Who ya gonna trust?

The blog buzzbuzzhome is running an online poll asking "Who is the most trustworthy expert on Vancouver's real estate market?"

This follows a similar poll done on Toronto's market.

BuzzBuzzHome (BBH) promotes itself as a blog

focused on cataloguing all new residential developments in North America, connecting purchasers directly with sellers, and providing social tools that enable collaboration amongst purchasers and industry experts.

They have graciously added this blog to the list of options to vote for in their poll. In describing each entry, here is how our blog is summarized (click on image to enlarge):

BBH notes notes that we are "an outspoken critic of Vancouver's housing market and the way much of the media covers it. This anonymous blogger was the first person to question the authenticity of two 'condo buyers' who turned out to be employees of MAC Marketing."

The MAC Marketing Solutions scandal (we call it MAC-gate) certainly propelled our daily musings into the mainstream.

But it must be noted that the MAC misrepresentation was first spotted by the local online community and then dissected on local blogs, message boards and comment sections.

Sharp eyed contributors noticed that a Google search of one of the women named in the media stories turned up her Facebook and LinkedIn pages – both since deleted – which stated she actually worked at MAC.

This blog merely took that information, wove it together, and presented it in several readable posts.

When people ask "who is the Rainforest Whisperer or Village Whisperer," there is no single answer.

As in the MAC-gate episode, we merely act as a clearing house for the information presented on such excellent venues as Vancouver Condo Info, the Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive, Vancouver Price Drop, Real Estate Talks - British Columbia, YVR Housing Analysis, Vancouver RE and then some, Canada Watchdog, as well as statistical information from various realtors like Paul Boenisch, Larry Yatkowsky, and Arnold Shuchat.

From these and other sources, this blog tries to bring you the information that you aren't getting in the mainstream press about real estate and economic policy.

Yes, we have a definite bearish outlook on the immediate future for real estate in our fair city. It's an outlook borne of an understanding that our housing bubble has been inflated by a government economic policy that has driven housing values into the stratosphere by making extraordinary levels of credit available to home buyers. That excess credit can't continue forever.  And it's unwinding is going to hurt everyone, whether they own real estate or not.

We aren't anti-real estate.  Nor are we anti-realtor.

As part of our efforts we skeptically examine and, where necessary, attack the flaccid institution that journalism has become, particularly as it relates to real estate.

We are criticized for remaining anonymous. But as the fabulous financial blog Zerohedge notes,

anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. it thus exemplifies the purpose behind the bill of rights, and of the first amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation - and their ideas from suppression - at the hand of an intolerant society.

Though often maligned (typically by those frustrated by an inability to engage in ad hominem attacks) anonymous speech has a long and storied history in Canada and the United States.

Anonymous speech has been used by in the US by the likes of Mark Twain (aka Samuel Langhorne Clemens) to criticize common ignorance, and perhaps most famously by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay (aka Publius) to write the federalist papers.

Local industry heavyweights like Bob Rennie rail against this anonymity, as you can see from this passage from a Rennie speech to the Urban Development Institute May 17th, 2012:

I do have a huge concern over what Tracie McTavish, the president of our company calls, your “Keyboard Courage”, referring to what is becoming a dangerous and apparently acceptable practice which is, negative market commentary that is nothing but speculation.

Speculation made by spineless, signature‐less, individuals on a blog, on a blog that in most cases has less than 500 followers.

Then the next thing you know, the mainstream media picks up on the negative as fact and all of a sudden, it’s breaking news and our industry spends the next 6 months attempting to dispel the rumors and sound bites.

You can understand Bob Rennie's frustration. He can't influence the anonymous blogger or buy them out like he has done with others.

Nor can he divert attention from the issue at hand by attacking the messenger instead of focusing on the message.

As Zerohedge observes, "the right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. but political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse."

This blog strives to present a cornucopia of information related to real estate that isn't filtered by the marketing arm of the industry's professional associations.

When people vote for the Rainforest Village in that BBH poll, they are voting their appreciation for the efforts of the local online community, voting their appreciation for those who contribute to those local blogs, message boards and comment sections.

We are, indeed, a collection of Whispering Villagers.

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Email: village_whisperer@live.ca
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It's different here... we have a culture of Real Estate you cannot rip apart with logic

On Monday, as you will recall, we told you how the Huffington Post: British Columbia picked up on US Housing Guru Robert Shiller's interview on the Business News Network (BNN) last week in which Shiller said

"Vancouver’s housing bubble is more extreme today than California’s was a few years ago."

Robert Shiller, co-creator of the Case-Shiller Index, which measures U.S. house prices, told BNN that "Vancouver looks like part of California" when it comes to its housing market.

“Canada didn’t have the crash we had in the U.S. It’s just continuing to grow and it’s accumulating into some big price increases. So it’s looking like the bubble is — or at least has been, until recently — still alive in Canada.”

Shiller displayed a chart showing Vancouver house prices, adjusted for inflation, exceeding growth rates seen in San Francisco at the height of its bubble.

“San Francisco is a bubble city that’s talked about as one of the major boom and bust cities in the U.S. They’re no different in Vancouver, in fact it’s worse in Vancouver.”

The Yale University economist said that “Vancouver is San Francisco, lagging by a few years.”He added: “I have Vancouver doubling (house prices) in 22 years. So that’s even bigger than San Francisco['s bubble]. I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not investing in Vancouver real estate.”

Of course those that live her in the Village on the Edge of Denial see things differently.

We told you how economists like Tsur Sommerville argue the slowdown does not mean the market was ever in a bubble. Somerville, director of UBC’s Centre for Urban Economics, said the Vancouver market hasn’t had the kind of irrational exuberance that bubble market exhibit. His argument: we're not in a bubble therefore:

“You can’t burst a bubble that wasn’t there.”

This is the same Tsur Sommerville who, on June 29th, was interviewed by Global TV and insisted that Vancouver is different... the fundamentals of the market simply don't apply here:

Sommerville: Now we have a situation where prices aren't rising, they're flat. We have a situation were listing are rising, sales are falling and there isn't any of the kind of angst or anxiety out there in the marketplace. Instead what it's replaced with is less worries about people driving prices up and more worries about Greece blowing up the world economy.


