Ferry fees are one factor $100 bucks for a midweek run back and forth with a couple of kids, add in gas and ferry food and all the other goodies and that week-end getaway is MUCH cheaper to rent than own. AND who is going to look after it while you are busy earning the dough to run it? What happens when pipes freeze in winter, or a big branch comes through the roof in a windy storm or the septic tank backs up from a tree root.
Then there is the wait at the ferry terminal..and did I mention the cost. No wonder ferry ridership has collapsed.
Looks like the ferry corp will be pulling out of sponsoring the Canucks. Why would a Public Ferry corp sponsor a very profitable professional sport's team? Why would they have a luxury box to entertain guests? What guests? probably the same reason they pay the CEO over a Mill.
If they are trying to support the community, how about supporting 1000 Peewee teams instead?
Back to the SSC. The sellers there are pretty much under-water if they bought after 2006 from what I could tell. They are fighting hard to keep the prices up, even though demand has dried up. The price adjustments follow the market down, though I did see one sale for $1M on an $1.4 M asking. Nice one buyer!
Back to this town. Inventory is up. Up to October 2010 levels. Now it gets interesting. Where do we go from here. Sellers last year pulled their listings and then in the New Year we had the HAM invasion and optimism about the economy -remember the bank economists were still saying the Bank of Canada would raise rates this summer (which shows you how little use that field of 'science' really is)
Now our dynamic is slightly different. There is talk of a double dip. The B of C is running scared and the stock market has taken a nasty little tumble. Of course there is still HAM money and gold mining executives are sitting on some big bonuses, so there will always be money flowing. Heck, even in the US where they have a critical recession with 10+% unemployed, someone found a few bucks under the cushions to buy a $16 Million Lamborghini - and no he didn't work for BC Ferries.
Welcome back, fish. Thanks for the observations from the Sunshine Coast. Based on the inventory numbers you have been publishing from that area over the past few years, it should be no surprise prices are weak.
ReplyDeleteIt's somewhat refreshing to hear that the speculative dimensional rift is relatively contained to near the centre of Vancouver's CMA.
I always wondered why BC Ferries bought the ad around the box at Canucks games. It isnt like they have much competition.
ReplyDeleteOh and lets not forget, the HST got the boot. I kind of like that we gave the ol FU to the government but I would have prefered the 10% HST. The amount of effort it took to switch... and now back again, I hate efforts in futility. It will be interesting how long this takes.
Jesse- Whistler ain't looking so hot either. That would be the next domino to fall.
ReplyDeleteTo week of August 21st 8 sales, 18 new listings and 804 listings.
That would be a MOI of.... lots and lots
Davers
There is some stupid advertising in the Province which makes we wonder if it is to boost the execs egos or scratch backs. Like the Lottery corp. Why are they advertising so much. Is there any other lottery out there except thm and a few hopsitals? No.
They show guys fishing after a big win, even though we know those guys have more chance of being swept down the river or being hit by lightning that winning the $40M.
How about BC Hydro? Why do they advertise- To get us to use more or use less. The message is mixed up. I uspect it is to use less so that they can sell more power to the US, which is good, but I am not that all that advertising spending changes our use that much.
Then there is all the Provincial Government ads that tell us how they are spending money to create jobs.
However the BC Ferries takes the biscuit. Luxury boxes are meant to entertain big customers, that would be you and I since we use the ferries and then subsidize it with our tax dollars too. I'll take the next Red Wings game please...
Don't they offer complimentary tickets for the season to big advertising clients, so the clients enjoy the games!
ReplyDeleteI can get over the lottery advertising. In all honesty I have bought a ticket because I saw on an ad that the jackpot was high, so it isnt a total waste. It's just like McDonalds advertising; everyone knows they exist, but if they make you think about it more you are more likely to buy the product.
ReplyDeleteBC Hydro is an interesting one. Most of their ads are either for safety, which is good, and using less power, which is also good. The idea behind them telling us to use less (which you seem to know) is that we can then sell that power we dont use at peak hours to the US for more than the citizens of BC pay. That is the huge advantage of hydro power is you can open up the dams when demand is high (and power is expensive) and close them up when demand is low (and power is cheap). Other places use fossil fuel plants to make power and the time required to start and stop them (about 8 hours to start or stop) makes it impractical to ever turn them off, so we can buy power from them at pennies on the dollar and then sell our hydro power for a premium in the middle of the day when they need more. (sorry, that was a bit of a tangent, I took power engineering in school).
The government creating more jobs ads are stupid. If I have a job, I dont care, and if I am unemployed they would just piss me off further. It isnt like I will be sitting around the house and see the ad and think "wow, they are making more jobs, I better get me one of them!".
Still BC Ferries is the worst. There is no return I can think of on that. It isnt like someone is going to go to a canucks game, see the ad and think "Hey there are ferries that go to the islands! We should get on that!"
haha.
ReplyDelete"G&M – under the Access to Information Act – tried to find out why the government paid $550,000 to advertising firm Groupaction Marketing for a report that could not be found."
"federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser found that $100 million was paid to a variety of communications agencies in the form of fees and commissions and said the program was basically designed to generate commissions for these companies rather than to produce any benefit for Canadians. "