Oh, surely with all these wonderful pictures of Vancouver being beamed around the world 24/7, we can rest assured that those Olympic village condos will sell for top prices and ensure that the Malek brothers/Millennium Developments will pay back all the money the city loaned them.

Don’t be celebrating too quickly. Even the city’s chief real-estate optimist is not willing to say anything of the sort, as I document in my latest story on the always-interesting village finances in today’s Globe. It’s going to be close call, according to Bob Rennie and many others. Likely the Maleks will have to sell off the retail components of the village, plus the 110 units that were supposed to be rental apartments to make the numbers come out even at the end of the balance sheet.

Others I’ve talked to said that the developers will likely make a very small profit or take a small loss. But before you start saving your pennies to pay for the shortfall, one interesting thing to remember — even if there is a small loss, the city of Vancouver is still making money on the loan since it’s charging the Maleks more interest than what it’s paying out to its lender.