August: Sales green shoots as bond clouds gather
August continued the small positive trend we’ve been on for a few months now. Sales of single family homes and condos had a slight uptick on a seasonally adjusted basis while there wasn’t much noticeable change in townhouse sales (though there’s always much fewer of those).
Putting all sales together, we are now 16% above the low point in seasonally adjusted sales that we hit in January.
New lists were up a bit again, flattening out the trend that had started declining last month.
However the increase in new listings wasn’t enough to counteract the increase in sales, with seasonally adjusted inventory continuing to slide.
Less inventory and higher sales also means months of inventory dropped further in August indicating a warming market.
Sales to new list ratio however went slightly the other way due to that uptick in new listings.
Combining the two measures we see a tiny bit more warming compared to July (half a percentage point), with the overall market balance indicator moving just a bit more towards sellers.
Median prices for detached properties were unchanged, but the condo median at $512,500 is the lowest we’ve seen since December of 2022. The entire market lumped together is balanced, but the condo market remains substantially weaker.
However while the market throws out a couple green shoots in terms of activity, the bond yield clouds have been gathering. Bond yields – which lead fixed mortgage rates that make up 65% of new borrowing – have been rising all year, and are now higher than we’ve seen in over two years. Last time we saw yields rise in fall 2023 there was a noticeable slowdown in the market as people were pushed out of qualifying. We’re not as high yet, but we’re definitely above where there market has been hanging out for the past couple years, and that will drag somewhat on activity going into the fall.
Marko, I think it’s that people don’t think about real estate transactions in the same way as a purchase at a grocery store. Buy local, support local, should apply to some of the biggest transactions we make, not just the groceries we buy at the grocery store, or the store we choose to shop in.
I was given kudos, by the way, by my lawyer on how low my seller’s agent commission was using your flat fee MLS package for the sale of my home in the summer. And it supported local, LOL. Such a great offering.
Huh, pretty weak market eh? https://househuntvictoria.ca/2026/10/04/september-second-spring-lands-with-a-thud/
I haven’t visited every state, but of the ones I have, Florida easily qualifies as the butthole of our sometimes great neighbor nation.
Sure whatever you say.
Ya right. Something to keep in mind is that Mexico is a much shorter flight than Hawaii, for the majority of Canadians. Plenty of affluent Canadians down Mexico way I assure you.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/florida-property-taxes-canadian-snowbirds-9.7366814
Don’t know why people are going to Vegas, you can gamble in your bath tub.
100%, take my industry for example. There are exceptional and very competent real estate agents in Victoria that work for locally owned brokerages yet the majority of real estate transactions the consumer opts to go with brokerages where the head office is in the US (a portion of the commission the consumer is paying is headed to the US as a franchise fee or similar where the CEO of the brokerage/brand has a private jet).
I stopped mentioning in listing presentations that my brokerage is locally owned….people were giving me a blank look along the lines of who cares. Based on comments you read online I thought people would somewhat care, but there is a large disconnect between what people say and real life practice.
The baseline argument and the entire drop coming from leisure travel doesn’t hold water either as air traffic volumes to US are down a lot lower than overall visits. Today three flights to Las Vegas from Vancouver, four flights to Las Vegas from Calgary, etc….must be a lot of CNDs heading down to Las Vegas to do some business tomorrow morning 🙂
Climate change really seems to be working out, for Victoria anyway.
Commercial trucking accounts for 5.5 million border crossings alone. Tourists, people who stay in hotels, eat at restaurants (not truck stops and McDonalds), shop, attend events, etc… is definitely down in a major way. The mayor of Minneapolis was begging Manitobans to return to his city. Some communities are definitely hurting from the Canadian boycott of America.
People are also making a concerted effort to avoid buying products made in the U.S. Trump is creating an animosity that could take years to undo.
“23 million visits last year, that is a lot of Canadians lacking integrity;”
Or else they have family or business connections and really have little choice. One of our neighbours has a 93 year old mother in Oregon, for example. It’s difficult to measure the effectiveness of the leisure travel boycott without separating it from the essential baseline. Here’s a Leger study that supposedly does that. Of course, what people say they’re going to do and what they actually do are two different things, but there does seem to be a measurable trend toward vacationing within Canada.
https://leger360.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/LEGER_CanadianTravelTrends_Report_EN_March2026-1.pdf
We’re planning a week in Montreal this month. We used to go to New York every year. New York has better theatre, but Montreal has better bagels, and a lot of great neighbourhoods to walk around.
Anyone know what’s up with BC Assessments these days. I was doing a market evaluation this morning for a client
https://www.bcassessment.ca/
Search 1916 Oak Bay Ave
select any unit 🙂
What da.
How can the majority Canadians be boycotting Trump land when visits are down 25% not even factoring in a direct correlation between exchange rate and visits. You are making a false assumption that every Canadian would make a visit every year to the US if Trump wasn’t in power. Visits to the US steadily dropped by 15 million (27%) between 2013 and 2016 as the CND dollar steadily weakened 22% over those years. The argument people will make now is the CND has not weakened nearly as much this time around; however, they are ignoring other factors such as inflation in the US (concert tickets, Seahawks tickets, Disney World, etc.) and things such as a drop from the mid 90s to low 90s is much different than the CND dropping from mid 70s to low 70s in terms of consumer behaviour. In the second scenario you are going from unaffordable to very unaffordable. In my opinion, you back out the exchange rate and affordability and that 25% is more like a 10 to 12% political boycott.
I’ll re-qoute myself, “23 million visits last year, that is a lot of Canadians lacking integrity;”
5 to 7 million is still a lot of people lacking integrity and as per my point above 40 million Canadians (not visits) would not visit the US in any particular year; therefore, you can’t claim 5 to 7/40 is some small fraction of the population as the 40 is not a valid number.
My friend who lives in southern Ontario crosses the border multiple times a year. Mostly to broker inventory for his business. He also attends several concerts and sporting events, it’s a lot closer than going to Toronto. 23 million visits does not indicate 23 million people. It might translate to 5-7 million people, around 15% of our population, and a majority of Canadians boycotting Trump land. Carney should change the name on our maps to The United States of Assholes.
My friend lives in southern Ontario and crosses the border multiple times a year, mostly to broker inventory for his business. He also attends several concerts and sporting events, returning the same evening. It’s so close (closer than going to Toronto) it just makes sense.
No one with means will pick mexico over hawaii.
23 million visits last year, that is a lot of Canadians lacking integrity; however, to be expected when Trudeau is currently visiting the US for leisure on a regular basis and that is who CNDs voted into power for nearly a decade.
Actually sales are going to be up over 50% this year in CND and we can thank Carney for that. The first 1/2 year data is missing the Model 3s from China -> https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/electric-vehicles/tesla-model-3-sales-boost-in-canada-china
If Tesla was able to supply inventory in CND it would be their best year ever but you are typically for 3+ months right now for one. Demand is high but they can’t ship enough.
Good for export but there is a trade war so lower CAD is not going to increase export to the US, while basic day to day imports costs more and so as input costs, chase FDI away, and flight of capitals, which is the formula for an economic death spiral.
A sinking cdn dolllar is good for exports, maybe not a bad idea
A few months back analysts predicted the CAD be $0.70 to $0.68 USD in 2027 due to the trade war, and here we are second day of Oct 2026 and we all read hit that mark.
Look like the BoC going to have to raise rates soon.
Regarding US travel, we have boycotted the US for the last 2 years and we have relatives in California and used to go to Hawaii, many Canadians
have integrity and are doing the same.
Tesla sales are down dramatically the last few years in Canada, regardless of politics I think their cars are too big, ugly and dated looking , I do have an electric car but prefer my bike to get most places in the city.
https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/tesla-canada-sales-figures/
I think Tesla is a good example of pricing/affordability. Elon famously noted “Canada is not a real country.” The guy is also a lunatic.
Tesla brings prices down in CND sales up. It is now a three to four month wait to get a Tesla in Canada as they can’t ship them fast enough. I am certain CNDs are boycotting Teslas/Elon; however, pricing/affordability plays a big role in consumer behaviour.
I don’t disagree that politics is part of the decline in Canadian travel to the U.S. Obviously, many Canadians are avoiding the U.S. for political reasons; however, affordability cannot be ignored imo. It isn’t just the exchange rate, but also the exchange rate compounded with inflation in the US. My jaw dropped when my friends told me recently how much they spent on a Disney vacation. The tickets to the park were alone were in the thousands of US dollars.
