You know? It's, it's, it's a bit of a feel thing.

Yeah, it's-- I'll give you a good example on that.

So, we, you know, this happened like this week.

We had like a new condo listing, great product super unique, um, you know, great activity on it so far.

I think we had three groups that came through that both were like, "Hey, we're all, we're very, very interested." Sent us the strata documents.

A couple groups came back for second look.

So you know, we're k- still following up with those, those parties, and all of them are just kinda like, "Yeah, we really like it," like, "We'll get back to you." Like there's just no urgency.

Okay.

And Steve, you kind of talked about some of the markets or some of the lenders that might be kind of funding some of this stuff.

So BC was offered the same deal as Ontario, which was we'll basically remove the GST across all property types and values.

And the EB government turned that down and said they opted for a rent-to-own scheme where basically the government will buy them effectively hand them over to a rent-to-own company.

And it's sort of been all been created as this narrative that they're going to help sort of like, you know, normal people get into the housing market, which I just don't think is accurate.

I think when you actually unpack it and you look at all the unsold condos sitting on developer balance sheets, most of them, well, a lot of them, are in the Fraser Valley in the suburbs and in the Okanagan, those like the two most obvious areas with a huge ton of inventory, unsold inventory.

So when you start to unpack that further, you say, okay, well, everybody keeps calling this condo bailout for the developer, but you can tell when the developer owes the bank, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars, that actually becomes more of the bank's liability.

And so in those specific regions, it's actually the ones that do the most of the construction lending to the developers is actually more of the BC credit unions.

yeah i mean it makes sense i mean a smaller credit union losing hundreds of millions of dollars because the building goes you know defaults i mean it's a lot different than royal bank losing 100 million bucks on a on a condo project so obviously uh the exposure is more significant and probably a much bigger share of their overall assets so uh super interesting that that could very well be what sort of bc is doing to prop up the market there

So Steve, for our viewership, I'm sure everyone's heard the headline here, but what's really going on here?

uh yeah i mean i think it's i mean i would call like a quasi bailout basically i mean like carney kind of said it in his own words he's like listen developers don't want to sell a loss i don't know if he said don't want to sell a loss or can't sell a loss one of the two but basically says like so we'll effectively become the buyer uh and we'll convert these to affordable housing obviously we don't have all of the details and the specifics of it but like I mean, you look at the federal presser on their website, then you read, listen to the comments from Mark Carney.

And it's evident that basically it seems like they're going to give federal money.

And my understanding is they'll buy it through federal tax dollars.

and then basically hand that over to BC Housing, and BC Housing will effectively become the operator, the landlord of these properties, and will probably rent them below market rent.

So they'll be, I guess, more affordable rents.

I'm just kind of curious because if you look at the stats and the figures behind it, there's about 4,500 per CMHC, there's 4,500 vacant condos that are currently completed.

Is that what we thought this promise was that we're just going to build rentals for Canadians? Like, is that mean homeownership just not important to the government?

And I know the opposition, particularly some, some members in the NDP, like to point to British Columbia and say, "Hey, they have really strict rent control, and they're still building all kinds of purpose-built rentals, so, so that isn't necessary." So I, I guess my question is, like, what is the, the rent control regime like in, in British Columbia, and is it having any effect on development?

Yeah, I, I mean, from my observation looking at various housing markets, I think BC, I think, has the strongest rent controls or pro-tenant policies in North America.

We don't have...

So if, again, if you're building a brand-new condo building or you're building a brand-new rental building, there's rent controls basically from day one, right? Which means, like, hey, if I just finished a purpose-built rental building, it's, it's ready to be leased up.

I put a new tenant in there.

It's...

the rent growth is capped every year from, from that day forward.

So, you know, we- we've talked a lot about the, the what that happened, but, you know, what's your perspective as, as somebody who understands this market of like, why did that happen? Why did we see, uh, after the el- municipal election council flip from, um, you know, being kind of a pro intensification to, you know, ta- taking a pause?

oh wow okay

so we had the fewest home sales you'd have to go back to the year 2000 so it's a 25 year low in may home sales wow um now if i add up like the whole year so if i go january through to the end of may We're sitting at the fewest home sales, like 9,000 sales, basically 2020 pandemic year and 2019.

Other than that, it's a 25 year low.

So like we're currently tracking.

So 2025 was for the year we had a 25 year low in annual home sales.

We're tracking lower than that so far.

So yeah, I mean, basically, so to sort of summarize, I would say that really weak volume is continuing and that weak volume is translating to lower prices.

And Steve, your take on the technical recession?

Well-

He's talked about amending it.

He was gonna amend it for three years, and I don't know.

Like, I mean, it's tough.

It's kind of like a nuanced, uh, legal matter.

We've had some guests on the Loony Hour that are First Nations legal experts, and I think the prevailing sentiment is, like, this is just a disastrous policy that effectively, um, is effectively giving BC First Nations veto rights on pretty much most uses of land.

And, and I think the Rich- the Richmond case is really the one that, like, blows the doors open.

Is that sort of an oversimplification, or that's a generalization?