Global Reporter: Vancouver is that market that is way different than any other kind of market.


Sommerville: Vancouver is very hard to figure out because so much of the purchases are done by wealth. Either people immigrating with wealth or people receiving wealth from parents or relatives so the normal 'what are incomes doing and what are prices doing', that just doesn't work out here well.


Global Reporter: And that may explain that while there are price reductions, average selling prices just aren't going down. Unlike other depressed markets in the world, there's no pressure to sell. And with our geography, the mountains and the ocean, it's not likely to change.

Denial and insisting It's different here.  That appears to be the theme.

Even Bob Rennie jumped into the act. On Rennie's Facebook page, the Condo King posted a rebuttal to the Huffington Post article (click on image to enlarge):

Said Rennie:

"The soundbites outweigh logic right now, and we're all looking for every reason we can to say the sky is falling. But I think that real estate in Vancouver is looked at as a treasured asset. There's a culture of that here you cannot rip apart."

So there you have it doubters... now don't you let logic... err... soundbites... get in the way of things.

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Thurs Post #2: In Vancouver, "something has affected the psychology"

News media stories on the abysmal June 2012 real estate sales data continue.

The Globe and Mail is out with an article titled, "In Vancouver, the seller's market recedes."

The Globe tells us that prices in Vancouver, the country’s most-expensive real estate market, remain stable... but activity has dropped sharply. They also note that economists welcome the decline in sales as an early sign that a correction is taking root, and said prices are likely to follow suit.

But what caught your faithful scribes eye, was an examination of the public's current mindset.

While there is anecdotal evidence that foreign investors are losing their appetite for real estate in the Vancouver, experts remain perplexed as to exactly why the city is seeing such a decline in transactions right now.

Toronto-Dominion Bank deputy chief economist Derek Burleton, who is calling for price declines of at least 15 per cent in both Vancouver and Toronto... (says) Vancouver’s slowdown is “striking, because nothing has really fundamentally changed in the market. It’s hard to pinpoint. Something has affected the psychology."

You don't think that 'psychology' might be the fact that people are beginning to understand that we are in a real estate bubble, after all?

Perhaps this explains another element of our current market which is confounding the 'experts.'

Eugene Klein, president of Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV), is perplexed in the days leading up to the changes in the the maximum length of insured mortgages from 30 years to 25.

The Globe notes Mr. Klein said he expected to see indications of a rush in activity prior to the changes taking effect, but hasn’t seen any so far.

“We thought that people would see a fervour of activity from people trying to get in under the line of the due date, but members haven’t been telling us that that’s the case. So we don’t know if the information is really out there, if consumers really understand it.”

Perhaps the problem is that they do understand it all too well.

Now who do you suppose might be responsible for that? Perhaps Bob Rennie has an opinion.

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Are bloggers Public Enemy No.1 in an attack on the fundamentals?

Watching the news this week, you can  can see the real estate industry mounting their latest counter offensive to spin their message.

And that message will be... 'fundamentals don't matter'.

Despite having rejigged they way the benchmark price is calculated (twice this year, actually), the reality of the market is becoming hard to ignore.

Sales in May for all forms of housing across the Multiple Listing Service were down over 15.5% from last year, and the lowest for the month of May since 2001. For detached homes sales, the news is  even worse: They were down 25% for the same period last year.

While sales have fallen, the number of listings has risen. In the Vancouver westside, which is held up as the main beachhead for the Asian invasion, the total of active listings — those homes for sale that haven’t sold — has risen to 1,100 properties at present from 600 a year ago.

The pathetic attempts to neutralize the impact of these figures prompted Vancouver Sun columnist Pete McMartin recently to state the obvious:

Commenting on these numbers, the resolutely sunny Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver decided this was “indicative of balanced market conditions.” But then the board would have viewed the crash of the Hindenburg as the result of “normal deflationary conditions.”

Yesterday we drew your attention to one of the latest piece by Global TV (Global reports the facts, concludes ours is now a 'depressed market', but then claims we're 'different').

 Global has also been unable to ignore the obvious:

Vancouver Real Estate had defied trends and showed steady growth for far longer than anybody believed possible. The evidence is not in the polls, which very often contradict one another, but on the ground, in the neighbourhoods where plum properties have always sold quickly and at a profit. Sellers are finding the days of multiple, over-asking offers have disappeared... and buyers are getting the pick of the crop with buyer reduced signs popping up all over the place.

They were even forced to admit that Vancouver is now "a depressed market".

So if the spin no longer works and the ugly numbers cannot be ignored, what do you do?

Invalidate the usefulness of the numbers, of course.

You could see the strategy launched when Bob Rennie spoke to the Urban Development Institute on May 17, 2012. Rennie said:

I joked with the CHMC’s board a couple of years ago, that the Vancouver market never went up on fundamentals, so why would we go down on fundamentals.  

However, our market really does have fundamentals but our fundamentals cannot be captured in a 90 second elevator conversation, at the water cooler, in a sound bite, and especially not on a blog or 140 character tweet.

And what are those fundamentals that cannot be captured in a 90 second conversation?

I think we saw that in the Global TV piece yesterday as well.

The spin we are going to see is the same as we have heard over and over before. "Rich people wanna live here.  We have limited area due to the mountains and the ocean.  And we have the scenic and lifestyle advantages of those same mountains and ocean." 

This is basically what Global TV said when they trotted out Tsur Sommerville:

Sommerville: Now we have a situation where prices aren't rising, they're flat. We have a situation were listing are rising, sales are falling and there isn't any of the kind of angst or anxiety out there in the marketplace. Instead what it's replaced with is less worries about people driving prices up and more worries about Greece blowing up the world economy.

Global Reporter: Vancouver is that market that is way different than any other kind of market.

Sommerville: Vancouver is very hard to figure out because so much of the purchases are done by wealth. Either people immigrating with wealth or people receiving wealth from parents or relatives so the normal 'what are incomes doing and what are prices doing', that just doesn't work out here well.