The remainder of your arguments kind of all make sense to me.
7 million less visits to US, 200k more visits to Mexico (some CNDs priced out of US opted to go to Mexico)
7 million less visits to US, 500k more visits to Europe (much better flight connections esspecially in cheaper shoulder seasons and probably a few hundred thousand people that opted not to go to US because of politics went to Europe).
This makes sense too, our dollar is weak so it makes CND more affordable relative to US.
Thanks for the info on garage charger, Stick with the trickle down. Marko, Grandma is still using the car when she is here. grand dad has actually shown some improvement although walking is difficult for him. Mostly in Seattle these days for the therapy.
Why would a charger burn the garage down?
$2.5M to share walls and no views?
Already got the annual family xmas Hawaii vacation booked oh well…..
You are clearly a smart guy Marko. Therefore, I wonder why you keep pushing this facile theory that the drop in US travel is due to the exchange rate when it is so easy to disprove with data easily available?
Days before the US election CAD was at 0.72. It’s now at 0.70. A drop of about 2.7%. Meanwhile Canadian travel to the US fell by about 25% based on border crossing and 42% based on a decline in mobile phone roaming.
Over the same time period the CAD fell against the EUR by about 7.5% (0.67 to 0.62) so by the Marko theory of international travel flows, travel to Europe must have been absolutely hammered. Reality – Canadian travel to Europe rose by 13%
Mexico. Canadian dollar fell 9% against the peso since before Trump’s election. Again based on exchange rates Canadian visits should have been hammered. Reality – Canadian travel to Mexico up 11%
Japan – Marginal strengthening of the Canadian dollar vs JPY (<2%). Canadian visits up 18%
And it's not just Canadians avoiding the US. Travel there is down from most countries in Europe, Aus, China, India. Canada on the other hand enjoyed a 7.5% bump in overseas travel.
100% agree, but there is one small detail when comparing trickle charging with Level 2. On many EVs, with trickle charging, roughly 25% of the energy can go toward running the vehicle’s underlying systems—battery management, cooling, electronics, etc.—whereas with Level 2 charging, that overhead is typically under 10%. So, over the long term, Level 2 can be slightly cheaper and more energy-efficient than trickle charging.
but yea, if you aren’t driving much it won’t be much of a factor.
Fortunately drivers in Victoria are all incredibly skilled at parking. It takes some serious practice to ensure your vehicle is never parallel to the curb while also keeping people guessing whether you’ll be right up on the curb or a metre out
Let me guess, trips to US will fall as CNDs opt to stay at home in protest. Nothing to do with the exchange rate.
This parking setup seems practically designed to create conflict. Everyone has to park at the exact perfect angle to allow others to get out. And large trucks/SUVs will complicate things and/or encroach on other’s space.
$1 USD = $1.43 CAD today.
Elbows up!
Should be fine, until someone has a larger than average vehicle.
Don’t bother unless you drive more than ~100km/day. You can always get one later if you decide you really want it. We just use the trickle charge via the regular wall plugin (12A). It’s very slow but never seems to matter for us.
Lots of missing middle product hitting the market from mid 550s to above $2.5 million
https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/30354021/3-1721-adanac-st-victoria-jubilee (no parking)
https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/30353578/2-1721-adanac-st-victoria-jubilee (no parking)
https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/30345645/3-2118-pentland-rd-oak-bay-south-oak-bay (interesting parking setup on this one)
https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/30338937/2586-dalhousie-st-oak-bay-estevan (pivot here from townhomes to nice duplexes, but above $2.5)
https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/30329425/b-5221-rambler-rd-saanich-cordova-bay
Far more effective at roasting people.
Is the 1992 E-class benz going up for sale Barrister?
You also may want to consult Frank, high likelyhood the EV catches fire and burns down your mansion.
All indications point to higher interest rates.
Prime vs Canada 5y bonds spread is ultra thin at 0.85% and standard is 1% to 3%.
What do you expect when every government in the world is in debt to the tune of 315 trillion. Even Norway carries a token 24 billion in debt. And we’re the ones paying eternal interest, it’s all a grand scheme.
Damn, this is about to get super dark.
https://www.reuters.com/business/bonds-teeter-after-us-treasuries-worst-quarter-since-1994-2026-10-01/
Looking at my first electric car soon, is it worth while to get an electric charger in the garage and who is good at installing them?? Are they expensive?? Or just use a plug in charger?
Victoria Real Estate Board
Oct 1st, 2026
Month Sep Sep
Year 2026 2025
New Unconditional Sales 463 554
New Listings 1,488 1,554
Active Listings 3,811 3,694
Second lowest Sep sales in the last 10 years…only slower Sept was 2022 when rates starting going up.
2026 – 463
2025 – 554
2024 – 571
2023 – 493
2022 – 410
2021 – 761
2020 – 989
2019 – 616
2018 – 533
2017 – 640
2016 – 781
2015 – 704
Exactly this
A 10 grand reduction in the price of a condo could just reflect 10 years of wear and tear and neglect. If flooring, paint, cabinets and other general repairs are needed, it could set the new owners back 30 grand to bring it back to 2017 condition. The price reduction does not necessarily reflect market conditions.
Ahh, what a standard we are looking for in city council: please, just don’t be a lunatic like we have now.
I will admit, I didn’t have the heart to tell the firefighter at the door, that they are actually over resourced and they should probably stop going to ambulance only call outs they weren’t tasked to attend. But I guess they have to pump those call out numbers.
Still, I am looking for any alternative that has a chance, the lunatics organize themselves enough knowing very few people vote in municipal elections and if they get out enough people, a small minority can elect a slate candidates at the level of government that impacts daily life more than any other level.
Unfortunately, we allow non-Victoria residents to hold Mayor’s office and council seats. It would be great if we could have a ward or neighbourhood tied council districts so that representation doesn’t get over run by a vote concentration (you get one vote, for 1 councilor instead of a slate).
I will take a closer look at Mcinnis and Gardiner. The NIMBY types are sometimes their own special kind of lunatics. Just look how long it took to get sewage treatment sorted out because of a few of those in Esquimalt.
Marg Gardiner cut her teeth with James Bay Neighbourhood Association and was the ultimate NIMBY, the one NIMBY to rule them all. If that is the viewpoint you want on council she is an affective voice as she is smart and persistent.
Not a lunatic or conspiracy theorist that I am aware of so therefore automatically in the top 50% of Vic council candidates
Arthur Mcinnis lives in James Bay but suing over Roundhouse -> https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/residents-sue-city-of-victoria-over-roundhouse-project-11184424
The firefighters union just knocked on my door with the public safety candidates they endorsed.
While I don’t support DRIPA people overestimate how much impact it has made and how much benefit there will be in getting rid of it. Most of the problems and most of the governments losses in court stem from Section 35 of our constitution and the court’s increasingly expansive interpretation of that.
Getting rid of DRIPA will be “easy”, amending the constitution near impossible.
For sure there will be some benefits of getting rid of DRIPA, and even more benefits to getting rid of the mindset that thought DRIPA was a good idea. But there are still going to be consultation obligations that will slow down approval of projects and there are still going to be aboriginal title cases That’s not going to change even if you swap David Eby for Dallas Brodie.
That Janion unit now has the pearl blocking all its view from the window compared to 2017.
On the other hand Richmond SFH pretty much back to 2016 prices:
https://housesigma.com/bc/richmond-real-estate/4151-campobello-place/home/BXeEn7X8Opo7rPo8?id_listing=amgL7Ax24RpyZ1MW&utm_campaign=listing&utm_source=user-share&utm_medium=desktop&ign=
Well, I stand corrected on who initiated DRIPA. On John Horgan’s fighting TMX, my impression at the time was that all his vociferous objections were significantly bluster playing to his base, but understanding how it would all eventually play out. A lot of games in politics. Anyways, I consider Eby dangerous to this Province, and I profoundly hope that, especially now that people can see how DRIPA actually starts to unfold in reality, he gets trounced by his own arrogant snap election ploy.
Minor correction. It was Horgan who stuck us with DRIPA with all party support in the Leg. However Eby the lawyer apparently believes an act of Parliament like DRIPA can be aspirational and the courts won’t read the actual words. Oops!
