The latest goof to call for a Chinese Dudes tax in Toronto is the country’s previous finance minister. If you completely forgot about Joe Oliver, that’s okay. He wouldn’t stand out even if you put him between two shrubs. That kinda guy.
But as Harper’s former No.2, he does have some influence. And he says there should be a 15% Van-style tax on any non-Maple buying a property in the Big Smoke. He joins prominent CIBC economist Benny Tal, who made the same argument a few days ago. And sources tell me that T2 is also pushing Ontario to man up like BC did and off the foreigners.
The goal of all this? Ostensibly it’s to crater prices so people can afford houses. But really it’s about political optics, to be seen ‘doing something’ about a problem which government cannot solve. They can only crash, as it happening now in YVR.
August sales overall were down 24% and the average SFH shed $294,000 in what could be the opening ripples of a property bloodbath. As housing consultant and excommunicated realtor Ross Kay pointed out to me Friday, no housing market in North America has ever seen a 36% year/year sales increase turn into a 50% decline in just six months. “Not 1990 not the Great Recession, not in Canada and not in the USA,” he says. “This is a North American record.”
Well done, premier Christy Clark! You’ve just piloted the local housing market from a Biblical height into a deep, smoky hole devoid of survivors. So much for a soft landing. “I think it is fair to say we have had an impact,” she said yesterday. “That was the impact we wanted to have.”
So what was the impact? Basically, foreign buyers have said phooey to paying a 15% surtax on market value, and departed. In the two months before the tax there were (claims the government, which is suddenly swimming in data) 2,034 deals involving non-Canadians. But in the month after the tax, just 60. The yellow-peril gang of xenophobes who cruise through this pathetic blog argue that these stats – lower sales and prices plus the Chinese exodus – prove Van was a market made by foreigners, or the impact of the tax would have been slight.
But here’s the thing. The market was already rolling over. Sales in Vancouver peaked in March (5,173) then steadily wilted through the spring before hitting bottom (so far) in July (3,226). This 38% toppling in market activity happened at the same time benchmark prices for detached homes were rising by $235,000, or 17.5%.
That’s the essence of a dangerous asset – bloating price on collapsing volume. It shows fewer and fewer buyers were entering the market, that prices were being skewed higher on a reduced number of trades, and a correction was already beginning. That’s exactly the argument made here before the Chinese Dudes tax was cooked up and hastily announced by a government in distress. All it would take to topple the tower of speculation, greed and delusion was one little nudge. And we got it.
So whether foreign buyers were doing 9% of all deals, 3% or 16% is moot. After the realtors and Global TV had told the locals that Chinese Dudes were stealing all the houses, it was pure FOMO that fueled the bidding wars and the obscene mortgages. When the tax hit, the meme changed. Suddenly it made way more sense to wait than to buy. Sales dropped. Prices came next. Now expect more listings.
“I’m on the ground in Vancouver,” says blog dog Jeremy, “and the sentiment has definitely changed. Even at 16.5%, with much of that activity constrained to the top end of the market, your long-standing argument still holds true.”
Of course it’s true. Real estate is the most emotional of assets. People buy it for the damnedest reasons. And the higher it goes, the more they want it. If the tide turns, they flee. This is what booms and busts are made of. When human nature changes, so will this. Don’t hold your breath.
On Friday afternoon in mid-town Toronto several clutches of people populated a slick sidewalk on a boring street in mid-town, waiting to enter a house. The listing was 24 hours old, and hot. Smallish house, newly reno’d, mainly constructed of stucco-over-plywood, postage-stamp lot. Inside it had one of everything (nanny kitchen, media room, wall oven with vid screen) but all of dubious quality. Offers are being held back in anticipation of a bidding war. The price: $2.4 million. At the curb was a fleet of realtor A7s.
“The Ontario government should quickly impose a 15% tax on purchases by non-residents and foreigners of residential property in certain Greater Toronto Area (GTA) communities,” Joe Oliver says. “We have no choice.”
