Well, according to the Colbert report we have Numero Duece. LMAO!

Nonplused – you’re most likely correct. I find it very odd that Minto seems to have left the building, so to speak. At one time, that’s all you saw – Minto homes going up all over the place (mine is a Minto). Kanata used to be Tamarack, Minto and one other name which escapes me. Now, it’s all Mattamy everywhere. And they have no shortage of buyers. My friends’ younger daughter and son in-law just moved into that new area in Barr Haven – Bridgestone – into a half-million “starter bungalow”. They’re both under 25 but he can afford the home easily. A starter bungalow at a half-million dollars!!!!!

My own mother is sitting on a half-million dollars in real estate – her 1,300 square foot bungalow in Burlington is worth that – and we’re in a recession????? This is total insanity and it appears to me that the market is being manipulated. Believe it or not, realtors come to her and her neighbours’ doors almost monthly asking them if they’d like to put their homes up for sale because they have waiting lists of buyers. The market has gone insane.

My house is for sale at $70,000 less than it was valued at a few months ago, and because we have lived here for 15 years and will more than double what we paid for it, we can drop by another $30,000 in negotiations. I aim to be out of here by spring and moving to Ontario – something that has been in the pipeline for 5 years now.

Garth, having almost finished your book, and read the advice about hiding safes or even cementing them into the basement, what advice would you give for those of us renting property and waiting to buy? I can hardly cement a safe into someone else’s basement! Ditto a similar question about generators. How portable would a generator for a decent-sized country property be, and could it be taken up and moved when we eventually buy a place of our own?

Prediction – $500K West End Home listed today will sell for $450K today if bank will approve. Mid 2009, same house $405, end of 2009 $365K. $350K Q1 10 and 5% more to bottom feeders through 2010.

Recovery very slow for 3-5years. Flat year 1-2.

Just my opinion!

My husband corrected me, his brother in laws brother? has not yet sent his 30 horses to slaughter he says he would let them go in the hills first. I don’t know if that makes me feel any better? My husband says if things get really bad here in Alberta we could always live off the land there. My sister has also joked that we could live off of the farmland they have here in AB…the same farm where in the Depression her Mother- in -law’s father took 6 pigs to market and got a box of apples. This is sounding too much like Ireland today with the horses…Yikes. I think I want to go back to sticking my head in the sand for a while….

You are hearing this first right here: Vancouver and BC will be what they have always been: The pot production capital of North America. Don’t see any reason why that would change unless the industry becomes mainstream.

Probably what is happening to Mattamy is the same thing as we are seeing here out west. The price of used homes is still so high that their profit margins are only reduced, not eliminated. They will continue to build until it is unprofitable, and that can only mean they bring the entire market down to their marginal cost of production. But since there are so many used homeowners waiting for better prices, when Mattamy finally throws in the towel there will be a huge unsold inventory in the hands of speculators that think they know better than the pros.

You can’t beat the builders folks. They have the numbers and the experience. They are using this “sellers strike” to get as much inventory as they can off the books.