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As everyone knows, the provincial election campaign is underway.
The reigning BC Liberal party has been plunging in the polls and faces a daunting, if not unlikely, task in the coming weeks.
And given the importance of real estate to the provincial economy, the prospect of a change in government is front and centre on the minds of many in the industry.
The website REW.CA, a real-estate listings site for the Lower Mainland, is watching the election with keen interest.
They're asking people who follow the Lower Mainland real estate market for their opinions on the effects of a possible change in the BC government.
The question: "How will the result of the BC election affect Lower Mainland real estate?"
They've asked for a comment from this blog.
Partisan politics aside, what do you think?
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I can't see the NDP being more developer friendly than the BC Libs. Definite hard times ahead.
ReplyDeleteAll those promises have to be paid for. Higher taxes on everything, especially high end real estate transactions.
ReplyDeleteNDP is going to win just as the crash really starts to take hold. Everyone will blame them for the crash forgetting that it started before they got elected.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comment.
Delete"The reigning BC Liberal party has been plunging in the polls and faces a daunting, if not unlikely, task in the coming weeks".
Delete-----------
Ha Ha Ha!!!
Excellent news!!! I heartily endorse an NDP win. Let them wear this coming decline in home prices and lets see what they can do to soften the blow. That membership is behind most of the troubles in BC and were behind the sell-out of the resource sector in past years. Maybe this win will be their last for another decade.
Agree with koozdra. NDP will be a one-term government, blamed for a faltered economy and crashed housing market.
ReplyDeleteI understand the NDP plan to implement a capital tax of 3% on banks and 1% on BC credit unions. I imagine this will directly impact interest rates upward, which can't be good for prices.
ReplyDeleteReal estate is already tanking. Won't make a difference who wins.
ReplyDeleteIf Dixicup wins you can expect a capital gains tax of 20% when you sell you home. What other major source of revenue does he have?
ReplyDeleteUm... "It'll put the lower in Lower Mainland"?
ReplyDeleteThen there's this: REBGV is lobbying hard to keep the party going for its members, though not by lowering their fees
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=8049621&sponsor=
I just can't figure out which party they're endorsing.
For the direction of BC economy, refer to 1990s.
ReplyDeleteNDP win. Business sad. Housing crash. Bear happy.
ReplyDeleteBen Rabideoux gave a speech tonight... he and his companion suggested that we look at Montreal to see what an NPD elected provincial government will do. 35000 listings currently in Montreal.
ReplyDeleteThe NDP will do what every other government has done, they'll try to keep the credit-fueled housing bubble afloat. Their silence on this issue has been defeaning, I think that's deliberate.
ReplyDeleteOf course, their just a bunch of boomer champagne socialists who have second home investments. They'll just make up for their guilt by building some social housing for the very poor.
DeleteThere is no difference if libs or ndp will be in power for the coming re meltdown. This bubble was created from many different factors. HAM and the CCP agenda to get their usd spending before its devalued has created bubbles throughout the globe.
ReplyDeleteCarney's QE canadian version compounded the effect thru cmhc.
Folks trying to get rich quick by taking huge leveraged risks further enabled the bubble expansion.
Now, the deleveraging by our central banks will cause a lot of misery, and its only the poor chap in charge of gov't at that moment in time that will have to answer to the angry mob.
But don't feel too sorry for them as they'll manage a lot better money wise than the average joe.
If election results really matter that much, you should be able to look backwards in time and pick the winners of past elections based on housing sales figures.
ReplyDeleteThis housing crash cannot be laid at the feet of any provincial government, incoming or outgoing. But, indiscriminately blaming the NDP for economic woes has been an useful campaign strategy in the past; why stop now?
I never thought I'd see the day when I'd vote for the party that would bring about economic decline. I remember hearing of a quote from Richmond City Councillor Harold Steves a few years ago that to make homes affordable what we need is a good recession.
ReplyDeleteIf home prices fell 1/3 like they did in the US, I could be unemployed for a year and still be far better off.
Some historical analysis here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vancouvermarket.ca/2013/04/16/with-one-month-until-provincial-election-commercial-market-unfazed/
Real estate is finished, regardless of who wins or loses next month. The NDP will unfairly get the blame for the resultant economic woes.
ReplyDeleteI actually cannot think of any provincial policies, past or present, that actually impact our current credit fueled housing binge. (Maybe credit union regulation, but that is a stretch.) The fact that housing across the country is behaving similarly should be enough evidence of that.
Politics aside, (although this is all about politics, provincial, local and otherwise)....
ReplyDeleteThe horse is out of the barn and with the world market manipulation in play B.C.'s election isn't going to make an iota of difference.
Get in, shut up and hold on - the ride is going to be long and bumpy!
Cheers,
Election Astrology, i can help you with.
ReplyDeleteThere is a Saturn Quincunx Venus aspect on May 14 that suggests we'll elect a party we are familiar with (sorry Greens). But based on past experience with this party, we won't have any love for it. The Saturn Quincunx Venus aspect strongly suspects an era of austerity. What we loved to do in the past will be severely crimped.
Like anything...if ppl are upset about something they feel entitled to and are not getting they will blame the gov't. And that means a change! Ironically, it will not be the right reasons. I mean the problems with gov't - and there are a lot - are never mentioned in the media or by the public. Without addressing the REAL issues, we can never hope for better. No matter what party is partying in the captain's cabin.
ReplyDeleteAs George Carlin used to say... "If voting really changed anything, they'd make it illegal."
ReplyDeleteIt is a great quote, but it was Emma Goldman who said that - we share the same country of origin, her and me.
DeleteThe NDP have already laid out that the tax bracket for income over $150,000 will be 9% higher than Alberta's in 2014. That's a massive gap. Smart money will have a big enough incentive now to move or receive that income in Alberta (the gap was less than 5% this year).