Global Reporter: And that may explain that while there are price reductions, average selling prices just aren't going down. Unlike other depressed markets in the world, there's no pressure to sell. And with our geography, the mountains and the ocean, it's not likely to change.

I suspect this will be the theme for the foreseeable future.

Claim prices simply can't go down here.  Tell everyone that wealth wants to be here. And desperately try to convince you to "buy now or be priced out forever".

And to the one segment of the community that the industry can't influence the peddle this message - the blogosphere - Rennie summed up his frustration in that May 17th UDI speech:

I do have a huge concern over what Tracie McTavish, the president of our company calls, your “Keyboard Courage”, referring to what is becoming a dangerous and apparently acceptable practice which is, negative market commentary that is nothing but speculation.

Speculation made by spineless, signature‐less, individuals on a blog, on a blog that in most cases has less than 500 followers.

Then the next thing you know, the mainstream media picks up on the negative as fact and all of a sudden, it’s breaking news and our industry spends the next 6 months attempting to dispel the rumors and sound bites.

The dispelling of the "rumours and sound bites" of the basic market fundamentals (ie. the inescapable reality of the hard sales data) has begun.

And it would appear that in this attack on the fundamentals, the blogosphere is being cast as Public Enemy No.1.

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Bubble? What bubble? - The counter offensive begins

So what if the mainstream media is abuzz with talk of a Canadian Housing bubble.

And yes, articles abound that trouble looms on the horizon.

Sales are tanking.  Listings are soaring. So what's a realtor to do?

Trash all this bubble talk, of course.

Enter Condo King Bob Rennie;

"It’s not a bubble. With the 80% of the [condo] market that traded in [Metro] Vancouver last year, you only needed a household income of $52,800 to purchase. That’s not a bubble story.”

Rennie's comments come courtesy of an interview with the Vancouver Sun following his keynote address to the Urban Development Institute Thursday.

Rennie sees aging baby boomers with billions of dollars in equity becoming a much greater force in the condo market as they increasingly downsize from expensive single-detached homes, and put money aside for their children.

Rather than seeing a market crash as hundreds of thousands of boomers dump bubble inflated single family houses and downsize, Rennie has a different take.

Noting that the number of people between 55 and 64 will increase 38% between 2009 and 2018, those between 65 and 74 will increase 56%, and those between 35 and 54 will only increase by 4.6%, Rennie views this as positive - particularly for his niche focus in condos.

“I believe the leaner, meaner baby boomer is the game changer. Baby boomers are sitting on $88 billion in equity in Greater Vancouver and they’re looking at their retirement years. That equity will be freed up over the next 15 years [and] when they sell their home, they’ll buy down and help their kids.”

Rennie said there were about 19,000 condo sales in Metro Vancouver in 2011, and that while the average price for 80% of those condos was $315,000, the overall average price was $427,000, which required an income of $66,000 to finance.

And, as we noted in our discussion about Marine Gateway, Rennie has a number of big projects coming to market this year... ergo the never-ending sales pitch continues.

Meanwhile our buddy Tsur Somerville, director, centre for urban economics and real estate at UBC's Sauder School of Business, chimes in as well.

He also doesn’t believe there’s a real estate bubble in Metro Vancouver because there’s not an explosion in housing starts.

Somerville says that while the affordability numbers have been skewed by the higher end parts of the market – “there were double-digit increases in Richmond, Vancouver, Burnaby and West Vancouver, with single-digit increases everywhere else” — the region is still very expensive compared to other cities in Canada.

“Compared to other cities, that income [$52,800] gets you a house. Here, it gets you a condo. That means we’re expensive, but that’s the reality of what we are. It’s still an expensive place to live, but it’s not unaffordable. You’ll end up smaller and further away from the core.”

Bubble? What bubble?

That's clearly what's emerging as the counter offensive theme by the industry right now, a theme which continued over on Global TV.

Adding to the 'non-bubble' message is this treatsie... "just because sales are slumping, don't bank on prices doing the same":

Announcer: “Is the Canadian housing market a bubble ready to burst, or is it steady as she goes? Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is warning Canadians against taking too much debt against the value of their homes, but the latest report from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation is dismissing those fears saying there is no clear evidence of a real estate bubble.”

Tsur Sommerville: “There is clearly a slowing down in the market you see an increase in the number of listings, drop in sales, all things that create less pressure on the market.”

Announcer: “According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver home sales were down 19% compared with this time last year.”

Helmut Pastrick: “The comparison to last year was heavily influenced by the change in the federal government’s mortgage insurance criteria which pulled forward a large number of sales into early 2011. So we’re comparing that high point to activity so far this year.”

Announcer: “But don’t get too excited, even though sales are down, home price indexes show a 4% increase in the price of a home in greater Vancouver. … The message to buyers, the economy is in reasonable shape, there’s a lot of supplier there, and interest rates are low. So just because sales are slumping don’t bank on prices doing the same.”

Tsur Sommerville: “We don’t have a sort of financial environment where people are looking at major financial corrections, you know, double digit increase in interest rates, or, you know, huge tightening of liquidity, that just doesn’t seem to be on the horizon, you know, to expect across-the-board 10%, 15%, 20% drop in house prices, I think that being rather, er, hopeful, for a buyer to expect that.”

The message is clear. Don't be deceived by slumping sales and burgeoning listings. Prices aren't coming down so stop waiting.

Now is the time to buy. What are you waiting for?

(hat tip to Greenhorn for the video archive and VREAA for the transcript of the Global clip)

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Poster Child - Updated 2

Last Saturday I posted aboutt the tsunami of condo pre-sales that are due to come onto the Greater Vancouver Real Estate market in the coming months.

Ozzie Jurock made reference to it on his Face Book page and described the spring/summer condo market as:

"a market that will have a lot of units for sale and more coming on stream."

In an OpEd piece in the Vancouver Sun, Jurock noted:

As of Feb. 29, 2012, there were 6,000-plus condos for sale through the Vancouver Real Estate Board - up 15% compared to the previous year.

At the same time, sales of used condos were down by 18%.

Add to this the fact that - according to MPC Intelligence - there are some 8,000 pre-sale condos being launched in the first six months of this year.