I’m confused. If you want a change in government wouldn’t an election be a good thing?
Unit sold at Janion for $260,000 today and it transacted at $270,000 back in 2017.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Istria. Most recently I was invited to speak in Rovinj and Pula. While Istria is nice, Dalmatia is just a bit more authentic in terms of beauty 🙂
Last year after my talk in Pula I spent a couple of days shadowing a luxury agent during showings and some insane villas in the interior of Istria which I was surprised to see given the coastline in Croatia. We viewed this one while it was under construction, looks like almost finished now -> https://www.engelvoelkers.com/hr/en/exposes/785f0b57-b9f0-5353-89f1-91434f885136
Horgan was the architect of DRIPA and was the first virtual signaller to backed UNDRIP in Canada. Horgan also used “every tool in the toolbox” to stop TMX pipeline and to destroy Canadian economy… And, here we are today with Eby as Horgan protege.
It’s even cheaper to buy a cottage in Manitoba. Wonderful beaches, probably a hundred different locations to choose from, cheap taxes, you speak the language, etc… Many Albertans, many who were former Manitobans, own cottages here. Prices range from 50 grand for a lot, to 300 grand for a year round residence. Out east in the Whiteshell/ Lake of the Woods region, prices can go into the millions. Many wealthy Americans own vacation properties there.
“Cheaper to buy a vacation home in the EU in a country with no spec tax and no property taxes and just fly there”
I forgot to tell you Marko, but we visited Istria back in June as part of a long trip in Europe (family tagged along while I was working). Absolutely lovely time. Even the stone is incredible. Anyway it was/is super-duper tempting to think about buying a vacation house in the hills someday!
September 28, 2026
Month Sept Sept
Year 2026 2025
New Unconditional Sales 416 554
New Listings 1,360 1,554
Active Listings 3,807 3,694
We can expect maybe 60 to 70 sales in the next three business days so we will definitively be off from the pace last year and it will be the 2nd slowest September in the last 10 years, after coming off a 5-year high in sales last month.
Interest rates heading up plus uncertainty just too much for the market to absorb.
Just phoned TD for a rental property mortgage renewal (coming out of a 5.24% 3 year fixed)
Variable – 3.63%
3 year fixed – 4.49%
5 year fixed – 4.59%
Variable allows for three increase of 0.25% and would still be lower than the 3 year fixed.
5-year bond yield up today again…we could be looking at 5 year fixed rates close to 5% again shortly.
Frank, when a company develops a subdivision most lots go to small builders who grab 2 or 3 for spec homes. It’s pretty much the way it’s always been done
Nice!
“ B.C. Conservatives promise no new taxes if elected on Oct. 24”
https://www.timescolonist.com/2026-bc-votes/bc-conservatives-promise-no-new-taxes-if-elected-on-october-24-12828731
I’ve had a few tenants rent my house while they were waiting for their house to be built. That’s what rentals are for. If a developer was building a new subdivision, they would put in the infrastructure, then sell the lots to prospective owners. In the meantime, they wait. You’re asking for disappointment if you build first, new owners want to add their own touches like flooring, cabinet style and color, etc…
Not common for an owner-occupier to buy a pre-sale home outside of crazy markets with no inventory. Buyers, esspecially for SFH, want to be able to move in right away into a new SFH which means the builder has to build it first.
Maybe on a SFH but lots of different moving parts pertaining to occupancy in terms of insurance, construction financing, warranty, etc.
However, not sure how you would do that for condos? Typically occupancy is given for the entire building (or a phase in the development), not given on a per unit basis.
Personally, I don’t see how we can afford more of this Eby government. I haven’t voted NDP, but I ended up liking and respecting John Horgan, who ran a measured government that was not very ideological, all things being relative. I think Eby is running us into the ground, turning a surplus into unprecedented deficits, sticking us with DRIPA and all its consequences that he apparently could not foresee, and his continuous attacks on private enterprise, all coupled with outsized arrogance. I think that’s the true cray-cray here, and I hope his cynical snap-election ploy gets him what he deserves.
Why would anyone build a home without a buyer in the first place?
“Just fly there”…. Round trip business class flight to Croatia is >15 hours, 2+ stops and about $6,000 /person.
Lol ndp
Can developers just hold-off getting an occupancy permit until they have a buyer lined up?
Cheaper to buy a vacation home in the EU in a country with no spec tax and no property taxes and just fly there 🙂 My total cost to keep this place vacant last year for the entire year (including strata fees which are 41 euros per month) was less than $1,000 CND -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBEi77VTUTM&t
If this was actually to be implemented lots of project across Greater Victoria would be impacted. For example, these new homes in Sooke have been on market for two years but it isn’t like the developer hasn’t tried to move them -> https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/30330612/2170-church-rd-sooke-sooke-vill-core
List price in 2024 at started at $899,900 and has steadily been reduced down to $769,900.
This type of policy will lead to less housing starts and specifically housing you can buy. It seems the federal liberals and BC NDP want everyone renting from large corporations? and are focused on killing home ownership.
The right policy moved would have been to talk to Carney and get GST removed from all new builds (not just first time buyers). You remove GST from that $769,900 brand new Sooke house I linked above it makes it just a but easier for a young couple to upgrade from a condo or a townhome.
So, the speculation tax on non-BC Canadians, which has already doubled in 2026 from 0.5% to 1%, Eby promises to increase to 2%, which is a 400% increase over the 2025 rate. Meanwhile, people lose their minds when their property taxes go up by 6% in one year. My regularly-used Sooke vacation home, which I built 15 years ago on a lot that had sat vacant and unsold for 5 years and for which there were no competing offers to buy, is going to be taxed to oblivion while half of the brand new homes in a nearby subdivision have been sitting empty and unsold for 2 years, and multiple new condo buildings are still being built. Moreover, the message I’ve received from the government is “No, you aren’t allowed to vote in BC, just hand over your money.” In all of Sooke, in 2024, there were 22 residential properties owned by non-BC Canadians that were subject to the spec tax and 50 BC-owned properties subject to the tax. That’s out of almost 5800 total residential properties. That is not a “crisis” situation. How is it justifiable to quadruple the tax on long-standing vacation homes when there is considerable housing stock already sitting vacant for long periods? And how does a rising vacancy tax encourage developers to build more affordable homes? This is nothing but a blatant cash grab, certainly not a thoughtful, rational housing policy. Total spec tax revenue from non-BC Canadians like me in Sooke in 2024 was $120,000, meanwhile Eby has $80m to waste on an early election? It is my belief that it is time for a change in BC government, though obviously, what I think is irrelevant since I have no political representation.
There are many reasons why a developer may be reluctant to lower prices. Doing so can affect construction financing agreements, lender requirements, and the viability of existing pre-sales. Taxing unsold units does little to address these underlying issues and may simply add another cost to an already challenging situation.
Real estate is often described as a free market, yet government policies, regulations, taxation, and financing programs can significantly influence market outcomes. The result is a market that is often less free than many assume.
Personally, I prefer a “carrot rather than stick” approach to dealing with unsold inventory. Rather than penalizing developers for holding completed units, governments could provide incentives to temporarily convert unsold homes into rental housing. This would increase rental supply, generate income for the developer, and help address housing shortages without creating additional financial pressure that could discourage future development.
Lol
What are they trying to accomplish? Get developers to sell condos at fire sale prices or stop building altogether. There is too much micromanagement in government. Is it true that spray foam insulation is banned in B.C. ?
NDP really want to completely kill housing starts -> https://cfjctoday.com/2026/09/25/b-c-s-eby-says-ndp-would-tax-new-unsold-condos-raise-speculation-vacancy-fees/
Yea, I am sure developers love sitting on vacant inventory paying strata fees, property taxes, carrying interest costs, insurance, etc.
.> I needed a chuckle this morning.
Don’t despair Maggie. Your leader Eby has a great idea to help the housing crisis …. by doubling the spec tax, and bringing in a new “Unsold Condo tax” to punish developers who can’t find a buyer within a year. That tax starts at 2 per cent, increasing 1% every year left vacant !
That oughta help! 🙂
https://x.com/Dave_Eby/status/2103539117112070572
“Our housing plan is working. Home prices are falling faster in B.C. than anywhere else in Canada, rents have dropped 26 months in a row, and the speculation and vacancy tax has turned 20,000 empty units into homes. But too many finished condos are still sitting empty or unsold.
