Bowen Island/Gulf Islands - help please?

[Skook]

Excellent post, Jimmy! Thanks for coming through while you’re out there on BI and letting us know how the property hunt is unfolding.

I read that Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. (JFK’s father) got out of the stock market before the crash of 1929 when he either “got stock tips from a shoe-shine boy” or he “overheard shoe-shine boys and other novices speculating on stocks”. Either scenario led him to believe that the stock market was “experiencing a speculative bubble.”

I would have to say that your double anecdote is saying the same thing about real estate. If you’ve been approached twice within a short time while on a BI walkabout by different individuals with real estate to sell, then my guess is that those individuals were speculating and now they’re feeling the heat. And, if there are two, you can bet there are more only as your friendly real estate agent points out their timing was a little off and they’re riding the market down. It will be the ones who could least afford it, too, who jumped in late likely using a HELOC or their RRSPs to buy. I saw it on the Sunshine Coast before the bottom fell out in 2007. At that time, SC locals were buying small lots in Earl’s Cove (only land prices they could afford) and they can’t get rid of those lots now without a loss (9 small lots currently listed) and the assessment just keeps dropping year after year (about $25,000-$30,000+ in just the last four years alone up there).

This just goes to show you, Jimmy, that looking at the stats (the Benchmark price in this case) doesn't paint the whole picture. Overall, I am getting a bad feeling and it’s reinforced with your news about the empty commercial spaces and that developer (post above) who is cashing out. Maybe that developer is thinking along the same lines as the “investing gurus” in this Friday (August 23rd) Globe and Mail piece…“Risk rising: Why investing gurus are worried that this bull market can't last”

Look forward to your next post, Jimmy, and cheers to you, too!