Isn’t this an old report?

On November 9th, 2011, the list was as follows.

Here is the top eleven list:
1. Surrey
2. Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows
3. Kamloops
4. Abbotsford
5. Fort St. John
6. Dawson Creek
7. Kelowna
8. Comox Valley
9. Penticton
10. Prince George
11. Vancouver

http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/22036/1/p.g.+tops+vancouver+as+better+place+to+invest

What else to expect from them “Blowing your own Horn” is the Name of the Game

I think what the “Real Estate Investment Network” … get a fancy name and some people will believe you …. is trying to say is that if you have $75,000 to invest and can show an income on a purchase for $250,000 which will cover the mortgage, Prince George is the place for you.

In Surrey, if that is the limit your money can manage, forget it.

BTW, the same group of people with the fancy name also wrote this report (2007), but still holds true in many ways:

Article:http://www.realestateinvestingincanada.com/PineBeetleReport/tabid/237/Default.aspx

The title is: “HOW GLOBAL WARMING &
THE PINE BEETLE COULD DEVASTATE
THE B.C. INTERIOR’S REAL ESTATE MARKETS”
http://www.realestateinvestingincanada.com/portals/0/media/final%20sept%20beetle.pdf

What a joke… these people are just trying to get the dead market in PG going..

Anyone who charges more to sell a 500K house than a 100k house yet does exactly the same work is called a shyster in my books. Long live property guys :)

So what is wrong with the Robin Hood Principle?

;-)

Okay so here we go for PG:

Is the area’s population growing faster than the provincial average? -> NO, it’s actually shrinking.

Are new infrastructures being built to handle that growth? -> Well since there is no growth I guess the proper answer would be “N/A”, but let’s play anyway. Sure, the River Road improvements, the roundabout at the new bridge and the downtown community energy system are significant catalysts for attracting investment to PG. Oh and don’t forget about the pot hole patching.

Is the area creating new jobs and taking steps to maintain current employment levels? -> So the “and” constraint suggests they are asking if there are new jobs being created in addition to existing ones. Logically that would have to be supported by population growth. PG isn’t growing. The answer is therefore NO.

Will the area benefit from an economic or real estate ripple effect? -> Ah yes, the good ole “it depends” response.

Has political leadership created an economic growth atmosphere? -> Political leadership in PG? LOL. Nuff said.

Are there major transportation improvements in the works? -> Absolutely! PG now has an international airport with full re-fueling capacity coming in the future and the Cariboo Connector is just weeks away from completion.

PG at number 10 eh? LOL.

What about the people that are trying to sell? Where do they fit in?
Cheers

For the usual gloom and doom crowd: If there are so many other greener pastures why not take a plane or leisurely trip on the Cariboo Connector to get there?

Just saying. I’m staying.

I actually like PG allot even though I don’t live there any longer. There are many things to like about it and it is a great community in many respects. There are also many things about PG that need fixed and some of them are rather significant IMHO.

None of this stuff ties back to story though and the point of it was to suggest that PG is one of the top 10 communities in BC in which to invest in real estate. When someone makes a statement like that they should be able to back it up with tangible evidence, performance indicators or other such measures.

As much as I love PG, I see nothing on the horizon that would suggest it is poised for rapid growth and the escalating real estate prices that come along with that (which is where I assume they are suggesting people would make money on their investment).

I also may be a tad cynical because having been born and raised in PG, I hear the “PG is ready for a boom” talk far too often. It was just that, talk. The population has been incredibly constant, boringly constant in fact. There has been no major influx of new industry to the area and the industry upon which it was founded will soon be running out of the resources it relies upon. Heck, if it wasn’t for health care and education in PG (and the continued efforts from governments to preserve it as the “northern capital”), the city could actually have a population of about 40,000 to 50,000.

You can critique articles like these and love PG at the same time. Heck, one could actually make an argument that articles like these hurt PG because they do nothing to expose some of realities facing the area and city. Something about a false sense of security comes to mind.

Prince George

I am not sure what you call doom and gloom on here.

There are those who see the world through rose coloured glasses, those who think the sky is falling every day of the year, and those who are somewhere in between and try to see things as objectively as possible.

The worst ones, of course, are those who have an agenda which will benefit their jobs, their investments, their personal charity, friends and god knows what.

