Canada Housing/Debt: Trust me, I'm a landlord.

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JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

sbaldrick posted:

Sydney?

30+ * weather comes to mind

# ? Oct 30, 2015 19:50

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 10:52

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

Sydney is nice and close to China, and Australia gives as much poo poo about foreign cash as Canada does. :ssh:

# ? Oct 30, 2015 20:48

Deep Dish Fuckfest: Sep 6, 2006; Advanced
Computer Touching; Toilet Rascal

Also, as far as I can tell, Sydney is the largest city in Australia and has an actual economy, even ignoring the... issues... with the mining sector lately. Not to discount the down under real estate insanity that's been showcased in this thread, but I feel like Vancouver is still in a class of its own.

# ? Oct 30, 2015 21:17

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

Holy poo poo. Good call that I told my boss my first choice for a transfer is Chicago. gently caress yeah.

# ? Oct 30, 2015 23:07

CRISPYBABY: Dec 15, 2007; by Reene

Are the housing prices in Chicago actually good or are they just skewed down by stuff in scary Chiraq neighborhoods?

# ? Oct 31, 2015 00:07

Barudak: May 7, 2007

attackmole posted:

Are the housing prices in Chicago actually good or are they just skewed down by stuff in scary Chiraq neighborhoods?

They're actually real good even factoring in the south side. 500k can buy a three bedroom unit on waterfront with good schools in walking distance of downtown

# ? Oct 31, 2015 00:58

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

attackmole posted:

Are the housing prices in Chicago actually good or are they just skewed down by stuff in scary Chiraq neighborhoods?

The Midwest in general especially miserable rust belt cities are much lower price.

Also they didn't recover fast after the US housing crash.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 01:14

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
ð ð ð ð« ð®ð ð¾ð ð ð¡ððð

What's with all the Sydney bashing? It's loving paradise. I loved my 3.5 years there, hate Vancouver with an ever-growing passion.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 01:21

HookShot: Dec 26, 2005

Sydney is poo poo, sorry.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 01:24

BCR: Jan 23, 2011

If you can get on a beach thats not Cronulla its ok. Otherwise its a long commute with expensive everything. rent, food, etc

Can't even get the hotel specials anymore like a steak for $5

# ? Oct 31, 2015 01:47

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
ð ð ð ð« ð®ð ð¾ð ð ð¡ððð

HookShot posted:

Sydney is poo poo, sorry.

Apology accepted.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 01:59

blah_blah: Apr 15, 2006

Chicago is pretty awful.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 02:09

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Reverse Centaur posted:

What's with all the Sydney bashing? It's loving paradise. I loved my 3.5 years there, hate Vancouver with an ever-growing passion.

Sydney seems like a place I'd like to visit or possibly live, much moreso than Vancouver even considering the added distance. No part of me wishes to live in or visit Vancouver, on the basis that I suspect it combines the things I hate about Calgary with the things I hate about living in the Kootenays.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 02:32

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

This city has loving nothing in common with the Kootenays, or the rest of the province for that matter, I assure you. It exists in a rarefied fart bubble wholly unique to itself.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 03:19

mastershakeman: Oct 28, 2008; by vyelkin

attackmole posted:

Are the housing prices in Chicago actually good or are they just skewed down by stuff in scary Chiraq neighborhoods?

The good neighborhoods in Chicago are back above '07 values, it's just nowhere near as bad as cities with good weather. But it's more than twice as expensive as places like St Louis or MSP.

The other fun thing is that Illinois (state Chicago is in) is the only state in the USA where condo associations can evict you for failure to pay your assessments, including special assessments.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 03:41

Slim Jim Pickens: Jan 16, 2012

Rime posted:

This city has loving nothing in common with the Kootenays, or the rest of the province for that matter, I assure you. It exists in a rarefied fart bubble wholly unique to itself.

Not true, Vancouver is just a Seattle/Portland that's less successful/interesting.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 03:42

ocrumsprug: Sep 23, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

Not true, Vancouver is just a Seattle/Portland that's less successful/interesting.