The battle for condo market sales is about to become very intense. And with 8,000 pre-sales coming on the market, a battle within a battle is sure to emerge.

Clearly the first shot was fired by condo king Bob Rennie with the launch of Marine Gateway last Saturday.

As we noted in Thursday's post, Rennie marketed the development around a whole new theme shifting the mantra of "location, location, location" to one of "transportation, transportation, transportation".

In the months ahead, he will be expanding on this theme as he goes to market with 3 more developments along the rapid transit system:

• A pre-sale of 300 units he will launch next month at another Canada Line Station - Brighouse Station in Richmond,
• a pre-sale of 230 units he will launch in September at Coquitlam Centre on the new Evergreen Line line .
• And a month after that 1,100 units, two towers, will go to market along the original Skytrain line in Vancouver at Joyce Road.

The transportation theme is going to be part of a major marketing strategy weaved among a number of initiatives which attempt to put Rennie's clients at the forefront of the coming tsunami wave of product.

It's going to be a very,very tough market.

Compounding the challenge is all the negativity that has been prominent in the mainstream press recently.

• There have been countless 'housing bubble' stories in the press.
• Both the Bank of Canada and the Finance Minster continue to make bearish statements on debt, the real estate bubble and interest rates.
• The nation's biggest banks are openly calling on the Federal Government for tighter mortgage regulations.

And all this has contributed to several months of rapidly declining real estate sales.  Let's face it, who wants to catch a falling knife?  Especially when everyone seems to be saying that very sharp knife is going to fall.

That's why we cast a suspicious eye on the sell out of Marine Gateway in four hours on Saturday.

Witness who were there have commented on other blogs that there were only about 110-130 people lined up for pre-sales (Global TV covered the sale saying it was less than 150). Yet all 415 units sold out?

Given the shenanigans we have seen from the real estate industry over the past year, things like:

• realtors snapping up pre-sales to market later,
• development marketers hiring people to stand in line, creating a 'buzz' for a pre-sale,
• staged helicopter tours supposedly flying wealthy Asian buyers around new projects,
• and realtors bringing in 'surprise' competing parties just before a couple is about to make an offer on a house (thereby pressuring them to act right away) - just to name a few.

... it makes you wonder about the legitimacy of the supposed 'sell out' of pre-sale contracts at Marine Gateway.

Not to suggest there's anything illegal happening here.  No doubt all the units are contractually spoken for.  

But how many went to realtors whom had inside connections and how many were sold to actual buyers/speculators? How many units were going to go unsold on Saturday but were suddenly "spoken" for?

Perhaps those 415 presales (options to purchase) weren't all actually available for sale.

It's my understanding that most lenders will ask that 40 to 60% of the condominiums in a development have an option to purchase before the bank will fund the project. I am told it is common practice to strike a deal with realtors that, if they want to be an exclusive agent to sell in the complex, they have to pick up 5 to 10% of those options each. Once the complex is finished and all the developers suites are sold, then you can sell yours. It means that these  exclusive agents could buy half of the pre-sales at an offering themselves.

In this way if 130 people show up to buy, you could have a sell out because half of the pre-sales are sold to the exclusive agents. It's a sell out, but it's just pure theatre.

The stakes here were simply too high for anything but a sell out.

The huge marketing effect to be leveraged on the Rennie developments coming up later this year that would be bolstered by a record breaking sellout at Marine Gateway cannot be underestimated.

There hasn't been a sell-out of pre-sale condo unit offerings in Vancouver in over six years. You have to go back to the Woodward's presale in 2006 - before the collapse of the world financial markets - to match an opening day pre-sale sellout of a condo development.

With a 'the sell-out is back' tagline, what an opportunity to market the next three projects.

Marine Gateway can be held up to potential buyers of the next three rapid transit line projects and they can be told 'buy now before you are priced out forever'.

When you consider this, how many of you out there (if you have your own real estate development company) wouldn't snap up all 415 pre-sale contracts (and sell them over the next 3 years as Marine Gateway is constructed) as a spring board to launch 3 other developments in this type of intense competitive market?

Personally I think the events at Marine Gateway were just that... pure theatre.

Either way, one thing is certain.

Those speculators (and exclusive realtor agents) who snapped up these units will either profit immensely or founder badly on this effort. A huge gamble is being taken here.

As Ozzie Jurock noted on the weekend in the Vancouver Sun,

"many made a lot of money by 'flipping' pre-sale contracts in the past, but the rules and risks are much different now."

Ozzie's right.  The rules and risks have indeed changed. And if the restrictive mortgage regulations proposed by the OSFI are implimented, the game will change even more dramatically.

If that happens Marine Gateway could well become the Lower Mainland's speculative Waterloo.

Time will tell.

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What's wrong with this picture?

Let me ask you... what's wrong with the picture above?  

Click on it to enlarge and take a look at it for a minute.  

The picture was taken this morning and captures the corner of Cambie and Marine in Vancouver - site of this week's hottest Real Estate topic; the four hour sell-out of the development known as Marine Gateway.

In case you aren't aware of what went on, Global TV provides this synopsis:

Marine Gateway, and the 415 pre-sale units that sold, is big news because at a time when listings are soaring and sales have been falling off a cliff, the pre-sales at this development have bucked the negative trend.

In fact it has completely turned that trend on it's head.

Hmmm.

Let's put that into perspective.

A sell-out of pre-sale condo unit offerings hasn't happened in Vancouver in over six years.  As Global TV noted in this story, you have to go back to the Woodward's presale in 2006 - before the collapse of the world financial markets - to match an opening day pre-sale sellout of a condo development.

And Marine Gateway sold out even faster than that Woodward's development.  

Woodwards (with similar prices) took 12 hours to sell 536 units.

At Marine Gateway people started lining up last Thursday. And as the lineups began, news spread that over 11,000 people had pre-registered for this development.

But by Saturday morning only about 100 - 150 people had actually lined up (one commenter over at Vancouver Condo Info pegged the number at only 106).

So 106 people bought over 400 units?

Hmmm.