So we’ll raise the speculation and vacancy tax by one point and bring in a new Unsold Condo Tax on finished condos left empty for more than a year, climbing every year they sit. That could unlock up to 5,000 homes for British Columbians.”
Thanks, I needed a chuckle this morning.
Yeah, not necessarily incompetentence, just weighing the level crazy that they know is there against the level of they don’t know. In the end, the public tends to smarter than the polical class and usually gets it correct. Democratic renewal is often worth some instability and it’s nearly impossible to find a government that is on its 9th year in power that is competent and not locked in an echo chamber that feeds it a myopic view detached from where the public is actually sitting. The challenge the dippers have is that the more Eby talks, the more people dislike him. After they binge on calling everyone that’s not them hateful extremist for week and it doesn’t move the polls, it will be interesting to see what was once a core value for them start to move. Last election election when they got panicked and they dropped the carbon tax and junkies using in school playgrounds. If it looks too bad for them, will they toss community benefits agreements or even DRIPA under the bus?
https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/us-fed-plans-raise-bank-oversight-thresholds-sources-say-2026-09-25/
Should be exciting. This is a step (especially the group they have) hate taking. It actually must be worse than what people think.
Some countries dominate certain events due to their location, cultural practices, physical attributes, etc.. Add to that massive government support for athletes, and you have countries like Norway dominate cross country skiing for instance. Throw in marksmanship and you have a niche event that Canadians who are not big gun owners will rarely succeed at. Norway has mandatory military service so its citizens have exposure to firearms. Canada is hockey crazy, it’s part of our culture. Therefore we win a lot of hockey medals. Jamaica has a culture of sprinting and it’s people are built for it, you don’t see many Korean sprinters, very few are 6’5. So it’s impossible to say that one country is more athletic than another. I’m late for shot put practice and have to schedule a ping pong game for this afternoon. Bye for now. I almost forgot, Australians are great swimmers because they’re always trying not to get eaten by a shark.
All indication point to a hard time and 2027 look even dimmer, because FED is increase rates, US treasury yield up, and $1 USD = $1.42 CAD.
As I predicted on a couple of political forums BC voters have had enough incompetence that they are willing to take a flyer on crazy. The Cons have also lost a few of their biggest loons, making them a bit more palatable.
Be prepared for plenty of fear mongering as Eby will need to make the Cons seem scary and crazy, although tbh the conservatives were providing plenty of fuel for that perception.
It’s hilarious, Eby basically pulled a Jim Prentice by daring the public to vote for a chaos party because they believe they engineered a scenario with no alternatives. Hubris, especially when it is displayed by politicians is often punished. The public sentiment right now is that they would rather burn it down then let Eby continue to have it. Much like what happened in Alberta in 2015 that led to Notley’s victory.
Good point.
Since Croatia’s first Olympics was 1992, here’s the table updated from 1992 to present.
Counting Olympic medals from 1992 to present ….
———- That doesn’t change the main point , since Norway still has won 4X more medals than Croatia, with a similar population. So Croatia is nowhere near best sporting country in the world per capita, at least measured by Olympic medals.
——— Canada has 401 medals (almost 6X Croatia) , Canada averaged 8X the population of Croatia over that period, so Croatia won a little more per capita than Canada.
——- And Norway’s lead is growing. If you just count medals for the last summer and Winter Olympics. —> Norway (49 medals), Canada (48 medals), and Croatia (7 medals). So that’s 7X medals for Norway vs Croatia.
Croatia has been an independent country only since the early 90s.
Oh no!!! 🙂
NEW Angus Reid poll results (Sep 24/2026)
• 43% Conservative BC
• 35% BC NDP
• 12% BC Greens
• 10% other
“ September 24, 2026 – Just two days after BC NDP leader David Eby dissolved the British Columbia legislature and called a snap election, party supporters, candidates, volunteers and donors may be questioning the wisdom of his political gamble, as the opposition BC Conservatives jump out to a commanding – but early – eight-point lead in vote intention over the incumbent.”
https://angusreid.org/ballot-backlash-bc-conservatives-open-8-point-lead-after-snap-election-call-but-electorate-far-from-locked-in/
https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/canada-population-growth-falls-lowest-132941382.html
Once the non-permanent residents stabilize we should be back to approx 350k/year.
For a country with 1.5 billion people, India has a pathetic Olympic medal count. Since 1900, they have won a total of 41 medals, none in the Winter Olympics. Their strongest showing has been in field hockey. I didn’t see a breakdown of the number of medals won by males versus females.
That’s quite a stretch.
Norway has a similar population to Croatia, but dominates many sports. 600 Olympic medals, summer and winter, vs 60 for Croatia. Even Canada has 10X as many Olympics medals as Croatia, which makes Canada/Croatia equal on a per capita basis.
Men’s soccer is the best Croatia has, but even there they are down to 13th in the world, and Norway is close at 19th. And of course both Norway (top 8) and even Canada (top 16) made it higher than Croatia (top 32) in the 2026 World Cup.
Did we really need to add another $90 million to the $13.8 billion budget shortfall….sigh.
I would say probably the greatest sporting nation in the world on a per capita basis but doesn’t change the fact that 40% of Croatians smoke.
https://nationalnewswatch.com/2026/09/22/b-c-opposition-forces-unite-as-eby-calls-oct-24-snap-election-citing-trump-threat
Eby succeeds at task that eluded Rustad and Findlay. Looks like our premier managed to unite the right.
< Average 70-year-old in Croatia is not playing pickleball and going for regular walks.
Interesting. That would be a difference from Switzerland and Austria where it seems like every grandpa and grandma are out doing hikes that would challenge young Canadians. Still I don't exactly picture Croatia as a nation of couch potatoes. They seem to punch above their weight in a number of sports…
Housing starts looking worse and worse -> https://www.bchousing.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/New-Homes-Registry-Report-August-2026.pdf
Looks like it will be the first year on record since we started collecting the data with less than 5,000 SFHs build in BC. 20 years ago we were building 15,000 SFHs per year.
That project sounds great. Since AI speeds up the process… Any plans to make some YouTube physics videos? There are lots done online by MIT, Harvard, Cambridge etc. But not much from Canadian sources.
I remember seeing one on YouTube by David Tong (Cambridge) on Quantum Fields. 7 million views.
Speaking of Croatia just got my first mortgage there @ 2.4% 5-year fixed, 30 year amort.
I worked in CVU/CCU 15+ years ago and back then some of patient charts were insane…like drug abuse + 70 pack year smoking history + a bunch of other stuff and the surgeons would do open heart surgey on these people I thought were really bad candidates.
Last year I ran into a nurse I use to work with in CVU and I asked her if it has got any better in terms of not operating on really bad candiates and she said it is even worse now. They will operate on anyone as now more and more things are being done in the cath lab so the open heart surgeons are short on business.
So yea, if you need open heart surgery or cancer treatment it is top notch service. The problem is your cancer diagnosis might be delayed not to having a GP, etc.
My cousin worked as an oncologist in Toronto and now he is back in Croatia working and he has some interesting opinions on health care between the two countries. Croatia has double the hospital beds per capita and he thinks that’s bad because they hold people longer in hospital. He think having fewer beds like Canada keeps “things moving.”
But on the whole him and his family thought Canada sucked even thought he was making $450,000/year and went back to Croatia.
As little as 30 years ago Canada was something else. My parents bought a house with a suite within two years of arriving to Canada backing onto Oaklands Park on a housekeeper and stone mason salary. We had a really good GP, there were no homeless people/camping in Oaklands Park. Now you would struggle to rent a 2 bed in Langford on a housekeeper+stone mason salary.
RE health care.
When our youngest would attempt to climb as high as he could up the tree in the front yard, the main argument my wife used to explain that he shouldn’t do that was “Do you really want to spend 15 hours waiting in the ER if you fall?”
“What are the main ways you use it in teaching?”
Hey Patrick, sorry for the delay. I don’t come here very much any more. 🙂
Well, one example. I taught an advanced undergraduate course in the Spring, a topic called “quantum field theory,” that is ordinarily taught at the graduate level. Sometimes at fancy places (MIT, Princeton, etc) undergrads will sit in the course and sometimes even outperform the graduate students, but the goal here was to bring the material down to a 3rd/4th year level while being faithful to the real technical details that make it different than anything else students see in the undergrad curriculum.