Specific to my posts on this article.

1. Is is true that the same story was posted just over a month ago – yes or no?

2. Is the Pine Beetle report of 2007 a report that was made available? Yes or no?

3. Is the information in that report credible? Yes or no?

Finally, it appears that your suggestion of moving somehwere else if people do not like it here has been taken by many people already. With a declining population over two consecutive census periods, which may change in the third period when the new census figures are released in February 2012, suggestions to move are not required. People do it on their own when push comes to shove.

At least some of us are looking at the indicators, seeing what might turn things around, working on different projects often as volunteers, and thinking that some of us or all of us will effect change.

To be frank with you, what the end vision should be escapes me. 90,000, 110,000, 150,000?

Why even bothering to measure on the basis of population? I am more interested in lifestyle and the ability to support a lifestyle that is achievable, maintainable, and bneficial in every sense of the world to those who live here.

That cannot be done by winging it with rose coloured glasses.

Gus, some people post a lot of gloom and doom on opinion250. You are not one of them.

There is a difference between constructive criticism and non-constructive criticism, the kind that doesn’t offer any intelligent solutions or suggestions.

For some, P.G. is already too big. For others it is too small. Houses which sell in Kelowna for 600k sell for half that amount in P.G. – Kelowna is complaining that it is the city with the highest percentage of seniors and that it has the lowest percentage of visible minorities. Young people (students, etc) don’t stay because they can’t afford to. And so forth.
The traffic is often totally gridlocked and parking is often a real nightmare.

Is that the kind of city that P.G. should be morphing into?

I hope not!

P.G. has a lot of irritants (for those who allow themselves to be irritated) but it also has a lot of good points!

Let’s mention those once in a while, shall we?

Some towns which are smaller than P.G. don’t have many of the facilities which we are enjoying. They also have a lack of the kind of specialists we have in P.G. and many of their residents end up travelling long distances to P.G. to be able to see one of these!

I could go on and on. I think it’s better to ignore some of the usual pains in the backside and put on the slightly rose coloured glasses of actually counting the good things which we have already without predicting doom and gloom and that the sky will fall for P.G. any day soon when in fact the opposite could happen and probably will!

If the world was run by laws and the real economy than PG would have huge potential to grow into a city of 150,000 plus and from there the snow ball effect could easily see PG accommodate comfortably a population of 500,000. If one lived on the outskirts of a city that size in PG’s location then I think it would be one heck of a great place to call home.

The world isn’t driven by main street though… its driven by Wall Street casino markets, the house flip market, foreign capital, government ponzi schemes, and he who has political power. As such places like Vancouver and Kelowna are king and reap all the growth. Endangered growth when one looks at a year when we will see the Chinese real-estate boom go bust, the EU collapse, the US government run out of Federal Reserve dollar ponzi wealth, and the impending real-estate value declines (with interest rates nowhere to go but up)….

Its a good time to rent. Where one wants to rent is another matter.

My top place to live in BC would be Penticton far and above anywhere else. But I’d settle for Kamloops, because they have a law school. PG lacking any real progress and horrible politicians isn’t high on the list… but its where family is and thats important too. If I could make it happen I’d move to Darwin Australia and call that place home… centrally located paradise and the lowest government debt in the modern world is a huge incentive.

Time Will Tell

Guess they missed Fort St.James.
The Mt.Milligan mine is coming along nicely and has provided a lot of jobs for the construction phase.
Even Mackenzie is selling into the mine market.
Seems everyone who needed a job,got one.
Not much to buy for real estate and this spring there will be even less to buy.
For the first time is a long time,new homes are under construction in FSJ and usually sold before they are even finished.
Decent rental accomodation and affordable homes for families is practically non-existant and more are desperately needed.
A few expensive properties on the market, but not what the average joe with a wife and 2.8 kids needs.
For real estate investment,it just might be a good place to buy…assuming you can even find something right now!
Going to be a very different town by the time they start digging in the ground next year up at the mine!

What I do find suprising is the lack of exposure the new mine is receiving in the media.
Still running into people who are not even aware it is happening!

Re: Andyfreeze’s comment about mining;

It seems that the PG media is still stuck in the mindset of “If it ain’t forestry, we don’t understand it, and therefore won’t report it.”