Interestingly when you watch the Global clip, one buyer laments she was only able to secure a 1 bedroom condo (without an available parking spot at that). How come? Did she come late and miss out?

No... she stresses she showed up on time.

Even more curious is the fact that Global didn't find anyone to talk to that walked away empty handed.

Hmmm.

One can't help but observe that this was a very carefully planned and prepared offering.  As the Global story notes, Rennie Marketing Systems had a lot at stake here.

Checking craigslist in the week before the offering, the infamous Condo King wasn't leaving much to chance.  There was clearly significant marketing and networking done prior to the sale.  

As you can see by these ads (click to enlarge), other realtors were already on board offering the units to customers in advance of the Saturday opening. They were even offering to rebate 20% of their commission to get you on board early:

A lot of preparation went into trying to make this pre-sale a one day success.

Watching the Global TV clip you quickly notice the emphasis being placed on promoting the key feature of Marine Gateway: it's location on the Canada Line. Rennie bends over backwards to replace the R/E mantra of "location, location, location" with the new mantra of "transportation, transportation, transportation."

It's a theme I suspect we will see a lot of in the coming months.

In fact, a few days after the Global piece above aired, we are treated to another treatise emphasizing the "transportation, transportation, transportation" mantra:

And it's in this latest piece we get a glimpse of a wider issue at play here.  

Apparently Bob Rennie has 3 other developments about to go to market along transportation lines. 

• Next month Rennie will pre-sale of 300 units at another Canada Line Station - Brighouse Station in Richmond.
• In September he will launch 230 units at Coquitlam Centre where the new Evergreen Line line will be opening.
• And a month after that 1,100 units, two towers, will go to market along the original Skytrain line in Vancouver at Joyce Road.

Can you imagine how crippling a flop in sales last Saturday could have been? Failure to sell out at Marine Gateway would have been devastating.

I wonder how disappointed Rennie Marketing was when only 106 people showed up in the sales line up by Saturday morning?

But Marine Gateway didn't flop.

Instead we were witness to  THE MOST SUCCESSFUL pre-sale launch in Vancouver history, a perfect event for what is touted as the cutting edge model of what's crucial to real estate sales in the modern city.

All accomplished in the midst of a market which has been screaming negativity week after week from the likes of the mainstream press with their talk of a housing bubble ready to burst.

Amidst negative statements on debt and the real estate bubble from the Governor of the Bank of Canada and similar statements from the Federal Finance Minster.

Amidst warnings from the heads of some of the nation's biggest banks on the threat of a bursting housing bubble.

And all framed by several months of negativity of actual sales results released over the past few months.

Hmmm.

I can't help but think of all the shenanigans we have seen over the last few years.

I think they call it 'staging'.

You know what I'm referring to.... development marketers hiring people to stand in line, creating a 'buzz' for a pre-sale. Staged helicopter tours supposedly flying wealthy Asian buyers around proposed new developments. Realtors bringing in 'surprise' competing parties just before a couple is about to make an offer on a house (thereby pressuring you to act right away).

All done in the name of 'staging' the right 'optics'.

So what are the optics created by Marine Gateway?

Would it be wrong to cast such a suspicious eye on a record breaking sellout anomaly that occurs at time when other realtors are openly talking about how dead the market has been so far this year? When only 1% of the registered people interested in the development actually show up on sales day?

Hmmm.

Which brings us back to the picture at the top of this post.

As I said, it was taken this morning... a full five days after what has been a supposed record breaking pre-sale sellout in a dead market wherein only about 106 people lined up and created a 415 unit sellout of a development which will be a springboard for a host of new developments with a "transportation, transportation, transportation" theme.

That picture is conspicuous for what is NOT there.

Let me ask you... when was the last time you saw a developer sell out an offering and not promote the crap out of that success with "SOLD OUT" banners plastered across every conceivable sign posted on the property?

It's been five days and there is nary a single 'sold out' sticker anywhere.

I could understand the day of, or maybe even no stickers until after the weekend was over... but nothing a full five days afterward?

Especially when this is the first of several developments being launched along the transportation network by the same promoter this year.

Perhaps they're waiting until after Cam Good's helicopter makes a fly by?

Hmmm.

(Note: follow up post available here)

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Wed Post #2: Another R/E Bubble Warning

We last heard from Capital Economics (CE) back in June 2011.

 They are an economic think tank founded in 1999 to provide "independent macro economic research in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and the UK, on the property sector", had concluded that Canada's housing market was in a bubble that's set to burst.

They say housing prices could plunge by as much as 25%.

• “Housing valuations have lost all touch with fundamentals and household debt is at a record high. Canadian house prices are overvalued at close to the excessive levels seen in the frothy U.S. market at its 2006 peak.”

Two months later the group continues to pump the same message.  The Globe and Mail put out an interesting chart on Monday by the group which shows 'house price to income per capita'. As you can see we are nearing the same levels the Americans had just before their crash took hold (click to enlarge):

CE notes that our current boom has produced the largest increase ever seen in Canadian housing prices and has wrenched real estate out of its usual alignment to people’s income and concludes that all signs increasingly point to a housing bubble.

“The stories we hear about people buying homes to rent out as investment properties, and others buying homes fearing that if they wait they will be priced out of the market, only convince us even more,” CE's David Madani (pictured above) writes in a research note.

Madani restates the same concerns as those articulated in June.  Mass psychology – “animal spirits” – have driven housing prices to unsustainable levels and that it can only lead to a collapse of at least 25% over the next few years.

In the short term, Mr. Madani sees any further gains as modest. “Housing affordability is already stretched, with costs accounting for a very large share of household income, over 40 per cent according to some estimates.”

Olympic Village - Millennium Water

Speaking of bubbles and a declining market, have you seen the latest bit of promotional desperation over at the former Olympic Village (now Millennium Water)?

Our friends over at Vancouver Condo Info are reporting today on the latest from the sales team team at Rennie Marketing,

The website hails: "We’re kicking off a brand new promotion tomorrow—an amazing move-in package of essentials for every buyer—it’s everything you’ll need for life at The Village!"

And almost as if you are watching a Ron Popeil commerical, the list of goodies carries on missing only Popeil's trademark "but that's not all... you will also receive..."