Teaching the course was a big experiment, one which there isn’t really precedent for elsewhere in the world let alone Canada, and long story short, thanks to AI-related tools I was able to put it together. (I could have done it entirely myself, but it would have taken 2-3 times as long.) That included essentially writing a ~150 page textbook along the way (since essentially all books on the market for this subject are aimed at a graduate student level, so students would have nothing to read unless I wrote it), along with coming up with an extra 60 pages lecture notes for various end-of-term projects.
More generally, one of the ways I suspect AI will impact teaching going forward is the ability to create more learning materials for students. Usually when you teach a course, you have enough time and energy to teach one version of the course, and everyone puts up with the one version. But as an expert, if the class is small enough, you can see the different needs of the different students and see how they might benefit from variations that cover a bit more of this part, or a bit less of that.
Well for anything that is well-established it is a piece of cake to develop materials for those different needs. You don’t just ask the overlords and send out the product. You go back and forth and iterate, but the time it takes is still a fraction of what it would if I did it start-to-finish myself, and the final result is comparable.
Our health care system is hit or miss. I know of someone who felt terrible and knew something was wrong. He went to the hospital, they found several clogged arteries in his heart and he had a life saving bypass. Then you hear about people going to emergency with chest pain and they die after waiting hours to see a doctor. My cousin who had a quadruple bypass 18 years ago also went to the hospital recently and waited in the hallway for 3 days to get a stent put in. It’s like going to the casino.
MM doesn’t have EV charging requirements (that I’m aware of), but it’s a no brainer to (at a minimum) rough it in. Once you start looking at battery systems, EVs that can do v2g/v2h/v2l make a lot of sense (use the car battery as a backup source). I think within the next few years most EVs will have this capability.
Croatia’s health care system is nothing to brag about. Some of the lowest cancer survival rates in EU due to a multitude of problems with inadequate care and unavailable medicine. Described by Croatians as caused by “the poor organization of the healthcare system on every level.”
Detailed in this Zagreb based 2026 article https://balkaninsight.com/2026/02/05/croatias-high-cancer-mortality-rate-a-tale-of-inadequate-care/rd/ “ CROATIA’S HIGH CANCER MORTALITY RATE: A TALE OF INADEQUATE CARE. Croatia has among the highest death rates from cancer in the EU – a situation arising from the poor organisation of the healthcare system on every level”
Everyone smokes, lots of MVA deaths (highway speed limit is 130 km/h, people drive >150 km/h) and older population does not live a very healthy lifestyle whatsoever. Average 70-year-old in Croatia is not playing pickleball and going for regular walks.
That fact that it is only 3 years less given how much people smoke (and indoors too) is impressive.
.
One factor that could be used to judge our health care system is life expectancy. However, availability of quality food, clean air, drinking water, sanitation, education, low infant mortality, etc.. probably contribute more to our life expectancy.
My friend who lives in Southern Ontario took his visiting brother and friend (both from the UK) to Buffalo for the day. They were charged $30US each to enter.
.>… poor healthcare ?
There are several organizations that rank countries by quality of health care. Many of these results are listed here https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world
Canada scores very high, for example on the main one discussed on world population review, (CEOWorld), Canada is 4th in the world after Taiwan, South Korea, and Australia.
BC Government says…. [April 2026] “, Eby said, “Seventy-seven per cent of people in British Columbia have a primary care provider.” https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2026/04/01/77-british-columbians-have-access-primary-care-premier-says/
Note that includes family doctors and nurse practitioners.
Of course health care index measures more than access to a regular family doctor/primary care provider. It includes health outcomes, life expectancy, overall access to care etc.
But the most important metric – life expectancy – has Canada is 6th best of the g20 countries at 82.11, only 2 years behind # 1 Japan. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/Life_expectancy/G20/
Anyway, if you look at various lists, overall Canada still scores high.> Mainly because other countries also have similar problems in their health care systems.
Your tax dollars at work!
Your friend is lucky to get his PR within 8 years.
As of the moment it take 25-33 months just to get a replacement of your lost, stolen, or damaged citizenship card (now paper certificate).
Genuinely curious. Sounds like Croatia has pretty good health care. Yet it fares poorly in life expectancy compared to neighbours like Slovenia, let alone wealthier near neighbours like Austria or Italy. Also about 3 years less than BC. What’s up with that? Does Croatia have some marginalized population pulling the average down? Or do people smoke and drink too much?
Some mm projects don’t have parking, let alone a charger. I just saw somewhere that 46% of new registrations in Victoria are either EV or Hybrids so makes sense to rough in for a charger. You wouldn’t want to lose a buyer over a bit of wiring.
On the condo front I would say about 1/3 of buyers that reach out to me to help them buy a condo are asking for EV charging ready to go or at least for the infrastructure to be in place in the parkade. They will not view condo listings that don’t have such.
I think it is going to be like in-suite laundry long term. Sure, condos with shared laundry facilities sell but at a discount and it will be the same story for those without EV charging provisions.
My personal building is a bunch of boomers, and we still don’t have EV infrastructure in a higher-end building. A lot of them still think EVs are a “fad” that will go away, lol.
Interesting issue is in my building that has come up is 13 (out of 133) of us had the developer install chargers in our stall(s), but now we can’t be excluded from a potential special assessment for EV infrastructure to the other 120 stalls that didn’t pay the developer to have a charger installed in their stall. Kind of sucks, but I am still for having infrastructure installed as it will help re-sale values in the building.
Sounds about right. My friend from Croatia was here for eight years total before he got PR earlier this spring. He worked for a large commercial drywall company the last four years doing steel stud framing and layouts. My understanding is his age (40) and a few other factors were working against him getting drawn for PR. He got his PR, opened a renovation company and is super busy with work (works 60+ hrs per week). Leave it to Ottawa to take eight years to grant PR to a very hard-working person in a sector where we really need people (construction).
Just listened to a Croatian EU Member of Parliament and he was commenting on the Carney/Ursula speech and he noted no one in the EU Parliament was aware. He personally thinks it is a bunch of political non-sense for Carney and Ursula, no framework for such, etc. He also noted in 2025 was the first year in history more Croatians came back to Croatia (16,843) versus left (13,120) with Canada leading the way. 258 Croatians came back to Croatia (from Canada) and only 65 left Croatia to Canada. He cited deteriorating standard of living in Canada with unaffordable housing, poor healthcare, etc. It seems that what is happening in Canada is common knowledge with those that are informed across the globe.
On the healthcare front things are bad here when you have a reference point. I haven’t had a family member wait in emerg in Croatia for longer than two hours. Every family member has a GP and if you have a child they have a dedicated public system pediatrition until 7 years old with regular check-ups.
You can go to a private clinic to see a specialist within a day or two and it isn’t wildly expensive. To see a private pediatrician or pediatric specialist like a pediatric dermatologist, for example, is 75 to 100 euros and my cousin who drives a forklift in a warehouse in Zagreb makes 1,600 euros net after tax per month.
Does anyone know how our immigration system works. I spoke to a woman originally from Bangladesh who has been here for five years, constantly working, no legal problems, etc.., yet she can’t get her permanent residency status and is returning home since her visa has expired. Yet the government brings in thousands of new immigrants every month. What kind of a game are they playing?
Wow, the dogshit people are weird. I had a dogshit person get indignant when they walked their dog 2/3rds into my front yard to do their business, and I said to them maybe it would be more appropriate not for them and their dog to wander my entire yard. I understand that dogs need to go, but within 10 feet of the sidewalk should be good. Would anyone here feel comfortable just walking around a private property univited? I am also pretty sure they only started to pick it up after I opened my front door and they were scrambling to get a bag out.
Are buyers expecting chargers on mm , or is there an upside on a sale to have a rough in or charger. In a new build
I don’t think there are any specific to mm. Here is my take on charging.
i/ In reality all you need is a 5-20 (120v, 20-amp receptacle). I made this video more than 10 years explaining the differences in charging my Model S with a 5-15 vs 5-20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_doq2hIUYU My model Y now charges at 10km/h with a 5-20. Assuming you get home at 8 pm and leave at 8 am there is a 120 km trickle charging. How many people drive more than 120 km per day in Victoria?