ReplyDeleteThe NDP somehow think that 9% of nothing is more than 5% of something.
In response to the general oft-repeated meme of the NDP being poor financial managers, and the Liberals being sound custodians of the public purse:
ReplyDeleteWhen the NDP took power in 1991, the provincial debt was $20 billion. When El Gordo and the Liberals won in 2001, it was $33.8 billion. $13.8 billion of new debt during the decade of NDP governance. At a time of low resource prices, which neither the NDP nor the Liberals can control. Mismanaging tax-and-spend economy-destroying socialists, right?
In 2011, provincial debt stood at $47.3 billion, a virtually identical 13.5 billion in new debt, at a time when resource prices were high. Ahh, those fiscally responsible Liberals! But wait, ever heard of "contractual obligations"?
As of last year, BC taxpayers have had it agreed to that they will pay over $80 billion over the next 30 years or so to all those wonderful caring private companies who built and now operate stuff like highways, bridges, hospitals, IPPs and much more. Eighty BILLION dollars of monthly payments extending in some cases past that 30 years, although the bulk is in the 20-30 year range. As a taxpayer, that feels an awful lot like debt to me! But it is buried, boring, very little talked about and definitely not tax-payer supported debt as officially defined. The IPP portion of it is surprisingly large, at $45 billion!
Links: Direct from the horses mouth, BC government PDF. http://www.llbc.leg.bc.ca/public/pubdocs/bcdocs/348389/2010_11/contractual_obligations.pdf
One of the rare media mentions.
http://www.straight.com/news/gabriel-yiu-bc-liberals-contractual-obligations-hide-magnitude-provincial-debt
So how does that Fiberal fiscal responsibility feel now, hmm? Over $127 billion in debt, that's over $28,000 per man,woman and child in BC! With the Liberals responsible for $21,000 of that, the NDP $3000 and all previous governments combining for the rounding error of the remainder.
This is a paste from an old thread on a different site, somewhat dated. Add about 30 billion to that total for current figures. The Liberals AREN"T good fiscal managers, they are just good at stocking a debt-fuelled boom, which on a short enough timeline looks like a strong economy.
It gets worse. My wife and I are part of the 1%. We have millions in investments and another million or so in real estate. We have an annual income well over $100k and we pay nothing in tax - nada, zip. O.K.- we pay $100 per annum property tax and sales taxes, which are just chump change.
DeleteHow is this possible? Easy, after Campbell and Harper drastically reduced the marginal income tax rates and dramatically increased the dividend tax credit. Why did it happen? Again easy – the rich wanted it that way and they call the shots. As Stephen King recently noted “The majority [of the rich] would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing “Disco Inferno” than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar” . What King is referring to are of course income taxes. The rich do not care about sales taxes – they really are inconsequential. It is tax on income and wealth that they hate. They and their media spokespeople always ask “so what should we do, soak the rich?” My response is yes, because you can not soak the poor, they have nothing to tax.
The end result is that in order to finance government activities, government turn to debt and PPP's etc. These look good in the short term but then the bills come due and you know the rest.
This is a terrible idea. Poor people are horrible capital allocators (witness what this idiot is doing with his lotto win, funding the pot party).
DeleteWhat we need are progressive consumption taxes, specifically higher taxes on high end real estate in Vancouver. If you want to go spending your money on nice things, you should have to pay big for it.
But if you live humble like the lower classes, re-invest your wealth wisely, than you should be able to keep it all.
Please note that I am not a big NDP fan, I desperately want a true fiscally conservative option to vote for (albeit one with an acknowledgement that society requires some parks, recreation, education, culture, and healthcare aspects that cannot be expected to turn a profit), but the Liberals simply aren't that party. No matter how much they and their business buddies say they are good fiscal managers the facts say otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI really really want a true fiscal conservative, socially liberal option!
The outcome of the election n BC will not change the fact that we have RE drama happening all across this country.Most folks who are house rich and cash poor... are about to get poorer.
ReplyDeleteThe election of an NDP ( socilaist) government will have the same effect here as it has done and will continue to do elsewhere and that is decrease economic activity and prosperity for all residents except for all the new public servants that will be hired to "pay back " the unions for their support.
ReplyDeleteAt this point the only thing that could rescue of the Liberals and Christy would be the Kardashian/Hilton type "Leak" of a Christy Clark sex tape. Really play the MILF card, hard.
ReplyDeleteThe question is Who would the partner be? Not a another fat flabby politician. Not her boring corrupt husband. How about either some hot 20 something hardbody ministerial assistant or a Swiss escort.
She has nothing to lose, right?
I think that there is limited amounts that government can do to affect the trajectory of the real estate market at the moment anyway, but...
ReplyDeleteI think that the federal government are the real drivers behind real estate growth/contraction. No one that I know who has bought has done so because of a little government tax break for first time buyers.
Does anyone follow the series on TV "Bones" Season 5? If yes, have you noticed the eerily similarity between Christy Clarke and the character of Heather Taffet/Gravedigger? Just saying...
ReplyDeleteReal estate demand is manipulated by federal governments through interest rates and the CMHC, and supply is controlled by local governments through zoning. There seems to be few tools that a provincial government has to influence real estate demand or supply. Perhaps, build social housing to increase some supply, but poor folk have little influence on market prices.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the blog House Hunt Victoria, home sales are hot. Best they've been in 3 years.
ReplyDelete"Gangbusters
It's not only the comments that are piling up, it's also the sales these days. I've got 27 SFH sales under $550k and 35 from $550 to $900k, which is the most I've seen since I've started tracking 2-3 years ago.
No sooner do I write an update about the low sales do they turn around. Will be interesting to see the final numbers for April.