Neither of those two places have much in common with the Kootenays either, so that is an odd argument.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 03:58

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

Trigger Warning: CNBC

quote:

Why investors are shorting Canada's housing market

A growing number of investors are betting Canada's frothy property market will nosedive, according to research firm Markit, as low energy prices drag down the country's economic outlook.

Investors are taking out an increasing number of "short" positions on banks and insurers with high exposure to the property market, Markit explained, with these investors expecting share prices to slide. This comes amid record low interest rates in the country� which have been cut twice this year, down to 0.5 percent.

Financial groups now account for three of the top 10 shorted stocks in the country, it said.

Home Capital Group � one of Canada's largest financial institutions� currently ranks as the most shorted stock in Canada. Markit measures the short interest in a stock by calculating the amount of shares that are out on loan.

Home Capital Group recently saw an 18 percent share sell-off and the cost to borrow its shares jump 10 percent after second-quarter results showed fewer mortgage starts than expected. Shares on loan now total 31.9 percent, according to Markit.

That's followed closely behind by Canadian Western Bank, which has 54 percent of its $19 billion portfolio in real estate, personal loans and mortgages. About 27.7 percent of its shares are on loan, making it the fourth most shorted stock in the country.

Genworth Mi Canada, which underwrites private residential mortgages, has not only seen its stock slide approximately 22 percent in the last 12 months, but the number of short holdings increased to 19.3 percent, Markit said.

"Short sellers have been trying to call the top of the Canadian property market for some years now, which has proven to be a tricky trade as the continued cheapness of credit has continued to propel local demand and prices," the report, led by Markit analyst Relte Stephen Schutte, said.

But, it seems investors are taking a hint from declining market conditions.

Data from the RBC Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) clocked the sharpest decline in Canadian business conditions in the survey's history in September. Weak demand and stagnating exports helped send the PMI reading to a 5-year low of 48.6 � with any reading below 50 indicating a contraction.

Furthermore, with oil prices widely forecast to stay lower for longer, it's likely there could be further pain heaped on an economy which Markit estimates has a 20 percent structural exposure to energy markets. Canada's economy technically entered recession after clocking two quarters of economic contraction in the first half of 2015.

Meanwhile, property prices have continued to soar across the country, particularly in cities like Toronto and Vancouver. The latter was earlier this year dubbed one of the most expensive markets in the world in a housing survey by The Economist. It claimed Vancouver property was overvalued by 89 percent.

he Bank of Canada itself says it was concerned about overvaluation in its June Financial System Review. It said prices were outpacing income, and that the bank's models saw national house prices overvalued anywhere from 10 to 30 percent.

There is a chance, Markit suggests, that short sellers could see their property market bets foiled, especially if the central bank looks to counter the worsening economic outlook through further interest rate cuts.

"However, after Canada recently cut interest rates in July to 0.5 percent, there is not much maneuverability left to cushion a collapse in the housing market," the report explains.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/30/why-investors-are-shorting-canadas-housing-market.html

# ? Oct 31, 2015 04:01

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

Excuse me while I interrupt your white trash meth lab trailer chat

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...b+Article+Links

quote:

How mortgage fraud is thriving in Canada's hot housing market

In early 2013, Kelly Vandenham and her boyfriend were preparing to put an offer on a charming Craftsman-style house in West Kelowna, B.C. They had been preapproved for a mortgage with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, but the couple�s realtor suggested they could get a lower interest rate at Toronto-Dominion Bank, where their realtor�s boyfriend, Kulwinder Dhaliwal, worked as a mobile mortgage specialist. What happened next is a problem that continues to plague the financial industry despite steady changes to mortgage lending rules, a dilemma that some warn threatens to undermine faith in the country�s robust housing market.

Shortly before the deal was set to close, according to court and regulatory tribunal documents, Mr. Dhaliwal e-mailed to say there was a problem with their application. Ms. Vandenham�s job letter from Interior Health Authority was missing some information, prompting the bank to take a closer look and potentially putting the deal at risk. In a statement she filed with a B.C. court later that year, Ms. Vandenham wrote that she offered to get a new letter the next day. Mr. Dhaliwhal responded that he �would figure something out.�

Although TD was still reviewing the application, Mr. Dhaliwal instead cut out the Interior Health letterhead along with the signature of the agency�s human resources worker from the couple�s application and pasted them onto a fake new letter, which he submitted as part of a different application to Bank of Nova Scotia.