That being said even people that drive less than 50 km per day all still want Level 2 (I’ll admit it is a bit more efficient in terms of the hydro bill).
ii/ If you have a townhome mm with garage just throw in a 240v rough-in.
iii/ If you have surface parking the smartest common sense solution I’ve seen is put up a small post with a bracket a charger can be secured to and run the line back to the panel of the unit that has that assigned parking spot. Then the owner or tenant can just mount that charger to the post/bracket and they pay for the usage via their own bchydro meter. When they leave they can just take the charger with them. You avoid complex systems/billing/etc.
What are the charging requirements for mm
September 21, 2026
Month Sep Sep
Year 2026 2025
New Unconditional Sales 296 554
New Listings 1,047 1,554
Active Listings 3,751 3,694
The uncertainty and bond yields trending up is taking a bite out of September sales. We won’t break 500 for the month. At this pace we will be in the 450 range +/- 30
Last 10 years
2026 – 450 +/-
2025 – 554
2024 – 571
2023 – 493
2022 – 410
2021 – 761
2020 – 989
2019 – 616
2018 – 533
2017 – 640
2016 – 781
2015 – 704
While I agree – I’m currently doing load calcs for MM and the reality is (for me) I’m going to need 320A or 400A service brought in. I was hoping to have a central PV, battery, and EV setup shared across all units. The technology exists. Seems like hydro is now requiring separate metering and isolated services.
I’ve now been driving Teslas for 11 years and reality is the vast majority of people in Victoria can trickle charge no problem especially if you have a 5-20 nema versus 5-15. You have all sorts of good charging tech these days like dynamic load management so no problem setting up a level 2 charger even when you have only 100 amps. It will just reduce draw a bit when other things are on.
he may end up regretting that
BC politics as wild as ever. Conservative leader Findlay resigns today. https://vancouversun.com/news/bc-conversative-leader-kerry-lynne-findlay-resigns
Snap election being considered by Eby. Opposition in disarray, but if they can unite would be a close fight in the election.
NDP leader Eby popularity is low (27% overall voters, and only 53% of NDP voters) https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/625790/BC-NDP-voters-growing-unhappy-with-David-Eby-poll
Glad to hear that.
What are the main ways you use it in teaching?
Throw in a stab lok box and sleep with one eye open, lol
The big problem is that 14 gauge wires were the standard and many space heater and appliances were plug into 1 single plug or daisy chain that is on a 15 amp circuit. And wires get tires over the years due to expansion and contractions therefore the connections become lose that can cause house fire.
Ya 100 Amps in a 90s house is not as big a deal
I agree. Modern code call for 12 gauge 20 amp home run for kitchen plugs, 40 years ago it was 14 gauge 15 amp, and previously daisy chain were allow.
Previously 14 gauge wires was the standard, and people plug high draw kettles, toasters, countertop oven, or multiple devices into a single plug that pull much more than 1800 watts and that what causes the majority of the electrical fire in the past.
My entire subdivision in Langford that was build between 1993 to 1995 were all 100 Amps.
Ya 100 Amps in a 90s house is not as big a deal , u shouldn’t be tripping breakers . Most of the problem is in kitchens with all the plugs on one 15 amp , just not enough juice for all the gadgets on the counter . I just finished pulling a 20 amp line into the kitchen on a Reno
It’s rare to draw more than 100 amps in a detached house. EV charging can draw a bit, but is partially offset by more efficient lighting and other appliances.
Just in the last year the combination of Tesla’s latest FSD (I can now work on my phone while it drives me around between properties) and AI has added at least 20+ hrs in productivity per week.
I am involved in a Supreme Court of BC litigation in a building where I own a rental unit and I asked it to put together a petition response which it did and when I uploaded it approved by Supreme Court and stamped and I sent it off to the strata lawyer. Pretty cool!
Great time to go into trades imo. I think it is going to be a while before a robot is replacing hot water tanks or framing houses.
I find the whole thing a little odd. The GC and everyone working on the building was never like “hmmm, these footings don’t really make sense for a building of this size?’
Totoro, A few things worth noting about Navier-Stokes.
Actually, the reason why OpenAI was able to solve Navier-Stokes was because they caught wind of rumours of work in progress of two mathematicians that had made enormous progress and gotten to about the 95% mark, using AI tools themselves, but at a far more modest level. Anyway, once they knew the right place to look thanks to those rumours, OpenAI put together a team of people to work round the clock, and threw 20m USD of compute and the “kitchen sink” at the problem, and their algorithms succeeded in generating a human-unreadable proof that certain forced fluid flows develop singularities in finite time.
So, attribution is a major problem. Without knowing the right direction to pursue, they wouldn’t have succeeded. There are also accounts from the mathematicians involved that point to scientific misconduct on the part of the guy leading the OpenAI team.
But it’s also clear that the whole thing is a PR stunt rather than substantial mathematics. The approach taken here is to deploy existing knowledge to solve an old problem. But that was never the point of these major unsolved problems in mathematics. The point was always to develop new mathematics to solve them, and as of yet (this may change!) these tools have yet to do such a thing beyond incremental progress.
All of this being said, it’s a remarkable time for your child to be entering these fields. There is huge uncertainty in what will come of it, and the speed with which things are changing is difficult to wrap the head around. I have colleagues whose scientific work is essentially obsolete, say ones whose main job was to design and execute numerical simulations, but there are many that remain indispensable (myself included, at least for now).
I would say >95% of 1990s homes I show in Victoria have a 200 amp panel and the wiring is copper so not exactly sure what is inadequate aside from perhaps not enough plugs?
Spent an hour in a seminar for the additional PST applications earlier this week and what to know and then this -> https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026PREM0034-001089
I think you have the distinction right but backwards. The theorem is the harder thing.
The big deal in this case is that Agents chose the approach, ran for 88 hours, and produced a result a proof assistant verified on a problem top researchers had been working on for what, 90 years?, without success. Higher level reasoning, done incredibly fast, by machine. Past compute could not do that and it is a mind blowing change imo.
And AI is improving so fast with each version release. I can do way more now than I could last month and its accuracy in document review is now very high. Knowledge work is changing so much. There will be some good outcomes/discoveries and some bad ones for those of us that made a living based on cognitive work – and for society. There are going to be fewer jobs, especially entry level jobs, including for professionals and research. I think this is already true. I’m more concerned now about cyber-security than I was before. At least if you own real estate a swarm of malicious bots can’t take it.
In terms of housing, pretty boring out there. Some municipalities are permitting Airbnb again due to the rise in vacancy rates. Condos downtown seem to be hitting more reasonable prices.
Not sure about that. Leaky-condo-style walls are still built today, albeit not with acrylic stucco. Any time you have low-permeability membranes on both sides of a wall, you’re eventually in for a bad time.
45k cheaper now. Looks like they can be patient.
I agree that simply “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” is rarely an acceptable solution. The debate should therefore not be framed as a choice between regulation and deregulation. The real challenge is determining whether an apparent cost saving is eliminating unnecessary requirements or merely transferring a poorly understood risk into the future. The difficulty is that this distinction often becomes clear only after the consequences have materialized.
The lesson is not that all regulations are necessary, nor that all deregulation is misguided. Rather, it is that policymakers must distinguish between regulations that merely create administrative burden and those that prevent low-frequency but high-cost failures. That assessment is inherently difficult because success is often measured by events that never occur. The absence of a problem may not indicate that a regulation is unnecessary; it may indicate that the regulation is working as intended.
The leaky condominium crisis provides a useful example. In hindsight, allowing acrylic stucco to be applied directly to building structures without a rainscreen system appears to have been an obvious mistake. However, before widespread failures emerged, most participants in the industry viewed the change as a reasonable application of common sense. Similar building methods had been used successfully in many parts of the United States, and there was little immediate evidence to suggest that serious problems would result.
LOL. Computers have been generating numerical solutions to the Navier Stokes equations since forever. That’s what computational fluid dynamics is. Weather forecast models just as one example. The new and admittedly impressive result is not “solving“ the equations but rather proving a theorem based on the equations.
I agree with your post but I am not sure I could support throwing everything out given the number of problems that would result. Perhaps a bit more surgical precision with something like you have to remove 2 old rules for every new rule. That would result in a bit of careful thought on both what gets removed and what gets added. Hopefully at some point we could reduce it to 1 out for every new one…..
