak, but this has finally made housing affordable here in [You got it by now]. By the end of the summer, we expect all the pent-up demand from first-time buyers and fence sitters to eat up the inventory that is [Large double digit positive number here] from last year. We expect the market to recover early next year.

It would be an easy gig.

By: MikeC

MikeC — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:35:13 +0000

Great post, Twist!
It’s about time that the constant cheerleading absurdity of the Victoria Real Estate board’s (and Vancouver Sun’s) reporting on the real estate market was revealed for what it truly is: just an echo of the desperate denials that were being printed in the Phoenix (and other U.S.) media about two years ago.

Well, we know what came of the deperate denials in the U.S. media two years ago, do we not? With that in mind, one would have to be an utter fool to go and buy an investment property in Victoria (or Vancouver) these days. This is ESPECIALLY when we know that
- interest rates are coming up soon (meaning even more pressures for prices to lower)
- there are many, many more cheaper, more attractive, properties in the U.S. (where there is better year-round climate)
- the Canadian dollar at about par with the U.S. dollar

Amazingly enough there are still many, MANY, people in Vancouver and Victoria that believe they “are different”. It’s quite hilarious, actually.