realestatetalks.com

realestatetalks.com - the site that helped make vhb popular - he might have tipped a cap to them.

Ha!

G West: You're right. I'm Bob Rennie . . . seriously, why would you think I'm part of the REIC (real estate industrial complex)? That's pretty funny . . .

bcneocon: I listed five sites I frequent the most. Ozzie Jurock's RETalks isn't one of them. It's not that great, to be honest.

You can attribute my 'popularity' to RE Talks if you want, but I can tell you that my traffic tracking software tells me that I get very few hits from there.

Memo to City of Vancouver: value people in social housing!

Strange to say, I just copied a bit of information from today's Vancouver Sun because it bears upon the topic of homelessness (the Pickton trial) and its corollary: affordable housing.

The system we're living under just ain't working and never will work to protect everyone equally.

Seems that the revitalization of the old Woodwards site has increased the "value" of all surrounding properties.

As a result, several hotels have been sold at a nice profit and there are fears that rents will rise and the residents will be evicted ... and will have no place to live. Predictably resulting in more tragedies in the Downtown East Side.

Here is part of the report on the Anti-Poverty meeting, including a list of the hotels sold recently:

... "We have had enough," said Anti-Poverty Committee spokeswoman Anna Hunter. "We've seen enough hotels closed down."

Among the 54 speakers on the issue was Susan Henry of the First United Church Mission, who said she has 100 people every night sleeping on the floors and church pews.

"It's terrible," said Henry "We know that there are no places to live."

Catholic nun and poverty activist Sister Elizabeth Kelliher, 83, said the city has to hit the pocketbooks of developers who try to evict poor tenants.

"That would send a message to developers that the city really values the lives of people who must live in social housing," she said to applause from the crowded gallery.

DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE HOTELS SOLD

Pender Hotel, 31 West Pender.

Pacific Hotel, 208 East Georgia.

Gastown Hotel, 110 Water Street.

Rainier Hotel, 309 Carrall Street.

Empress Hotel, 235 East Hastings.

Creekside Students Residences, 796 Main.

Powell Rooms, 558 Powell.

Kenworth Rooms, 313 Alexander.

Jay Rooms, 304 Main.

Star Beach Haven, 658 Alexander.

Woodbine Hotel, 786 East Hastings.

Source: City of Vancouver

Still no name

How come? Shy? Bashful? Reticent?

One has no idea who you are if you don't identify yourself with anything more than initials.

What's in a name

People posting under psuedonyms taking the article's writer to task for writing under a pseudonym?

Colour me confused. :-)

Why confused?

The name really isn't important stump - just like to know if the author has other interests.

This comment forum isn't a blog. Most bloggers aren't usually so reticent about identifying who's doing the blogging. I can list dozens, even hundreds of them. Especially when someone makes a point about how popular they are.

Further, I don't think I took the writer to task - just asked a simple question.

All sorts of people have agendas. Even anonymous blogs frequently provide a thumbnail sketch - I couldn't find that anywhere on this blog, could you? ;-D

Who cares?

Who cares if the blogger uses a pseudonym. I post a lot about transit and I'm Grumpy. Who cares what my real name is. What, are you guys going to visit; buy me a coffee; or what?

give the man credit

Assuming VHB is a man of course! The site is truly excellent as it relies entirely on using solid data to support any theories. Something other mainstream journalists and publications could learn from.

No question on either point

I think the blog is excellent too. I'd buy you a coffee anytime Grumpy.

This begs the question:

This begs the question: where do these vast sums of money come from? The answer is the banks merely print it into their computer databases, loaning it into existence. Only the principal of the loan is created, yet principal plus interest is demanded. It's called debt-slavery and the elite make out like the bandits they are.

Steering all comments to the same topic

No matter what the subject (even if it were to be about the existence of Santa Claus) the usual list of suspects of the Tyee steer comments to the same subjects while injecting not a smidgen of humour. It is so tiresome that I visit these pages infrequently.

We were asked to list our favourite blogs. I will list one. It is extremely convoluted and perhaps it just might make a few of you look at things in a different way:

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/

And if you visit my own you might note I never rant. I learned my lesson from these pages.

Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

Rant

You ain't seen nothin' yet Al.

I used to build houses for rich people but I got over it.
They have a stack of "Cottage Magazine" so they know exactly how to get the best deal, ensure that they don't get "ripped off" by unscrupulous contractors and design the solar powered outhouse.

For those who need to know who I am:
There is a photo of me in the that magazine: Search the archive for Ken "sundeck".

Or don't bother. I do not care who the person is or what qualifications he/she may be lying about. Spelling and style also are minor considerations.

Information content is what I'm after and this forum has quite enough for me, thank you.
Guess I'm a slow reader but I attempt to understand what I read and that takes some time. Try it

"Star Blogger"

So... what exactly constitutes a "star blogger"?

Blogs

Check out
http://www.moreisless.ca/

Great wine reviews from Sean Calder

Not sustainable.....

BC's past real estate bubbles have ALWAYS burst. Same as Olympics have ALWAYS cost, never generated profits. Shucks, even the BC Place "bubble" collapsed.

So why is this going to be different.....?(he asks, with raised eyebrow)

The bigger the bubble

The harder they pop.
This is no different. If you release the inlet just before it pops, though, it farts energetically about in the air before it flops to the floor deflated. Depending on whether or not you wish to preserve the balloon or just get Bang for your mortgage buck those are the choices: allow a bit of the pressure out, tie the balloon off as it is or keep inflating and wait and see.

Since most of the "value" of real estate depends on feverish demand for anything which might not follow the paper (electronic) money impending crash it should never be bought on "credit" but that is exactly what was fueling the Boom.
There will be a "correction".
The questions are:
How soon?
How bad?

It will burst

http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2006/11/10/VHB/
It's difficult to regulate farts.....

But as with every collapse, it's the last one in gets burned...........

Quote:No matter what the

Well, Alex, some of us are very concerned about the state of our world. I'm afraid you'll catch me ranting as long as there's one homeless person. But not always humourlessly, as you'd know if you visited these pages more often.

I visited your blog. What's the value? Just entertainment? Great.

thanks Cynic

Saves me attempting to check out Al.

At the risk of p!ssing off the "Multiple post" overlords:

February 1 at 10:55am

Turn off the main electrical breaker in your building.
wait 5 minutes and flip it back on at 11:00
This is an experiment originating from

lalliance.fr

in environmental awareness.
The idea is to give the Earth 5 minutes without the blanket of electricity and possibly get the attention of the "main stream"

Entertainment and Rants

Cynic you write:

I visited your blog. What's the value? Just entertainment? Great

If you had put a bit more time you may have figured out that I write mostly about my relationship with my 9 year-old granddaughter. She convinced her mother (my daughter) to "adopt" a littd girl in Senegal and Rebecca and Hilary, her mother send their $20 a month. I am sure most of it is lost on the way but a bit might just end up in the little girl's house.

Ranting in a Tyee forum will do nothing to help the world. It must feel good to think you are improving it by pressing send.

I appreciate that you have concern for the state of the world. But I would suspect that my granddaughter, and many others like her, as she and they grow up have a better chance of changing it for the better. If there is some Bach, or ballet or theatre on the way it may make that journey a bit more interesting.

Surely you must know that God, on the seventh day, turned on the TV and had a little entertainment?
Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

Alex, I disagree. There is a

Alex, I disagree. There is a war on for our minds and here, online, we get to refute the perception management of the elite. What better place is there to foment the revolution? The internet has proven its ability to muster dissent.

Kudos to your children. I've been with Foster Parents Plan for many years and btw never worry about the money getting to the child as FPP is acknowledged as being on the leading edge of aid groups. Nonetheless, this type of action is little more than palliative. Far more important is to reject the fantasy served up by the corporate media and the pr firms and expose the vicious reality of fascist elite rule.

TV? I prefer to grab my guitar and do some pickin'. Live music, mountain biking, kayaking are some of the entertainments I enjoy. You can't tell who we are from reading forum posts. But you know that.

