I find myself a little uncertain about what to do this morning with the sudden departure of two of the brave bubble bloggers, the most prominent of whom was the infamous, and mysterious VHB or Van-Housing-Blogger.Given the significant loss of the VHB's data driven real estate analysis I hope to continue in the same thread regarding the real estate market analysis you find here. When I started this blog I did not want to simply duplicate the VHB's analysis so I endeavoured to create some unique and interesting ways to look at the real estate market, especially in the Fraser Valley. Additionally, I felt I could add value and complement the VHB by discussing other financial matters and I plan to continue to do so.
Given the VHB's departure, my intentions for the immediate future include:
- adding some more Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board statistics and analysis since previously I would have only been duplicating the VHB
- adding a potential guest poster or two to relieve the burden of posting on my busy life
- adding a post once per week to discuss anecdotal real estate stories
- continuing the gong show
- continuing investing segments
- continuing the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board statistics and analysis
- continuing to follow the local and national news
12 comments:
This is a great new board with in depth analysis and charts. I like-it-a-lot. Too bad about VHB. If anymore blogs drop we definitley have a conspiracy on our hands.
As I mentioned in my post on the previous thread I like your blog's investment angle and your data is right there with VHB's.
Funny how 2 blogs dropped out like that the same day, maybe they ran away and eloped in Vegas ? :)
When the bears hibernate-all the berries have been picked, and the forest is bracing for winter.
hallelujah mohican! the ideas you have for the blog sound fabulous. I've read your site with great interest and have though it a nice compliment to VHB so for you to pick up some of his angle following his departure is really appreciated.
Big shoes to fill, we will all miss VHB. I know (like many others) that his blog prevented me from making a huge mistake last summer and I am very greatful. I will miss him...
I love your idea about running an anecdote thread. I have had a number of experiences as of late with specuvestors trying to rent their places out and would love to share! Very interesting.
It would be great if you picked up the torch from VHB. To be honest, I felt quite depressed when I read his final post. My productivity at work will probably benefit though.
I was going to suggest (in the RET thread and elsewhere) that we start a group blog. Blogger has features that let one or more administrators run a site with multiple authors allowed to post. Freako, Master of All Things Oil, could be the Grand Poobah to keep things on track and we could get five or six authors. One post each every couple of weeks would almost keep up with what VHB was doing alone. I would be happy to help with mundane administration, but I'm not smart enough to contribute anything insightful about housing.
Of course, I would be happy for this site to do it all (I'm here daily anyway) if Mohican wants to. I just thought that it might be a lot of work for one person. (VHB once lamented to me the time and effort required to feed the blog, let alone the care and grooming the comments required.)
If multiple authors had their own blogs then they could cross-post both to their blog and the group blog. This would free them from maintaining a strict housing focus and would increase traffic on their personal site.
Just a suggestion.
I forgot to mention: Regardless of the solution, perhaps someone could convince VHB to contribute a guest commentary every month or two, once he gets a handle on the changes he's going through now.
It shouldn't take too much time to make a few observations or slice up a Rennie quote or two. I can't believe that he's completely stopped thinking about housing, whether he's blogging or not.
Maybe this is like a Obi-Wan Kenobi thing. He's shown us the way, but now we have to do it for ourselves.
Thanks for taking up the torch, mohican.
Your plan sounds good and I'll continue to be a daily visitor and occassional poster.
Thanks.
I can't too much wrong with your plans here except for one thing. Its far too provincial in the sense that it doesn't have a catchy URL which means visitors will be limited and new ones will have trouble finding it.
So, what I have done is asked Ben Jones if he would pick up the ball and insure that Canadian happenings are given a separate place on his thread which is the biggest and best of them all and was in Newsweek
Everyone knows this site:
www.thehousingbubbleblog.com
I was suggesting to Ben he develop a site with the URL...thehousingbubbleblog.com/canada
and if he does this would be a major coup for us here in Canada because it would get us attention all over N America.
Maybe rather than start a local blog which won't get much attention in COMPARISON, regulars here can email Ben and volunteer to help maintain such a sub-site on his regular thread.
Sorry but this is the way I see things. I'm only interested in whats best for our side and its no time for pride or anything like that.
Think about this before responding please.
The hole left in the local real estate blogosphere will be huge no doubt. Thanks for everything VHB. However, the other local bloggers aren't exactly slouches and I have faith the slack will be picked up. Not surprisingly, there are still plenty of things to talk about...
Did anyone catch the 5:00 early news on Global? One of the top stories, or should I say shameless advertisement masquerading as news, was about a condo development in Surrey called Quattro Living. Some of the story was about urban renewal in Surrey, but mostly it looked like product placement orchestrated by Global, Surrey city council and the developer. Deborra Hope finished the story with a spiel on how prices start in the low 100s for a one bedroom with square footage of blah blah blah up to blah blah blah. If I closed my eyes I could’ve sworn that I was listening to a commercial. Just more evidence of how incestuous the real estate industry is with the Vancouver media. And don’t even get me started on that other development south of the river, where “Yaletown is coming to Surrey"...
If you can get a hold of VHB's stats and graphs and continue from there it would be great. He's said he'll post them on google, so that's nice. Having stats the flow back as many years as possible really puts things in perspective. Lets hope that knowledge isn't lost.
I respect the time and effort that goes into maintaining a blog. Its not easy, and often thankless. Keep up the good work.
look forward to your posts, I already liked your posts, look forward anything you can do to crunch numbers and post analysis for the Greater Vancouver region. cheers
Thanks for continuing on. I'm bummed that we lost two YVR based blogs, but hopefully you can help cover news in the metro area. Really appreciate your efforts.
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