And so the real story begins.
147 comments ↓
Vancouver market is far from crashing. You can’t get a decent townhome for anywhere near $500K, like you could anywhere else in the country. The tax is a step in the right direction, but too little too late. Christy Clark won’t get elected again. People will realize how stupid and corrupt she is. How Dix lost to her still boggles the mind. Until the price of housing in Vancouver is affordable to Canadians it hasn’t crashed and why are we bending over backwards to market to foreigners so that Canadians can no longer afford homes?
what can a guy say ?
So glad YVR has a “North American record.”
Something to be proud of. Christy should run on that platform next time around.
Joe Oliver always looks like he’s lost.
Should be 15 on purchase. 15 on annual tax. 15 on sale minimum.
“Ostensibly it’s to crater prices so people can afford houses. But really it’s about political optics, to be seen ‘doing something’ about a problem which government cannot solve. They can only crash , as it happening now in YVR.
Sir, saying that prices are crashing in Vancouver is a lie. Sales are crashing. So is inventory. Not prices.
And why you all of a sudden concerned and emotional about house prices now? Why would you care about the 15% tax anyways?
Having dinner with a realtor friend this week – his office is located in Kerrisdale (West side of Vancouver).
The li(n)e they are told to promote now is “this downtown is just temporary. With the thousands of immigrants moving to Vancouver, this is the best time to buy. Buy now or be forever priced out”.
Pandering.
No other way to put it.
In a past life I was involved with a trade organization during the time we and government rolled out Super Host, Food Safe, Serving It Right, stuff like that. Coupled with the various trade shows we owned and produced province wide it allowed me intimate contact with elected party functionaries, ADMs, sometime even the Minister whose file we were under.
Socred, NDP, Liberal…didn’t matter, they all were absolutely bereft of any real understanding of the issues at hand, relying on outside input, the back room discussion and of course the multi bottle of wine free dinner to form their position…then directly to pandering.
Sad really but a fact that allows one to manipulate things to your will if you are connected or can afford someone who is.
3 Key Points and Questions
1. A months worth of data is not a trend. Lets revisit it in 6 months time, and then after May 2017, when Christy gets back in and decides to ‘re-evaluate the tax’
2. Vancouver sales have dried up as inventory has dried up but there have been no changes in prices. Communities surrounding Vancouver and Metro still have price appreciation and solid sales.
3. If 8% of the marginal buyers in the US nationally caused a 32% decline in prices nationally, how can 9% of foreign buyers not impact the market here?
Here’s a story from the ground in Vancouver.
My brother has been looking for a house on the West Side. One he had his eye on was listed at $3M a week before the tax was announced. It dropped to $2.8 a week after the tax, then $2.7 two weeks after that. At the end of August they pulled it off the market and relisted it for $2.5 pretending it was a new listing. He made an offer with no subjects a few grand below asking that was rejected. A week went by and no other offers came in. During that time more houses came on the market with comparable prices. He then made an offer of $2.2M with standard subjects. That was rejected because they wanted less subjects. He didn’t counteroffer and is going to sit back a month or two and see what plays out. In that short two week period the house literally dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s actually amazing. We’ll see if anyone else bites on the property.
Surely the 16% of foreign buyers (which is much higher than estimated earlier by Garth and others) is still an underestimate of the true influence over the past many years due to the long-standing decision by the government to ignore the housing crisis in Vancouver so that they can collect the property transfer taxes and pad the government coffers at the expense of “ordinary” citizens who pay local taxes with local jobs. Hopefully now the market is trending downwards for real and local citizens will no longer feel the need to take crazy risks to get into the market to provide some housing security and a community for their families. I am a homeowner and am happy to see a strong downwards correction to preserve what is left of this city and to allow the next generation to afford to live here without turning Vancouver into Monaco. This correction will in the end make for a better and more affordable city for our citizens. Bring it on!
And there it starts, the epic meltdown.
And of course they will blame the foreigners. Never themselves.