When Scotiabank called Interior Health to confirm some of the details of the letter, Ms. Vandenham was placed on unpaid leave and barred from setting foot on Interior Health property while it investigated her for fraud. �I was told my job was in jeopardy and I was worried I would lose my house I had just bought,� she wrote in a lawsuit against Mr. Dhaliwal that was eventually settled out of court. �I cried every day.�

According to court documents, Mr. Dhaliwal eventually admitted to what he had done and resigned from his job at the bank. TD ultimately approved Ms. Vandenham�s mortgage using her original � legitimate � employment letter. (Ms. Vandenham did not respond to requests for comment.)

Earlier this year, B.C.�s financial services regulator approved Mr. Dhaliwal�s application to become a mortgage sub-broker, someone who works as a broker but doesn�t own a brokerage.

In granting Mr. Dhaliwal a conditional licence, Carolyn Rogers, head of the provincial Financial Institutions Commission, put the blame on Mr. Dhaliwal�s former employer, TD Bank, for putting intense pressure on Mr. Dhaliwal, whom she described as poorly trained and financially naive.

What little coaching Mr. Dhaliwal received on how to properly conduct business, she wrote, �was overwhelmed by a focus on the volume of mortgage business Mr. Dhaliwal was bringing to the bank and relentless pressure to sell creditor protection insurance to as many borrowers as possible.�

Reached by phone last week, Mr. Dhaliwal said he needed to consult with his brokerage before making a comment. �I went through quite a bit of an ordeal with this whole situation,� he said. �I don�t want to get in any extra trouble for saying anything.� He did not respond to subsequent attempts to reach him.

Cases such as this represent what many in the mortgage industry say is the growing, yet under-reported, problem of mortgage fraud, perpetrated not by criminals looking to scam a bank, but by mortgage industry professionals looking to help their clients qualify to buy a home.

It�s an issue that has been exacerbated in recent years by soaring home prices, stagnating incomes, fierce competition among brokers, lenders and real estate agents, and tighter federal mortgage lending rules that have made it harder than ever for many Canadians to afford home ownership.

�The people who are salaried and altering their income for the most part are probably just facing into some of the affordability pressures because of the level of house prices today and are trying to buy a home that�s out of their reach,� says Stuart Levings, chief executive officer of mortgage insurer Genworth MI Financial Inc. �You know how it is these days, folks just want that home. They could qualify if they looked at a lower-priced home.�

Earlier this year, Home Capital Group Inc., the country�s largest alternative mortgage lender, revealed it had cut ties with 45 mortgage brokers after an anonymous letter to the company�s board of directors sparked an investigation into forged documents, such as fake employment letters and income statements. Collectively, the brokers who were fired generated nearly $1-billion worth of mortgages for the company last year.

While scandals such as the one at Home Capital occasionally shed light on the dark side of Canada�s $1.3-trillion mortgage industry, much of the problem of mortgage fraud remains hidden from public view.

In an online presentation on fraud and identity theft from 2012, mortgage insurer Canada Guaranty notes that �one in 10 mortgage applications will have some element of fraud.� Credit bureau Equifax says it had been able to flag nearly $1-billion worth of attempted mortgage fraud among its lender clients since 2013.

�It�s happening on such a level that the consumer is aware that this is something that can be done,� says an Ontario mortgage broker who didn�t want his name used and who once complained to federal and provincial regulators after being referred a deal that involved a family looking to buy three homes without any reportable income. �It�s happening on such a level that some bank reps, mobile mortgage reps, have said: Call a mortgage broker, they can probably find a way to make your income higher.�

�Soft fraud�

Those in the industry agree that much of what constitutes mortgage fraud in Canada is what�s known as �soft fraud� or �fraud for shelter� and usually involves people who are genuinely looking to buy a home and pay their mortgage, but can�t quite qualify for a conventional loan.

In some cases borrowers are simply trying to buy a home that is out of their reach financially. In others, the borrowers could qualify if they had a bigger down payment and paid a higher interest rate, but instead alter pay stubs and bank statements in order to qualify for the cheapest possible mortgage. Still, more involve people like Mr. Dhaliwal, who forge documents in order to save a deal that is up against a tight deadline.

