What will happen to the Greater Vancouver BC Housing Market by 2009?

No doubt in my mind that Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, I am thankful to the Lord that I live here. But, at the same time this is one of the most expensive cities to live in. The salary rates for an ordinary joe are much lower than rest of Canada. Additoinally, the RE market here has broken all economic rules so far. Thus will pay for this breach. You can live only so much on "foriegn investors" they are fair weahter friends, as soon as they can find better return on their money they would flee. One thing is temporarily stopping the crash is the olympics, but that is only untill they are finished. Crash would start before that. Has happened everywhere, even with the cities which have better job market than Vancouver. For everyones sack I hope the "crash" is not so severe.

Commend the local media for publishing the news every two months "the best place to live"...

Here is a comprehensive overview of the Canadian housing market in 2008:
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/manag...

The real estate crash will affect both the mid-top (Not the most expensive houses, but above-average housing) and the bottom end of the market. The bottom end of the market will go first as high-risk morgagee's will default and banks will scramble to reclaim value at auction. This will cause a topple-on effect that may or may not be damped out by the rest of the economy.
Either way, people at the mid-top will look to either cash in on their current house values or seek to escape high debt due to the lack of confidence in the housing market. There will eventually be a trickle-down effect in the population as people look to more affordable housing in the price brackets below them, ensuring little to no effect on the middle-range housing market.
The people in the very top-end of the housing market will seek to hold onto their property in the hope that values will rise again, with little or no chance of actually selling their houses for anything close to the purchase price. Either way house prices will fall at the very top, but very few sales will occur.

An interesting article analyzing the current Vancouver housing market situation:
http://www.urbanvancouver.com/node/53...

This article reminds me of how major global economic downturn or catastrophe has on the Vancouver housing market:
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/ne...
Just like in another prediction, we are talking about a major US recession.
http://www.ziitrend.com/predict/on/wi...'
If there is a us recession, do you think there will be an negative impact on the Vancouver housing market?

Talking about how real economic growth (like GDP) can help support the increasing housing market, here is some data from stat Canada.
http://dcnonl.com/cgi-bin/dcnhome.pl?...
It shows how the BC economic growth out paced the whole country, but then it still doesn't explain how the housing price can increase by 24% in Vancouver last year.

According to ReportonBusiness.com, Vancouver (or Canadian in general) housing market is not a bubble. It was always undervalued compared to US.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servle...
I personally think the article is not comparing apple to apple. The local housing market can only sustain a high value if the local economy, population, immigration, and external investment can keep up.

Found another interesting forum discussion about the exact same topic:
http://www.discovervancouver.com/foru...

What's described in this analysis is quite alarming.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/ne...
Quite a few other news articles are talking about the same thing, "Van housing market has hit the saturation point".

The BC economy is in fact getting stronger in the last few years. But the growth seems to be exaggerated by the media and financial institutes somewhat. Too bad the once popular Vancouver Housing blog was closed down. Otherwise, we would be able to compare some of the historical data and see what is really going on.

According to this article, it is more likely to be a soft landing.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/07/09/Bub...
The fact is fewer and fewer Vancouver working class can afford a single family home. The 2010 effect is getting irrelevant when people cannot even afford their own home.

I think it should be fine until 2010 at least. Until 2010 BC Employment rate will be in good shape. This can support the market pretty well. Unless interest rate high rocket over 10% or so, otherwise, soft-landing is very likely. But I am sure it will crash one day after 2010.... haaa..

ya ... so if it said bubble in 2005, that means the market could afford the housing price in the last 2 years.

A new report by the TD Bank Financial Group says Vancouver and Victoria are the two Canadian cities at greatest risk of a potential housing bubble. read: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-colu...

Here is a sampling of average MLS home prices in May (with year-over-year changes in brackets):
# Vancouver: $518,176 (+23.7%)
# Victoria: $515,755 (+15.6%)
# Calgary: $358,214 (+43.6%)
# Edmonton: $242,936 (+22.9%)
# Regina: $142,147 (+10.3%)
# Saskatoon: $162,279 (+11.5%)
# Winnipeg: $159,801 (+12.5%)
# Thunder Bay, Ont.: $118,804 (-9.0%)
# Toronto: $365,537 (+5.5%)
# Ottawa: $260,219 (+4.7%)
# Montreal: $219,433 (+8.2%)
# Quebec City: $150,324 (+6.9%)
# Saint John, N.B.: $129,844 (+12.3%)
# Halifax-Dartmouth: $210,225 (+7.6%)
# Nfld. & Lab.: $133,541 (-1.2%)
# Canada: $303,836 (+12.9%)