Huge. Navier-stokes solved by AI… I have a child in a academia/research track in computational and applied math. Not sure what that looks like next week/month/year. Higher education is going to have to change when anyone can augment their brain power. It is not just about cheating. It about the relevance of learning without AI assist in an AI world.
My nephew graduated high school this year. More than average from his class have deferred post-secondary.
I hope the “engineers” responsible for this enjoy their new jobs at Walmart. Hopefully they won’t be allowed to stack canned goods in the display areas.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/troubled-highrise-near-victoria-to-be-torn-down-mayor-says/
Not much going on housing related in our lives. I’m still super happy we bought in Fall ’23 and have a stable housing situation for our family. AI is a far bigger deal, especially in the teaching and research faces of university life..
“There’s definitely some stuff at the schools that is a bit overly precious and politically correct. However, seems like the kids see through that when it goes overboard.
I worry more about what social media is feeding my kids.”
I don’t know, aren’t both a problem? (Good argument for keeping kids off social media incidentally, although mine might be younger than yours) I’d like my institutions to not champion scientifically illiterate nonsense for example, no matter what side of the political ledger it falls on, whether it’s about climate change , “gender identity,” white-supremacy-or-the-Jews-as-the-animating-force-behind-Western-society, etc.
The reason is modern world power draw is much higher than 100 years ago when wiring was sized for lower draw and main breaker was 60 Amp. Modern house requirement is 200 amp and some go as far as 400 amp, so the wiring must be upgrade for modern usage for older homes. Even house wiring in the 90s is inadequate, because the average home was design for 100 Amps draw.
100%. We have a home of that exact same era and it comes with its share of issues. I laugh when people talk about the old homes having “good bones”. Sure the actual wood quality is high (old growth doug fir) but massively underbuilt compared to modern standards.
We renoed living and dining room and hopefully removed the very last of the knob and tube at that point in time
The issue was never one regulation or one tax. It was the cumulative effect of layer upon layer of well-intentioned requirements added over time. In a rising market with low interest rates, it was politically easier to place those costs on developers than to raise property taxes. The market concealed the burden until financing costs rose and feasibility became harder to ignore.
Ironically, the conversation is now coming full circle. After years of funding infrastructure through development-related fees and charges, governments are beginning to recognize that the cumulative burden may have contributed to housing affordability and supply challenges. The difficulty is that if new development pays less, existing property owners may ultimately have to pay more. The debate is no longer whether infrastructure should be funded, but who should bear the cost.
Many of the regulations now criticized as red tape were created to avoid problems that might otherwise end up in court. While reducing regulation can improve efficiency and lower costs, it may also shift risk from regulators to property owners, developers, insurers, and the legal system. The U.S. experience suggests that less regulation can sometimes mean more litigation, as the same disputes are resolved after the fact rather than prevented beforehand.
My instinct is to slash regulations and red tape to the bone, then reintroduce them selectively as real-world problems emerge and the public demands solutions. Too often, regulations accumulate without anyone revisiting whether they continue to provide benefits that justify their costs. The risk, of course, is that some of those regulations exist because of hard lessons learned, and removing them may simply shift costs from the approval process to litigation, insurance, and dispute resolution.
If they are thinking public school for the kid, it’s on the wrong side of the catchment boundary. I also have had a few acquaintances that picked up that era of homes in the last couple of years that ended up having to crack into walls to remove or to make sure knob and tube was removed for their insurance coverage. Fresh paint and some small updates sometimes make it look like less work is needed. A similar house that might appear to rougher, but actually just needs similar work overall is likely to be available at a better price point. But if it’s what they like and where they want to be, that always moves the other considerations lower.
Looks a little rough, good luck with the inspection. These layouts are horrible for kids with the kids room door right at the front entrance. But if that’s their budget and they want the neighborhood then it is what it is.
Try again.
https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/30183500/1323-clover-ave-victoria-fairfield-west
Thoughts on this? I am not looking/buying. Friends with 1 kid looked at it.
The idea that the things in that list are “good” or “natural human biology” is one of the most amoeba-brained takes I’ve heard in awhile. And a third-grader could tell you the algorithm is programmed to show whatever keeps users on the platform for the longest, not what’s “natural human biology”, whatever that means.
I agree with your comment that woke topics are boring and overdone.
But I’ve only seen two HHV posters recently on this topic, and one would be considered “right wing” and the other “left”.
No need to paint all conservatives with that.
There are only about 10 posters left here anyway, so why not make that 11 and post something housing related yourself?
Fed widely expected (93%) to raise today (2pm eastern). Market is pricing 3 or 4 of 25 bps hikes through end of 2027. So guidance and press conference that differs from that could move markets. Not many “green shoots” expected for rate sensitive stocks like reits or utilities. Mortgage rates heading up.
Seems this board is becoming another place for boring conservatives who are terrified of compassion and spend too much time thinking on the genitals of others, who imagine a trans kid hiding in every closet and litter boxes i every school. Boring discourse, absolutely boring discourse. Might try to get some hobbies and stick to the topic of housing. I think there’s already a home for you guys on Twitter or whatever.
Sounds like their algorithm reflects natural human biology. I think this is a good thing and you should be thankful their algorithm isn’t transgender hormone therapy with a side of mass shootings.
Most popular sports are full of manosphere and sex appeal related content…….
There’s definitely some stuff at the schools that is a bit overly precious and politically correct. However, seems like the kids see through that when it goes overboard.
I worry more about what social media is feeding my kids. For my teenage son some of the stuff the algorithm sends him is extremely right wing, misogynistic, “incel-adjacent” manosphere bullshit. For my daughter basically content that tells her that looks is everything. Fortunately both of them are into sports and outdoors so they do get fed healthier content that reflects those interests too.
Tricky for parents with younger school aged children if you don’t want them exposed to that useless left wing liberal junk that some posters share.
I too believe we are becoming a country of more extreme left and right. It seems now u have to pick aside , so I myself have bowed out and havnt voted in a long time and can’t say I care
Look – Canada is far from perfect, but “ left socialist extremism” seems a little over the top.
Agreed!
Could be much more if over regulations, red tapes, and taxes (carbon tax) weren’t in the way.
Funny you asked, in search of freedom from communist persecution, and the Canada that I love when we came 47 years ago is a far cry from the left socialist extremism that we have today.
(See prev msg)
You might think of Canada’s output growth as small, but that’s definitely not the case, compared to other countries.
—-> In last 25 years, global oil output rose by 33%, from 75 to 100 million barrels per day. Canada’s share of global output rose from 4% to 6%.
—-> Canada’s rise in output was +118%, an (incredible) additional 3.2 million barrels per day . That was 12% of all world growth in oil.
Quite impressive actually.
And what brought you here?
Fun times ahead -> https://www.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/comments/1wgdxfb/bc_government_forecasting_larger_deficits_over/
It took Canada a quarter of a century to ramp up 2 million barrels a day to 6 million barrels, a speed as quick as movement of tectonic plates.
How long did it take to approved the upgrading of 1 pipe line that ballooned from $5.4 billions to $34.2 billions?
How about Bill C-48 tanker ban?
What about the shipping bottle neck and regulations that prevent refining and processing?
That is the 6.2 million barrels a day of saving grace, otherwise this country economy would absolutely be in the toilet.
Canada’s oil production is 6.2 million barrels of oil+equivalents per day. Which is 3X norway at 2 million.day.
No, but people are animal after all and certain demographic will attract to certain environment and life style.
For an example, ticks and leeches attract to blood, and bees attract to honey.
If a country or a city that is good at provides free stuffs then it attracts the type of people who want free stuffs. And, if a country or city that is pro business and job growth then it attract people that want to be pioneers and entrepreneurs.
The real answer is simply that they save their resource revenues instead of using them to finance government spending. Note Norway has no provinces and all resource revenues go to the central government.
Norway’s total tax take is about 42% of GDP. Canada’s is about 33%.
You’re suggesting that Canadian ancestry makes someone raised outside the country prone to these vices?
How does Norway become one of the wealthiest with only 5.5 million people?
Might have something to do with the pro oil and gas development plus a national pension wealth fund.
Contrast to Norway, Canada and its virtual signalling populous in the last 40 years go out of their way to destroy Canada industries by regulate and ban anything that has to do with natural resource extraction, transportation, sales, refining and processing, and heavy industries.
