In conjunction with the Maclean's story, the media barrage about the dismal real estate market continues.
The latest is Global TV, whose intro to the news story above starts:
The image may be attractive, but the reality sure is ugly when it comes to Vancouver real estate. New numbers for December show a bloodbath for residential sales.
To provide 'balance', the real estate industry gets to add the spin denied by Macleans. And the message is the same: there is no bubble.
The ray of hope being proffered? HAM will return!
Global ends with the R/E mantra that while sales are down and prices are holding firm.
Which brings us to the 2nd Global clip which focuses on the release of the new assessment values:
And it's the Global commentary that catches the breath of the bear observer used hearing the pro-R/E mantra from Global TV:
Curiously even our buddy Tsur Somerville let's slip that we are seeing a "slight easing of prices."
Your property assessments are now in the mail. And for the first time in years, house values in some of the Province's hottest markets have actually declined. While most assessments will reflect a slight change from last year, others will come as a quite a shock, reflecting a definite 'cooling-off' of the real estate market in places that were once white-hot.Naturally the real estate 'experts' are trotted out to tell you prices are actually 'flat' and not falling... and that the 'fundamental's' mean real estate can only go up.
Curiously even our buddy Tsur Somerville let's slip that we are seeing a "slight easing of prices."
With Global TV now clearly highlighting the bearish style of the equation, it's clear the media can no longer simply gloss over what is going on.
(hat tip to GreenhornRET for the archiving of the video clips)
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It's fascinating to watch the real estate marketing machine continue to deny the obvious. Let's see how long can they keep it up.
ReplyDeleteWelll...they're kinda right.There WAS a bubble,past tense.
ReplyDeleteNow there is a CRASH!
Or are you still in a bubble til the price reverts to before bubble prices?
We are past peak prices just like we're past Peak Oil.
The "insights" into the significance of the changes in the West Side Van and Whistler assessments suggests the writers of the second piece have no understanding of property tax or assessed value.
ReplyDeleteThe balance of the piece suggests their general real estate insights are on the level of an average high school student in Greater Vancouver.
Huh??
DeleteNo, they still have Pain, Guilt, Anger and Depression before they begin to accept it
ReplyDeleteDavid Lereah published "Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust - And How You Can Profit from It: How to Build Wealth in Today's Expanding Real Estate Market" on Feb 21st, 2006... how timely of him.
ReplyDeleteCompare that to the Case Shiller index and his timing could not have been any worse:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Case-Shiller_index.png
Later, Lereah would admit that he was routinely pressured by executives to issue (overly) optimistic forecasts
Hilarious. Of coarse these "experts" are on the defensive it's there bread and butter.
ReplyDeleteIt's all one giant farce. The only reason real estate prices are where they are is because of a decade of banks handing out cheap money. This is still continuing today under emergency interest rate policies. If it weren't for these emergency conditions the whole thing would have folded up long ago.
ReplyDeleteYou can see the whole city is suffering very badly from these anti-free market and intensely financially manipulated conditions.
For many in frothy circles Vancouver is a culture that lives in Alice in Wonderland, a real estate fantasy world that is now taking greater and greater energy to hold on to.
CBC is joining in the "news" too...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/01/10/business-sothebys-housing.html
But hidden in the middle of the article is our city:
The Vancouver market, however, did fall back, with sales of homes valued at over $1 million declining by 34 per cent on the year, falling back from the stratospheric highs in 2011.
Even in Vancouver, though, in the first half of the year, 22 per cent of homes listed at more than $1 million ended up selling over asking. By the latter half of the year, that dropped to five per cent.
Looking closely at the article, at what point did credit card debt paydowns become "savings"??? Strange concept. They're pooched, as Garth would say... Craig Sterling
ReplyDelete