One of the �red flags� that makes Toronto-area mortgage broker Mark Cashin suspect a deal may involve fraud is when a client comes in asking how much he charges. Brokers typically don�t charge clients fees up front, instead collecting commissions from lenders when a deal closes. Some, however, charge fees into the thousands to create fake pay stubs, bank statements and tax documents and will often hit clients with steep charges when they go to renew a mortgage that was funded based on forged documents.

�When I first started in the business, I thought this is the greatest business ever, people are willing to pay you money up front,� Mr. Cashin says. �And then my broker told me: �They want you to create documents.� I figured that one out pretty quick.�

Others come in clutching suspiciously perfect mortgage applications complete with all the required documents. Most legitimate clients have to be hounded for ages to submit all the necessary paperwork, Mr. Cashin says.

Montreal mortgage broker Walid Hammami once turned down a client because the copy of his Canada Revenue Agency notice of assessment looked too good. �The quality of the paper this thing was printed on was so classy,� he says. �It�s impossible the government would have the means to do that for every person.� In another instance, he called a client to verify documents given to him by a realtor that said the client worked as a butcher, only to find out he was actually a truck driver on disability.

Equifax has noticed the trend of people coming into its offices looking to upgrade their credit score with new employment details using fake job letters. �They�ll use the same template which has the same words spelled incorrectly,� says John Russo, Equifax�s legal counsel and chief privacy officer. Such attempts at �soft fraud� are up 15 to 20 per cent this year, he says. �We�ve seen many instances, in the thousands, come across our desks.�

In August, researchers at Veritas Investment Research visited 10 Toronto-area mortgage brokers, posing as buyers who were employed full-time and had a good credit rating, but were looking to take on more mortgage debt than they would qualify for under current rules. They offered to get fake employment letters from a relative who owned a business saying they also worked for him part-time.

Three brokers suggested they could get the deal approved through a �B lender,� or one specializing in subprime borrowers, including one broker who suggested the family member process a fake pay stub to include with the application. �This, of course, would only be acceptable for an upfront fee to the broker,� wrote investment analyst Mike Rizvanovic.

�Project Cut and Paste�

While much of the focus on mortgage fraud is directed toward alternative mortgage lenders and independent mortgage brokers, a review of court files and provincial financial regulators� disciplinary records paints a picture of a problem that is far more widespread. Major banks, private lenders, credit unions, monoline lenders � non-bank financial institutions that only deal in mortgages� have all been victims of both soft and hard fraud, perpetrated by mortgage brokers, lawyers, government workers and even the bank�s own employees.

The Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services uncovered an unauthorized mortgage brokerage operating out of the Family Responsibility Office, a provincial agency that enforces family court judgments for child and spousal support payments. It fired at least one employee after searching his computer and finding fake pay stubs for companies with names like Express Law Services and the Ontario Dental Institute.

One of the pay stubs was for an employee of the Family Responsibility Office who made $57,000 at her government job, but claimed to make $75,000 working for a company called Freedom Mortgage Financial Solutions, which was the name of a brokerage being run by one of the office�s managers. Investigators confirmed that a lender had given her a mortgage on a $320,000 townhouse based on the fake documents.

Last year, Frank Wong, a Scotiabank employee at a branch in Brampton, Ont., was convicted of fraud for altering details such as credit scores on more than 110 mortgage applications totalling $46-million. He was sentenced to a year in jail, as was his partner in the scheme, Praimraj Chansingh, an unlicensed, self-professed mortgage broker who paid Mr. Wong from $500 to $1,500 to process the fraudulent applications.

As part of the investigation, police also charged a Toronto police constable whom investigators alleged had received an inflated mortgage on a rental property he owned, an employee of a local law firm that did work on the mortgage applications, and a supervisor at CIBC who allegedly provided copies of her pay stubs to be used in at least five other mortgage applications as a favour for getting a large mortgage through Scotiabank. (Charges against everyone except Mr. Wong and Mr. Chansingh were eventually dropped.)

