Richmond continues to suffer

Back after a couple of days away.

I see Silver has been up and down the past couple of days.  Just today it has hit lows of around $33.90 and highs of around $36.50. As I have mentioned before, we are in for a period of high volatility and Silver will continue to have a wild roller coaster ride for the next little while.  But make no mistake, Silver will go over $100 per ounce.  More on the topic another day.

I note that real estate in Richmond has been gaining some attention this week.

As faithful readers will recall, this blog did a post back on March 27th titled 'The Fickle Winds of Change'.

It was two weeks after the devastatingly massive Japan earthquakes/Tsunami and we noted that the repercussions from that little 'shake and slosh' would be felt in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond.

Several months after the quake, that is clearly the case.

Richmond, which has seen massive real estate gains from Asian buying, has the potential to replicate that Japanese countryside which was destoryed as Tsunami waves ripped across flat lands and bulldozed houses and buildings like matchsticks.

And the impact would not be lost on Chinese home buyers.

Well today the Richmond News, a Richmond community newspaper, headlined that the 'Shine off Richmond Market: number of listings grow as Chinese investors shy away'. This follows a similar story from one of our regions major daily newspapers, the Vancouver Sun.  The Sun story ran on May 7th and headlined that 'Japan's quake has Chinese investors wary of Richmond'.

People aren't stupid. After watching the devastating images from Japan, nervous eyes are glancing at Richmond, which sits below sea level with only a rinky dink little two foot dyke as protection. The predicted 30 metre Tsunami triggered by a 9.0 earthquake would wipe Richmond houses off the face of the earth.

As the City of Richmond website notes,

• "Richmond is located on a floodplain. A ‘floodplain’ is: 'land adjacent to a watercourse that is susceptible to flooding', such as from periods of high tide. In addition, isolated instances of flooding can occur in any community as a result of unanticipated weather events. To protect Richmond from the possibility of flooding due to high tides or river floods, the City has constructed a comprehensive system of dykes on Lulu Island. These dykes are over 49 km in length and protect an area of 12,805 ha."

It will be interesting to watch Richmond to see just what sort of impact this will have six months from now.  Memories can be short so we are keen to see how long this trend lasts. 

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