The package includes:

• A hybrid bicycle – for your 5KM ride along the seawall to Stanley Park
• A portable BBQ – for Saturday’s BBQ with the in-law’s, on your balcony or at Hinge Park
• A one-year Aquabus ferry pass – for a last minute trip to Granville Island or Yaletown
• A single person kayak – get to know the neighbourhood sea life
• A year’s worth of one-zone Translink FareCards – the skytrain is only 5 minutes away
• A coffee per day for a year at Terra Breads Café – just downstairs
• A pair of running shoes – run the seawall in style
• A year’s worth of groceries from Urban Fare – an elevator ride away
• A year’s membership to Modo Car Co-op – for your day trip to Seattle
• A set of All-Clad cookware – for your Miele kitchen

I wonder if Rennie could get Weird Al to redo his Popeil song for him?  "Now how much would you pay?"

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The Price Cuts are Coming

One of the Vancouver City Councillors talks about a looming 20% price reduction in the Olympic Village condos dying on the vine in False Creek (hat tip to L.M.).

It's a far cry from the days of this October, 2007 Vancouver Courier article, isn't it? Check out some of the priceless Bob Rennie quotes as he gushes about the ease with which the Olympic Village is selling out.

• Olympic village condos selling like hotcakes Prices range from $450,000 to $3.4 million
  
  More than 80 per cent of the first wave of Olympic athlete's village market condos sold over two days last week, and almost all the buyers were local.
  
  More than 80 per cent of the first wave of Olympic athlete's village market condos sold over two days last week, and almost all the buyers were local.
  
  The condos, part of the Millennium Water development along False Creek, will become market housing the summer following the 2010 winter Games.
  
  About 255 of the 302 units available in the first phase were sold, according to Bob Rennie of Rennie Marketing Systems. A second phase of 400 is expected to go on sale in February.
  
  Some buyers and realtors stood in line for five days before sales started last Thursday.
  
  Most units were priced at between $600,000 - for a 725 to 759-square-foot suite with marginal view - and $3.4 million, although a few were available in the $450,000 to $600,000 range.
  
  There are still about 10 available on either side of $500,000.
  
  The cheapest still on the market is $489,000, which gets the owner 574 square feet overlooking the plaza and Salt heritage building. The $3.4 million unit was purchased, but some $3-million suites are available.
  
  Rennie estimated there were only about five out-of-town buyers.
  
  "There's a lot of interest from West Side addresses--from buyers who live on the West Side that don't necessarily want to be downtown," Rennie said. "And there's a huge amount of interest from buyers who see it as one of the last new communities -it's on the water and there's the legacy project [aspect], that it will be the home of the 2010 [Games]."
  
  He's never seen prospective buyers line up for five days before and was taken aback by how much interest was shown in the project. The marketing company anticipated it would sell about half the units during the opening days.
  
  "A lot of people that came in, they wanted a certain view or a certain size and said, 'You know what, for the big ones we want to wait until the next phases,'" Rennie said. "For the next phase all bets are off for how much activity there's going to be there and how we're going to handle it. Maybe we should do similar to Woodward's where everybody phoned in for a wrist band. But there's no one system you can put in place that doesn't offend somebody."
  
  Rennie suspects the buying frenzy was sparked by three factors: the "green" aspect of the project as a sustainable community, the Olympic connection and the views of False Creek, the city and the mountains.
  
  "We keep switching around over which one we think is the driving force in buying," he said.

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You have to know when to hold them...

Today the 'official' July 2010 real estate sales statistics were released for both Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.

And as we posted on the weekend, the picture is not pretty.

How ugly is it, you ask?

“We didn’t anticipate this level of change,” said Deanna Horn, Fraser Valley Real Estate Board President.

Of course the inability of the Real Estate Boards to 'anticipate' is almost considered a joke on the real estate blogs, as this post over on VREAA illuminates.

As expected, the Greater Vancouver Residential Benchmark price is down for the third consecutive month:

April, 2010: $593,419
May, 2010: $590,662
June, 2010: $580,237
July, 2010: $577,074

Sales in July fell 45% from the same month last year, and prices have fallen 2.8% since peaking in April... not quite a 'crash' by any stretch of the imagination, but the endgame is clearly afoot.

According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) the supply of properties for sale has increased so significantly that the decline in sales now threatens to pull prices lower, with inventory levels 33% higher than this time last year.

In fact, the REBGV now calls Vancouver a “buyer’s market,” which seems odd because clearly people aren't buying.

Is this a temporary lull or the start of a significant drop in real estate values? That, of course, is the central question being debated by the R/E bulls and bears.

Once again I feel compelled to cast an eye towards Bob Rennie, Vancouver's anointed condo king.

His stunning marketing moves to slash prices by 40% in both the Okanagan and for condos in Vancouver at the luxury Fairfield Estates serve as a bellwether.

The market is changing and he is responding by attempting to stay ahead of the curve. Either Rennie is throwing away massive potential profits or he is facilitating significant reductions in advance of a bloodbath starting in earnest.

When the 'crash' starts with 40% reductions from the market's biggest player, the prognosis in Camp Rennie can't be very bright.

A good gambler knows when to hold... and when to fold.

And Rennie does not appear to be willing to up the ante.

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Okanagan-style meltdown now being seen in Vancouver?

Yesterday we talked about the widespread real estate price-slashing in the Okanagan region of the British Columbia that started with the Bob Rennie marketed development known as Invue in Kelowna.

Recognizing that the market is turning for the worst, it appears Rennie is bringing those price cuts to downtown Vancouver.

The posh downtown Vancouver development known as the Fairmont Pacific Rim Estates and Hotel is an elite hotel/condo development located near the Canada Place Trade and Convention Centre.

The hotel occupies floors 1 - 31 with 400 rooms. Above that is a residential strata portion occupying floors 32 - 45 with 200 suites.

Vancouver Realtor Will Wertheim has sent out a tweet on Twitter advising that one of the suites in the Fairmont has dropped it's selling price from $5,250,000 to $3,088,000... a drop of 40% off of the original asking price.