A Canada Post employee was fired after the postal service discovered he and his wife had been given a mortgage for nearly $800,000 on their Mississauga home as part of the Scotiabank scam using a forged job letter that claimed he was a supervisor making $90,000, when he was actually a letter carrier who made $48,000. (He was later reinstated by a labour arbitrator.)

While it went on for years, the Scotiabank fraud was not particularly sophisticated. Police dubbed their investigation �Project Cut and Paste� for the method Mr. Wong used to lift credit scores and other details from legitimate mortgage applications and paste them onto fraudulent ones. The broker, Mr. Chansingh, used Adobe software to alter other financial documents.

Many of the borrowers were struggling financially and eventually defaulted. By last year, according to court records, the bank had lost at least $12-million.

�This offence has the potential to seriously damage the value of all homes in the Brampton and Mississauga area,� Crown prosecutors wrote in a court brief. �With a potential forecasted increase of 1 to 2 per cent on the mortgage interest rate, foreclosures will happen to some of these mortgage holders who can�t even afford the current mortgage rates. Many of these homes could be foreclosed upon and whole communities will suffer from a fall in home values. This scenario occurred in the United States with the subprime mortgages.�

Others play down the risks to the overall housing market from mortgage fraud, arguing that home buyers are merely responding to an overheated housing market that forces buyers to waive financing conditions to win a bidding war, meaning they�ll lose hefty deposits if they can�t get approved for a mortgage quickly.

An environment to cheat

Broker Mr. Cashin blames overly stringent federal rules governing insured mortgages, such as shorter amortization periods and higher mortgage insurance premiums, for making it harder for average Canadians to get a mortgage, especially in expensive markets like Toronto or Vancouver.

Such policies are aimed at ensuring the housing market didn�t experience a catastrophic U.S.-style meltdown. Mr. Cashin argues that they have had the opposite effect, pushing otherwise creditworthy borrowers who would have qualified for a conventional mortgage in the past into riskier areas of the market, including to industry professionals willing to commit fraud to get a deal done at all costs.

�They�re creating an environment for people to cheat because they want those low rates,� he says. �A lot of times it�s because they need it. House prices are going up. Everything is going up except people�s wages, but policy is keeping the cheap money away from the people who need it the most.�

Others say the driving force behind mortgage fraud is to help clients who have the means to afford the mortgage, but who work for cash or otherwise aren�t declaring all their income. That might make them tax cheats, but it doesn�t necessarily put them at higher risk of defaulting on a mortgage.

�If I feel a client can afford it, I�ll help them and guide them,� says one Toronto mortgage broker who spoke on condition of anonymity because he admits he helps clients fake job letters, income documents and employer phone references.

�Yes it�s fraud. But we are looking out for the bank. We are looking out for the economy in that we�re not giving the mortgages we know are going to screw up,� he says. �I will stop clients and deals that I know are headed for trouble because it�s not healthy for anybody.�

Home Trust CEO Gerald Soloway told an analyst conference call earlier this year that the mortgages it had flagged for fraud were actually performing better than the company-wide average.

Genworth�s Mr. Levings says the mortgage industry has gotten better at spotting fraud attempts through collaboration and new technology that makes it easier to identify suspicious applications, such as those that use job letters from the same non-existent employer, or applications that are being shopped around to several lenders with slightly different documentation each time.

Lenders don�t usually send Genworth the paper documents, but the insurer gets a set of about 160 data fields from each application that it feeds into a software system that scores every deal based on details such as the borrower�s age, income, the industry they work in, the type of home they�re buying and where they live. Applications that score high often get approved with little follow-up, while those that score low are sent for a more detailed review. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, the rate of mortgages that Genworth sees defaulting within the first year � a sign of fraud or borrowers in over their heads � has dropped by half, he says.

The industry also improved after the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, the federal regulator, brought in new underwriting standards requiring both lenders and insurers to make reasonable attempts to verify employment letters and other financial documents. Mr. Levings says the �gold standard� for underwriting in the industry today, which most lenders are meeting, is to ask for two pieces of documentation and then back it up with independent research, such as checking a borrower�s credit score or looking up an employer on Google to see if it exists.