And here we are today, a nation that live off the backs our children by inflated real estate price to spend while pretending that the GDP is growing.
Victoria Real Estate Board
September 14, 2026
Month Sep Sep
Year 2026 2025
New Unconditional Sales 195 554
New Listings 673 1,554
Active Listings 3,693 3,694
Sales appear to be running behind last year (tough to safe for sure due to the late Labor Day). New Listings also running behind last year.
QT- That 1975 study you cited was done when Canada had industry. Most of it has been shipped overseas. High wage demand to maintain our standard of living made it uneconomical for factories to manufacture goods that we could afford. Factories were built in the far East where labor was cheap and they didn’t have our pollution concerns. Those manufacturing jobs are not returning.
How does Norway become one of the wealthiest with only 5.5 million people? Wealth is measured by per capita, more capita, less wealth. There isn’t enough useable space for 100 million people. Emphasis on useable. Unless you want to populate agricultural land or deforest the land. Remember, trees create oxygen for free.
Perhaps 10,000 monthly of freeloader that want to get on the welfare program with free housing, free health care, and free drugs?
Since the adoption of the citizenship rule, estimates have suggested that as many as 10,000 Americans a month have been inquiring about Canadian citizenship. At the same time, some Canadians would like to become Americans. Rather than talk about separatism, why not just swap them? Everyone gets the country they say they want, and nobody has to redraw a map.
Let’s see how we do in the Eurovision Song Contest first.
There is a constant animosity between the East and West Canada and the distance from BC and Ottawa is only 3000 km. What kind of tension would we have when we are almost 8000 km from Brussels with distinctly different culture and value?
Canada Department of Manpower 1975 studied concluded that Canadian industry required a population of at least 100 million people to reach full potential and to compete on the world stage. That was before Eastern EU, Indonesia, India, and China joined the party. And, world population in 1975 was 4 billion and currently 8 billion, how do we expect to compete on the world stage with 40 million?
I love Canada and want us to succeed, but the world is not the same pre covid so logic suggests that it make more sense for Canada along with Mexico to join the US to compete on the world stage.
Problem is, they aren’t going to be “European” immigrants.
A thoughtful man doing thoughtful things, is how I interpret it. And European immigrants is pretty much the last thing in the world I’m going to worry about, personally.
That would be an immigration disaster. Then anyone living in the EU could come to Canada unabated. The flow would be unstoppable. Why do you think the UK opted out? However, the opposite would be true, current Canadians could leave this failing country and move to more industrious countries. The only problem, you’d have to give up your spacious home and yard to live in a box.
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/canada-alliance-eu-carney-276f1778?st=6K9TPT&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Had this sent to me, it might effect a hell of a lot here..
Although the Bank of Canada has maintained its policy rate, recent increases in fixed mortgage rates by several Canadian lenders may increase urgency among buyers with existing rate holds. Faced with the prospect of higher borrowing costs once those guarantees expire, some purchasers may choose to complete transactions sooner than planned. This could contribute to a modest pull-forward effect in sales activity, whereby demand is advanced from future periods into the present.
Sorry about the repost but having some problems with the new system with delayed posting.
We need more purpose-built rental housing because it provides an alternative for people moving into the city. Rentals serve as a bridge between renting and homeownership, allowing households to establish themselves in the community before purchasing a condominium, missing middle, or detached home.
Importantly, these are not inexpensive units. In many cases, the monthly rent for a newer purpose-built rental is comparable to the mortgage payment on a condominium purchased with a 20 per cent down payment. The primary rationale for building new rental housing is therefore not immediate affordability. Rather, it is sustainability and market stability.
A larger rental stock provides flexibility for households whose employment, family circumstances, or housing needs may change over time. It also reduces pressure on the ownership market by giving newcomers a viable alternative to purchasing immediately. Historically, periods of rapid population growth combined with insufficient rental supply have encouraged speculative behavior and over zealous expectations of future home price appreciation.
Over the longer term, affordability benefits are more likely to emerge as the inventory of purpose-built rentals expands, projects reach stabilized income and occupancy levels rise, as competition for tenants increases.
New rental construction may not lower rental costs in the short run, but it helps create the conditions for a more balanced and resilient housing market in the future.
We need more purpose-built rental housing because it provides an alternative for people moving into the city. Rentals serve as a bridge between renting and homeownership, allowing households to establish themselves in the community before purchasing a condominium, townhouse, or detached home.
Importantly, these are not inexpensive units. In many cases, the monthly rent for a newer purpose-built rental is comparable to the mortgage payment on a condominium purchased with a 20 per cent down payment. The primary rationale for building new rental housing is therefore not immediate affordability. Rather, it is sustainability and market stability.
A larger rental stock provides flexibility for households whose employment, family circumstances, or housing needs may change over time. It also reduces pressure on the ownership market by giving newcomers a viable alternative to purchasing immediately. Historically, periods of rapid population growth combined with insufficient rental supply have encouraged over zealous speculative behavior and excessive home price appreciation.
Over the longer term, affordability benefits are more likely to emerge as the inventory of purpose-built rentals expands, projects reach stabilized income and higher occupancy levels. New rental construction may not lower housing costs in the short run, but it helps create the conditions for a more balanced and resilient housing market in the future.
Lol pretty sure I told people not to mess with those 3 year terms couple years ago, just go 5 year fixed if you are conservative or go variable if you are a risk taker and shot caller.
Yup, let people stack up some more $ so they can acquire more and/or better properties. It’s a good thing.
Which on the whole is a good thing. Let wage growth improve affordability a bit. Another two years of flat would be approaching 7 years of a flat market.
Jamieson Greer says that it’s “unhinged” to refer to this as a trade war. Of course, these are the people who don’t think what they’re doing in Iran is a “war”, and who are publicly offering $5000 bribes to voters to let them continue trashing the world economy, while stuffing cash into their own pockets.
It’s probably not a coincidence that bond yields would spike right after Bessent announces another bond purchase. The market might be detecting desperation rather than viewing it as bullish for bond prices.
I’ll be surprised if the Victoria real estate market goes anywhere upward for at least a couple of years. Best case it’ll remain flat. Decoupling the Canadian economy from the deranged idiots to the south will be extremely painful, but hopefully worth it in the long run. If there is a long run.
Yea, along with the uncertainty of the trade war I anticipate sales to be slow this fall/winter. Market appears to be pricing 4 rate hikes next year.
bond yields seeing a sharp increase today
Two consecutive years which we will be coming up on soon.
Speaking of SRT only took the government five months to approve my yearly renewal, literally just got this email. Imagine if a private business took five months.
Short-Term Rental Registration Approved
Registration Number:
H872420986
Registration Expiry Date:
April 09, 2027
Short-Term Rental Nickname:
MarkosRental
I find it interesting that the government is telling people to vacation/stay at home but we have all these STR restrictions. Where are Bob and Suzie from Winnipeg coming to Victoria for Feb/March to break up the winter a bit suppose to stay? 45 days in a hotel?
Peter true that, hotel rates have jacked after the government went stopped str’s . Making it very expensive for families already tapped out . That’s inflation brought to u by the ndp .
The dots I’d frankly like to see connected is restoring STR ability, at least for those buildings that were specifically grandfathered before, now that vacancy has improved significantly.
Someone can correct me, but I understand that with Victoria vacancy rate above 3% for long enough, city council could at some point opt out of the current STR restrictions, though I’m also guessing that might require a change in the makeup of council maybe. Maybe though some will see the tourism benefit to all this.
Apologies as I know this topic has been re-hashed many times…
It is going to be more of slow and steady if interest rates move towards the mid 4s. I can’t see the market picking up in such a scenario.
Sept 8th, 2026
Month Sep Sep
Year 2026 2025
New Unconditional Sales 105 554
New Listings 244 1,554
Active Listings 3,577 3,694
For anyone wondering why so many newly completed purpose‑built rental buildings are sitting partially‑empty, this video offers a clear explanation. It walks through the structural reasons behind the slow lease‑ups we’re seeing across the region — from pro formas built on outdated rent assumptions to the sheer volume of projects all completing at once. If you’ve noticed brand‑new buildings with surprisingly low occupancy, this helps connect the dots.
https://youtu.be/SS-iNMw_aKU?si=-hw-z3ZX7ZUb0TVT