Pubdate: Fri, 16 Apr 2010
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2010 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Cassidy Olivier
Note: Crack Shack or Mansion? http://www.crackshackormansion.com/

PRANKSTER LIKENS UPSCALE HOUSING TO DRUG DENS

Vancouver teacher Petr Pospisil insists he wasn't trying to make any
kind of social statement when he and girlfriend Ola created an online
quiz satirizing the city's housing prices.

Tens of thousands of hits and a slew of online comments later,
however, suggest he may have inadvertently done just that in posting
crackshackormansion.com earlier this week in the wake of an increase
in housing prices. The tongue-and-cheek quiz -- which challenges users
to differentiate between crack shacks and million-dollar Vancouver
properties -- has attracted an estimated 55,000 hits since going live
Wednesday as well as sparked online debate regarding housing
affordability.

Last week, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver released figures
showing the benchmark price for detached properties had increased by
23.3 per cent from March 2009 to $800,341.

But Pospisil, who grew up in Vernon and currently rents, claimed the
quiz was intended solely as a joke between friends. While researching
housing prices throughout North America, he noted prices in other
cities, such as Montreal, were more reasonable and in-line with
household income.

On further research, he said he was surprised to discover there was
little physical difference between alleged crack shacks in cities such
as Chicago and houses being sold in Vancouver. He built the site with
the help of his girlfriend, a lab tech at the University of B.C. He
said it got about 20,000 hits on the first day.

The crack-shack pictures were sourced from U.S. websites and the
houses were taken from MLS.ca ,he said. The actual prices of the
houses are accurate as of April 10.

Pospisil said he recognizes the quiz is flawed in that it doesn't take
into account land value or define a crack shack. Still, he said
Vancouverites score fairly well while out-of-towners have more
difficulty. "People that are outside of the city, many of them don't
believe the prices are real," he said. 
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