�You don�t need to go beyond that,� he says. �There�s a diminishing return. The more you get doesn�t necessarily mean you�re going to catch more.�

Yet just as technology has given the financial industry new tools to spot fraud, it has also given fraudsters better tools to avoid detection. Almost any document can be forged these days, the Toronto broker says. The only step that will guarantee that a deal will fail is if a lender asks for permission to call the Canada Revenue Agency to independently verify income details. �If you ever get to that point, you�ve got to drop the deal,� he says.

Vetting every application with a call to the CRA is not a realistic solution, Mr. Levings contends. �Frankly, I very much doubt that the CRA would ever be willing to give that up,� he says. �The privacy risk is so huge with that.�

However, many say more thorough due diligence by lenders will only go so far in solving the problem and that the mortgage industry has to do more to curb the incentives for home buyers and mortgage professionals to want to commit fraud in the first place.

Regulators need to threaten stiff penalties for even minor fraudulent activity, mortgage broker Mr. Hammami says. Banks and mortgage brokerages, many of which have been aggressively hiring, have to do a better job of checking into the backgrounds of new employees. �Some of these mortgage reps working for the banks move from one bank to another because they got caught,� he says. �And after doing it to a few banks, they move to the brokerage industry.�

Mr. Hammami is among those pushing for national industry standards and a Canada-wide regulatory body for brokers, who are now regulated at the provincial level. New brokers need help coming up with a business and marketing plan, he says. Unless they have a steady pipeline of new clients, brokers can go months without closing a deal and getting paid, so he thinks brokerages may need to rethink the commission-only business and start paying new employees a salary for the first several months until they get a feel for the industry.

�We need to speak up about these things,� he says. �People are treating the mortgage industry like a free ride.�

With a new Liberal federal government professing to tackle the country�s affordable housing crisis, Mr. Cashin believes Ottawa may need to take a second look at all of the regulations put in place in recent years to safeguard the housing market if it really wants to curb the demand for fraud.

�The mortgage business has become more complicated than it needs to be, all in the optics of protecting and stabilizing the economy,� he says. �People in general are just trying to provide the best place they can for their family to be raised. They�re trying to get to that cheap money like everyone else. If you create a situation that would motivate behaviour like that, well then shame on the government, shame on us.�

gently caress all you loving homeowners and go die in a fire

# ? Oct 31, 2015 04:01

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

My mind is loving blown that you can get an 800k mortgage on 90k/year income. gently caress this loving loving gently caress

What is the most insulting thing I can say at parties when the crash finally happens? "I told you so" just doesn't really loving cut it does it?

# ? Oct 31, 2015 04:12

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

Cultural Imperial posted:

My mind is loving blown that you can get an 800k mortgage on 90k/year income. gently caress this loving loving gently caress

What is the most insulting thing I can say at parties when the crash finally happens? "I told you so" just doesn't really loving cut it does it?

"I'm short your house" T-shirt.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 04:48

I would blow Dane Cook: Dec 26, 2008

Jus talk about how much money your shorts on genworth made when they finally went bust.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 04:52

ocrumsprug: Sep 23, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Just invite them to dinner in the house you can finally afford.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 04:59

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

ocrumsprug posted:

Just invite them to dinner in the house you can finally afford.

I'm not going for passive aggressive. I'm going for overtly aggressive.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 05:01

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

Jumpingmanjim posted:

Jus talk about how much money your shorts on genworth made when they finally went bust.

That'd be a lie though. No loving way i'm shorting poo poo

# ? Oct 31, 2015 05:01

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
ð ð ð ð« ð®ð ð¾ð ð ð¡ððð

ocrumsprug posted:

Neither of those two places have much in common with the Kootenays either, so that is an odd argument.

I would argue Seattle and Portland have increasingly less in common between themselves too. Seattle is a big boy city with a real economy, Portland is Vancouver in the 80s - complete with wannabe punk cosplayers everywhere.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 05:12

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

Portland, no lie, is a loving resort for remote working tech motherfuckers

# ? Oct 31, 2015 05:16

Deep Dish Fuckfest: Sep 6, 2006; Advanced
Computer Touching; Toilet Rascal

So, still a better economy than Vancouver then.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 05:18

tagesschau: Sep 1, 2006; Guten Abend, meine Damen und Herren.