The fact that Joe the Owl is advocating for such tax clearly shows that the battle for for the last bastion of the housing market (the ridiculously overpriced and overpopulated GTA with no infrastructure whatsoever and the worse commute in North America) was lost, the fuel for the housing market totally exhausted and we are already in the big doo-doo.
It is hitting the fan. Wait, what is that smell?
The greater depression starting! The prelude is over, folks!
Now expect the credit contraction, the jobs lost, various buyout programs for underwater mortgages (no, it is not a bailout, we are the most regulated, most prudent, most brain-frozen, blah blah blah….)
and of course the appropriate government ‘actions’ – rate cuts while having huge inflation (stats already cooked to hide it), then negative rates, monetary and fiscal easing policies (expenditures will be targeted and ‘strategic’, don’t expect the increase in CPP or the carbon taxes to be cancelled), the road to .35 cents loonie.
Why do you think Laggarde was here? To give some courage to the selfie boy.
Why do you think the loonie resumed it;s sinking today while oil was going up?
Find quiet and safe place, allocate your investments properly, open the bottle and enjoy the show!
That sucks. I want to buy a house in China, they will certainly slap similar tax on Canadian buyers.
Unless Justin T. strikes a deal with the Communist there and signs extradition treaty to send back some Chinese accused of financial crimes and political misbehaviours.
CBC- the Current had a piece today about the Vancouver Mainland tax, and of course the obligatory comments from ‘some’ protesting about the discriminatory nature of such a tax, the disgrace to our national image as welcoming Canadians, and so on. Of course the business of a class action lawsuit by these same folks who have been ‘hard done by’…. were raised as they have been in the national media.
I can’t help think that given the Chinese crackdown on corruption and our own governments willingness to assist in the location and extradition for prosecution of those who might have take funds out of China illegally that they might want to give it some sober second thought. Imagine the bright lights and illumination of facts being presented in a court of Canadian law surrounding issues such as where the cash came from to buy those houses. If you can only wire out 50,000 per year by Chinese law, exactly how did you get the funds to buy that four million dollar mansion? Realtors, lawyers, bankers, all called to testify in such a very public and revealing kind of way. With all the usual public disclosure requirements. Maybe we don’t want to go to court after all… That whole ‘saving face’ thing really falls apart when you get caught disobeying mother China.
The fix won’t work in the GTA. Demand for dept slavery is off the charts.
A bloodbath cometh…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30QzJKCUekQ
Got the popcorn ready…
“Having dinner with a realtor friend”
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Your comment should get a DELETED right there.
#666 if my recollection is correct.
Garth was falling asleep at the switch. Too exhausted after the weekend shifts in the country.
And mark my words for capital controls the likes of which you have never seen or dreamed of.
Including further pension/non-retirement reforms.
It truly beats me how dumb the savers have become and to what extent they will prove dumber in the years to come!
RE: 15% Chinese real estate purchaser tax in Toronto:
What Chinese purchasers?
Toronto is not Vancouver. We are nowhere near South East Asia.
Really folks, what foreign purchasers are we talking about in Toronto? They aren’t Chinese. I don’t know who they would be. Maybe Americans taking advantage of the low dollar?
Toronto is not Vancouver. No one here is making racist complaints about one particular group of people buying all the houses or causing price inflation. A 15% “foreign buyer’s tax” here would be stupid. It wouldn’t do anything anyway. No one cares whether a “foreign buyer” (whatever that means) buys a house in Toronto.
While we are at it, why not impose a sales tax on all residential transactions over $1,000,000?
Muaaahhh!
Maybe they should have a 15% “realtor buyer’s tax”. Last three houses that sold in my neighbourhood were purchased by realtors for re-sale. None of the realtors were Chinese (or foreign).
Canada need`s a wall here too….15% is a good start!!
I live in YVR (22 years) and 15% is too low; if the NDP are elected in May 2017 I hope they bump it to 25%.