Wertheim followed that tasty tidbit with another tweet advising that a second unit has been slashed from $2,750,000 to $1,598,000... a drop of almost 42% off the original asking price.

Both are Bob Rennie marketed properties.

News of these stunning reductions come just as the Vancouver Sun hearlds that a wave of presale condos are now flooding onto a slowing market.

MPC Intelligence Inc., a local market research firm, counted 6,659 condo units being put into the marketing phase between March 1 and July 1, 2010. MPC notes that this amount of inventory approaches numbers thrown onto the market during the headiest days of pre-sales in 2007, but at a time when real estate sales are nowhere near 2007 levels.

“It’s a big jump,” Jeff Hancock, senior manager at MPC said in an interview.

Hancock compared the 6,659 units now in the marketing phase with just 1,937 in 2009 and 5,066 in 2008.

Just like he did in Kelowna with Invue, Rennie can see what's coming and he's scrambling to stay ahead of the curve.

And that means starting off by slashing real estate prices by 40%.

Curiously... the 'hot asian money' we keep hearing about doesn't appear to be snapping up all these luxury properties at 40% off. Maybe it's because they aren't pre-sale contracts that can be 'secured' for a miniscule downpayment (like the sellout at River Green in Richmond)?

Those presales are the ultimate R/E speculator vehicle.

And that's the difference between 'HAM' actually supporting our market and 'HAM' leveraging a small wager (we call it a downpayment) on a presale contract that's unenforceable in Chinese courts.

In the real market, Bob Rennie is taking on the competition by slashing prices by 40%.

Things could get really ugly this fall.

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Getting out of Dodge...

Kelowna is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia and ranks as the 22nd largest metropolitan area in Canada.

It is a popular summer destination for both Vancouverites and those Albertans from Calgary and Edmonton. Like Vancouver, it has it's share of multi-million dollar homes - and a real estate boom just as bubblicious as the Village on the Edge of the Rainforest.

In the heart of Kelowna, on Springfield Road, is a new 14 storey luxury hirise called Invue. With walls of windows, pointed balconies, a desirable proximity to Orchard Park mall and varying sizes of units; it has all the elements which the developer figured would enable the building to be marketed as a desirable address in a highly desirable BC city. It other words... an easy sell.

But the development has become the sure thing that isn't.

And making this particular development even more significant is the recent hiring of a marketer to promote the building... none other than the infamous Vancouver condo king, Bob Rennie.

Originally the target market for this sale was to be Albertans and Vancouverites looking for upscale vacation, retirement and investment homes.

But as we have noted in recent posts, the real estate market has swung dramatically. And sensing what is coming on the horizon, Rennie has been brought in to dramatically shift focus.

The new target strategy? Locals first. Then those Albertans and Vancouverites who are returning, post-recession to the Okanagan, looking to find bargain-priced second and investment homes.

And the key here is 'bargain-priced'.

Recognising the shifting sands, Rennie has sold the developers on a marketing strategy that has, at its core, slashed prices. And we mean SLASHED prices... by a stunning 40%. (Recall that Rennie is also marketing the Olympic Village in Vancouver, a campaign that saw 36 units sell in the first two days but has stalled with no further sales after five weeks).

Unit 707 at Invue - a 1,011-sq.-ft., two-bedroom condo on the seventh floor with nice views - is now for sale for $298,000, down from $440,000.

Unit 1406 - a 1,231-sq.-ft., two-bedroom on the 14th floor with stunning views - has been reduced from $625,000 to $419,000.

And the penthouse, a 2,400-sq.-ft., three-bedroom with loft beauty, is now $1.2 million, down from $1.8 million.

Recently Rennie mingled poolside with realtors and media on Invue's rooftop terrace in a promotional shindig. And Rennie let everyone know that Invue is serious about selling out at dramatically reduced prices.

"The reality is even if you have an architectural icon and an A-inventory building like Invue, pricing has to be repositioned," said Rennie. "This is not 2007, and Albertans are not buying over the phone just because it's a condo in Kelowna. The economic collapse eroded consumer confidence and that means people are only going to buy if the price is right and the home makes sense by being the proper size and having the proper layout, being close to shopping and transportation."

Rennie's job is to sell the 80 of the unsold units in the 96-unit Invue. So far, in a recent 18-day period, he has sold 14 units at the reduced prices (16 sold as pre-sales). And while Rennie has almost doubled the number of units sold in the project with the 'slashed prices' approach, 66 remain.

"To be truthful, we were in a bind," said Invue developer Adrian Block of The Rykon Group of their dismal performance in only selling 16 units at 'full' price. "The economy has changed and we have unsold condos and it costs money just hold onto inventory."

Block said in many ways the drastic action taken at Invue is simple economics.

"The marketplace ultimately sets the price," he said.

"We made the hard decision to meet the marketplace on price rather than wait for the marketplace to come up to our original pricing."

What about the Invue buyers who paid premium prices during pre-sales back in 2007 and are moving in as this clearance sale goes on?

"It's hard on them and it's hard on us," admitted Block. "Those buyers who paid full price bought during a different economy."

Think about that for a second. The pre-sale buyers have had to go commit to their new mortgages just recently and then... just days after committing and moving in... they are advised that the spiffy new units they just acquired had depreciated a stunning 40% - overnight! - with no guarentee that they won't drop even further.

The marketplace is shifting, the economy has already shifted, and in Kelowna developers are cutting their losses and 'gettin the hell out of Dodge.'

One wonders how long before these shifting sands of 'simple economics' hit Vancouver real estate.

If a 40% reduction is just the first stage... how bad could this get?

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The world and it's view of Vancouver

I have lived in this city for almost 40 years now.

And there is one thing that has always stood out for me... and that is the dramatically different perception you can have of this city based on the way you travel to the downtown core.

Drive down Granville or Cambie Steet, and the city rises up on a sunny day as a spectacular jewel nestled against the mountains.

Drive along Kingsway or Hastings, and the city is a slum.

That dichotomy will take on mythic proportions in the coming weeks.