Doomers may be Right

I notice many independent economists and technical analysts (chart and cycle readers)-(as opposed to conflict-of-interest-market-cheerleaders)- are predicting not a soft, but a hard landing for the US economy, and world asset and stock markets in '07. The US housing bubble will burst, and mortgage financing problems will whack homeowners, and mortgage lenders alike, helping drive down the US economy, which will
spread to Canada and the rest of the globe to some degree.

As an investor I'm bracing for the worst this year.

Bill Fleckenstein's been writing for many months warning about this, and how investors might best survive. eg.
"Home Loan House of Cards Ready to Fall":
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/ContrarianChronicles/HomeLoanHouseOfCardsReadyToFall.aspx

Ranting

I think some people are missing the distinction between discussion and ranting. Or they take the accusation of ranting as a compliment on their passion and knowledge. And, clearly, they enjoy that combative and truncated style of conversation.

I'm afraid that discussion boards often do get dominated by this kind of user. On-line chat is perfect for them: you don't get interrupted, you can decide what you choose to respond to, and ignore or shape things that are uncomfortable for you to discuss, or which you don't understand. Plus you have lots of time to craft a response, if you are not a particularly swift thinker, and can control your on-llne persona.

Not so interesting for the rest of us, however.

The New Road to Serfdom

http://www.shloky.com/files/housing%20boom.pdf

Home

You have to laugh! BC Mary says;

"Seems that the revitalization of the old Woodwards site has increased the "value" of all surrounding properties.

As a result, several hotels have been sold at a nice profit and there are fears that rents will rise and the residents will be evicted ... and will have no place to live. Predictably resulting in more tragedies in the Downtown East Side."

Yeah, Mary, much better to leave is as a derilict pile of bricks.

BTW, Alex is a hard working creative gent and an artist but all they do is slag him. BOOOOring.

Ranting as fun

Sheesh! I enjoy my rants and especially other people's rants. Sort of like "automatic writing" occasionally there is a smidgen of information. The long well thought out and desperately boring posts do not interest me if they are too long to read. I trust other folks here to distill and react if there is anything worth mentioning in the first place.

Quite often when I click the "post comment" button I have serious doubts about what I have typed in. Like: do I really believe this
or why did I say that?

I do not expect to fulfill my contribution to children and grandchildren here.
But I had a good day cracking ice on a pond with them today

Social Housing and "The Boom"

The real estate boom does affect the affordable low and mid-level, middle class housing market, but I don't think it actually has that much to do with whether or not social housing gets built and where.

I find that the notions of affordable housing get mixed up with social housing by some housing activists, probably in part because they are trying to make their issue more broadbased by connecting the plight of the homeless with that of the "average" struggling homeowner or renter.

But affordable to an average working person is still not affordable to someone on welfare. And even if it was, a lot of homeless people need more than cheap rent, they need ongoing support to manage their housing needs. That's a whole other matter. It's expensive, and it takes a kind of public and political will that isn't here right now, whether real estate prices continue to rise or not.

It's a sad thing that DTES activists are fighting merely for the continued existence of the kind of substandard SRO housing they were trying to abolish (and replace with social housing) 20 years ago. The Woodbine Hotel. Yikes.

realisticman

Turn it into green space.......

Green RickW

Less than half a block away is Victory Square park. Four blocks away on the waterfront is Portside Park. Three blocks away is Andy Livingstone Park. Acoss the street there is Science World Park. Five blocks away is Oppenheimer Park.

The Woodwards site will be somewhat unique, a collection of market-housing, commercial space, retail space, an educational institution for post-secondary students, an art gallery, substantial and mulitiple public art installations, community amenity space, a daycare facility, non-market housing for those on social assistance and a public green space.

Still not enough, eh?

Still not enough, eh?

Durn tootin'!

It's time to begin putting the GVRD "back to nature".

"Vancouver -- the biggest clearcut in the province".

Start pulling people OUT of Vancouver, and moving them into the Hinterland......

The Great Treck

Which towns in the heartland are ready for a massive influx of people, Rick?

Which areas are ready for tree cutting to make way for huge residential developments and industrial sites? Or is it just campsites and farming?

Will the people in the DTES be the first or last to go?