Cultural Imperial posted:

I'm not going for passive aggressive. I'm going for overtly aggressive.

"Hey, look, another thing where Canada lags behind the U.S. by a decade!"

# ? Oct 31, 2015 05:45

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
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I went back several pages and didn't see this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMTkd8JtWdU

It's true the city is fun if you're a nature nut. Which is why almost everything they showed was North Vancouver, not Vancouver. :colbert:

# ? Oct 31, 2015 06:35

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

Reverse Centaur posted:

I went back several pages and didn't see this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMTkd8JtWdU

It's true the city is fun if you're a nature nut. Which is why almost everything they showed was North Vancouver, not Vancouver.

enjoying this other one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc-tVZq9a4Y

# ? Oct 31, 2015 07:26

Slim Jim Pickens: Jan 16, 2012

ocrumsprug posted:

Neither of those two places have much in common with the Kootenays either, so that is an odd argument.

quote:

It exists in a rarefied fart bubble wholly unique to itself.

???

Reverse Centaur posted:

I would argue Seattle and Portland have increasingly less in common between themselves too. Seattle is a big boy city with a real economy, Portland is Vancouver in the 80s - complete with wannabe punk cosplayers everywhere.

I have literally no conception of what Vancouver was like in the '80s.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 08:21

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
ð ð ð ð« ð®ð ð¾ð ð ð¡ððð

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

I have literally no conception of what Vancouver was like in the '80s.

Blue collar anglo saxon port/logging town. Much more stereotypically Canadian instead of the weird asian resort town it is today.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 08:55

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

???

I have literally no conception of what Vancouver was like in the '80s.

A dying mill / port town, heavily polluted, with deep urban decay due to horrible planning choices. Most of what the Expo line was built through in Burnaby was extremely rural farmland.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 12:29

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

Man, I remember how Canadians and Australians in D&D were jizzing themselves in 2008 about how great and safe their banks were.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 12:35

AVeryLargeRadish: Aug 19, 2011; I LITERALLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO NOT BE A WEIRD SEXUAL CREEP ABOUT PREPUBESCENT ANIME GIRLS, READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE!!!

Spazzle posted:

Man, I remember how Canadians and Australians in D&D were jizzing themselves in 2008 about how great and safe their banks were.

Yeah, it's pretty hilarious, so much for object lessons. :v:

# ? Oct 31, 2015 12:40

UnfortunateSexFart: May 18, 2008; ð» ððð« ð·ððð·
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Rime posted:

A dying mill / port town, heavily polluted, with deep urban decay due to horrible planning choices. Most of what the Expo line was built through in Burnaby was extremely rural farmland.

It wasn't heavily polluted and Burnaby was not farmland, wtf. Here's Kingsway in 1982, you can see the future Expo track on the left

My mom has told stories of bad pollution several decades earlier, but I can remember the 80s. It was just a regular medium sized Canadian town.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 13:01

namaste friends: Sep 18, 2004; by Smythe

Burnaby was mostly farmland in the 70s.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 15:08

TerminalSaint: Apr 21, 2007; Where must we go...

we who wander this Wasteland in search of our better selves?

Cultural Imperial posted:

I'm not going for passive aggressive. I'm going for overtly aggressive.

ocrumsprug posted:

Just invite them to dinner in their own foreclosed house you can finally afford.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 15:20

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 10:52

Pervis: Jan 12, 2001; YOSPOS

Spazzle posted:

Man, I remember how Canadians and Australians in D&D were jizzing themselves in 2008 about how great and safe their banks were.

It turns out a major cultural export from the US was our lovely notion of banking regulations and an overwhelming desire for easy money. I think the list of countries that didn't or don't have a hosed up banking situation is something like Norway/Sweden/Finland, maybe some random Eastern European countries, and like New Zealand. Though we still get blamed by some for what went down in Europe since we were the trigger that collapsed it, rather than horrible policy in the Eurozone and German/French bank's attempts to hide the fact that they made tons of lovely loans to other Euro countries.

It's still so bizarre to see that some countries response to the global economic slowdown was to deliberately follow exactly the path Bush went down in the early 2000's.

# ? Oct 31, 2015 15:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Canada Housing/Debt: Trust me, I'm a landlord.

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