OK bears you need to read this...

Are Vancouver RE bears jerks?

Most aren't. But some definitely are. Or rather some are, some of the time.

As I head round the bear blogs, I see the usual hope for change, but I also something else. Anger and bitterness, the result of years of waiting outside the gate and watching your dream move further away every day. It is understandable.

However the result is anger, towards everyone and everything.

Like hoping the buyers suffer losses, hoping they are foreclosed or the City and Province go bankrupt. Enough already... they are your neighbours. So they got sucked into the vortex, that doesn't make them criminals.

And if things work out as bad you want...sure you can say 'I told you so' to all your buddies at work, as you all pack your things up and head out the door to try and find another job.

Or I read them say what a terrible city Vancouver is and how stupid Vancourites are...so what the hell are you doin' here??? Obviously they don't have roots in this city.

I suspect a lot of the REALLY belligerent bears are relative new-comers. (6 years or less). Some of the most rabid I met were from the big T or Brits. they sold their expensive property and moved here for the easy life and have found to their disgust that prices here are even higher, salaries are a lot lower, and they have had to down-size.

Hey, I want prices to drop too. But I don't want Armageddon and mass unemployment. I want the CMHC shuttered. But not so I can buy a cheaper house, so we don't go bankrupt as a country when the bubble bursts, which is a little more important than whether I own or not.

Some people have trouble looking past their nose.

And as to rich off-shore buyers. Yes it irks me. Yes I am pissed off when no-taxed money competes with my over-taxed savings but consider this....

There are Millions of Canadians who own prime water-front property in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala etc which the locals can only dream of.

Desirable property has become an international commodity and there ain't nothing we can do about it. We should at least use local taxes to make sure they are not left empty without a penalty and use that extra money for social housing. But we cannot stop it...we do it.

Think on this: Friends of mine..Husband and Wife are blue-collar workers who just bought a waterfront home in a poorer Central American country to spend their retirement winters at. They bought it from a local lawyer and his family, who apparently, with the down-turn, couldn't afford to own it any more.

How would we like it if a heavy duty mechanic and hospital clerk from Taiwan came and bought our prime property? Maybe not so much.

So lets all chill out. Lets not hope people lose everything just because they made, what we consider, is a foolish decision. But let us lobby for change.

People stopped the Government bail-out of Canwest.
People complained so much, the CHMC has been reigned in.
Mark Carney and our MPs need to hear from us on interest rates penalizing savers and encouraging speculation.

Or we can just gripe and get bitter and hope the sky falls in. Enough said.