I can't find the link right now, but I read one account of a journalist visiting Vancouver and he talked about his anticipation in seeing this fabulous city. But leaving his hotel in Burnaby, he would drive down Kingsway and loop around the downtown eastside, never finding the Vancouver of the travel magazines.

I know exactly what he means.

Next week NBC will broadcast Vancouver to the world. Now, Dick Ebersol (of NBC Sports) has already made it clear that the main network of the NBC will do nothing but display Vancouver in all it's stunning glory. NBC does that with every host city.

But contrast that approach with this article from MSNBC.

For those who think the Olympics will be a non-stop real estate advertisment for the Village on the Edge of the Rainforest, this is a taste of what many media outlets will be reporting this week.

• Canada’s Olympic city has notorious skid row
  Vancouver’s darker side emerges from district known as ‘Pains and Wastes’
  
  (note to NBC headline writer: that's 'Pain and Wastings' - the writer gets is right in the article)
  
  VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Five blocks away from the venue for Vancouver's Olympic opening ceremonies, four grizzled addicts huddle in the rain, injecting themselves with heroin behind a trash bin.
  
  Welcome to Downtown Eastside. Here, life is gritty, volatile and the slightest misstep can invite brutal retaliation.
  
  "It's a jungle," said Glen, a 49-year-old heroin addict who goes by the street name Trouble. "You want to get out of here."
  
  As Vancouver prepares for the Olympics and the descent of the world's media, the Downtown Eastside remains a huge problem — 15 square blocks of despair, squalid rooming houses and alleys populated by thousands of addicts, the homeless, the mentally ill and the drug dealers who prey on them.
  
  This neighborhood is the most concentrated drug and poverty ghetto in North America, with high use of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, according to criminologist Benedikt Fischer of Simon Fraser University. It's also the only place in North America where drug addicts can shoot heroin into their veins at an officially sanctioned injection site.
  
  'Pain and Wastings'
  
  At the center of the neighborhood is a neoclassical building endowed by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1903. Behind it, dealers and pimps hawk drugs and women in a filthy alley. And on its front steps is Vancouver's largest open-air drug market, at the intersection of Main and Hastings streets— dubbed "Pain and Wastings" by locals.
  
  Across the street is Vancouver's biggest police station. Police Const. Lindsey Houghton said officers often find themselves in the role of social workers while continuing to target the drug trade. About 49 percent of Downtown Eastside calls are related to mental health, according to the Vancouver Police Department.
  
  "It's a tremendous challenge that goes beyond the traditional scope of policing," Houghton said.
  
  The International Olympic Committee's bid evaluation team didn't see the Downtown Eastside when it assessed Vancouver's bid in 2003. When it came time to tour Vancouver venues, the IOC's bus took a wide detour around the neighborhood.
  
  The bid evaluation team did see the scenic but treacherous highway from Vancouver to Whistler, host of alpine and sliding events. While about $500 million has been spent on the road, the Downtown Eastside remains much the same.
  
  As they did in 2003, welfare recipients still line up once a month to receive their welfare checks. Welfare Wednesday is known as Mardi Gras in the area, the recipients called "two-day millionaires." Needle exchange staff work on the welfare lines.
  
  'Insane'
  
  The area gained international attention when pig farmer Robert Pickton was arrested in 2002 and charged with the deaths of 26 prostitutes and addicts from the Downtown Eastside, in what police say is Canada's worst serial murder case. He killed and butchered them at his suburban farm. Some remains he fed to pigs. The rest went to a rendering plant.
  
  Mona Wilson's head, hands and feet were found in a bucket at Pickton's farm. Her brother, Jason Fleury, called the Downtown Eastside a time bomb and accused officials of doing nothing to defuse it while spending millions on the Olympics.
  
  "It's crazy. It's insane," Fleury said.
  
  Prostitution rights activist Jamie Lee Hamilton said little has been done to curb violence against prostitutes since Pickton's arrest.
  
  "There is this perception that all the violence ended when Pickton was arrested," Hamilton said. "We know it's hunting grounds down there, and we're doing nothing about it. The women, the men and the transgendered are living prey."
  
  Due in part to rampant intravenous drug use, the area's HIV rate is the worst in the developed world, said International AIDS Society president Dr. Julio Montaner. The HIV rate qualifies the Downtown Eastside for World Health Organization epidemic status, he said.
  
  Montaner said the combination of drug and health programs as well as housing initiatives are beginning to slow the crisis. But progress may be halted by the increasing violence of Vancouver's drug trade, as cocaine prices skyrocket in the wake of a Mexican drug-cartel crackdown.
  
  Critics allege the Downtown Eastside will be sanitized during the Games under recently passed legislation that allows police to force the homeless into shelters in cold weather. That would violate bid assurances, they say.
  
  "Nobody has a right to move those people simply to accommodate a better visual image for the Olympics," said provincial legislative housing critic Shane Simpson.
  
  Vancouver Organizing Committee vice president of sustainability Linda Coady said the issue has nothing to do with the organizing committee, and that VANOC's interest is what goes on inside Games' venues.
  
  "Outside is the domain of the Vancouver Police Department," Coady said.
  
  Meanwhile, the safe injection site in the Downtown Eastside is the busiest in the world, with about 500 supervised injections a day, according to Insite supervisor Russ Maynard. Addicts shoot up at 12 booths with mirrors on the walls so that nurses on a raised platform can see them.
  
  Maynard said by the time an addict gets to the Downtown Eastside, they are totally dysfunctional. Even trying to get help is hard, he said, as pay phones are used constantly to make drug deals.
  
  "You could get beat up for tying up a phone for five minutes," he said.
  
  He said 90 percent of people using Insite have Hepatitis C. The national rate is less than one percent.
  
  Insite has operated for six years under an exemption from Canada's health laws. The federal government's attempt to close Insite ended Jan. 15 when the British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled addicts had a constitutional right to health care. Whether the case winds before in the Supreme Court of Canada remains to be seen.

MSNBC has taken a realistic, cold, hard look at the real downtown Vancouver. The view that so many locals simply refuse to acknowledge and put blinders on for.

Somehow I don't imagine excerpts of the MSNBC story making it's way into any Bob Rennie literature on the Woodwards development.

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