“After the realtors and Global TV had told the locals that Chinese Dudes were stealing all the houses, it was pure FOMO that fueled the bidding wars and the obscene mortgages. When the tax hit, the meme changed”
NAILED IT.
Micro view:
Some, possibly, insight into how we are, as a people, squarely to be pointed at. More like out “look in the mirror” article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/ben-myers/canadas-housing-market-crisis_b_12134820.html
Macro View:
Growth VS dividends?
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/european-banks-capital-dividends-by-viral-acharya-et-al-2016-09
25% of homes in Richmond are sold to foreigners and 90% of those are Chinese. Call it xenophobic if you wish, but facts are facts.
I agree FOMO is the biggest player, but there would be no FOMO without the foreign onslaught. Chop off the head and the body falls. Glad the facts are now coming out and that fear is dissipating.
It’s funny how a little bit of information in a blinded market can change everything.
Pension crisis…..https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/pension-crisis/the-pension-crisis-is-global/
Canadian Housing Bubble, Debt Stir Financial Crisis Fears
http://investmentwatchblog.com/canadian-housing-bubble-debt-stir-financial-crisis-fears/
It’s hard to say, but I really haven’t seen any price drops. People are just pulling their listings for now. People don’t usually need to sell.
By the way ‘goof’ means something really bad in certain places. At least it was bad in juvie.
Foreign participants never were a significant force in the Vancouver housing market. However, what the tax did was signal, especially to the local speculators, that foreign money wouldn’t bail them out when the time came. 2013 was the peak of the Vancouver/Toronto RE market, but this event was basically the bartender kicking all the patrons out at 3am after the 2am closing time. The alcohol of subprime credit expansion stopped being served at 2am, but the delusions of price increases continued to ramp up in the aftermath. Mostly mix driven, as the data clearly shows from Ross Kay, Mark (based on macro factors), and others.
“Until the price of housing in Vancouver is affordable to Canadians it hasn’t crashed and why are we bending over backwards to market to foreigners so that Canadians can no longer afford homes?”
Canadians are 95% of the buyers in Vancouver. They’re ‘affording’ it somehow. With credit. Probably of more significant importance is that there’s been a noticeable tightening of credit over the past few years with rising spreads and much tighter terms on subprime credit through the CMHC subprime mortgage insurance program.
Another interesting datapoint is that it took approximately 3 years from the 2013 apex to the panic. Similar to the cadence in the USA where it took 3 years from the peak of subprime credit to the panic (2005 to 2008). Today’s CPI and consumer numbers indicate that there is now a noticeable change in consumer behavior which should prove to be highly deflationary as expectations for lower prices are re-inforced. If not for speculators unduly pushing the CAD$ down (they’ll soon be destroyed), Canadian CPI would be quite significantly negative by now.
[Well done, premier Christy Clark! You’ve just piloted the local housing market from a Biblical height into a deep, smoky hole devoid of survivors. So much for a soft landing. “I think it is fair to say we have had an impact,” she said yesterday. “That was the impact we wanted to have.”]
Christy has managed to do what interest rates, oil prices and the 2008 World Financial Crisis couldn’t manage despite all the predications.
Icarus flew to “Biblical Heights” and we all know how that ended. Over the past few years I have come to the view that there is only one outcome for our soaring real estate markets – a crash, either market-driven or self-induced.
Maybe my young adult children will be able to afford to live in one of Canada’s urban centres in 3-4 years.
Call me an old fashioned Canadian Boomer, homes are built to be lived in, dreams and life happens in them, that life is shared with the neighbours next door and the neighbours across the street, together we make a community, but what happens to a community when our homes turn into commodities, homes are bought, yet no one moves in, grass and weeds are growing, pools aren’t opened from one year to the next turn into mosquito swamp ponds. Our renovator has a new gig…in charge of 7 empty homes in Uville, the guy who owns all these places insists on keeping them empty. Come on Garth…homes are meant to be lived in whether by owner or leased out. Too many of these homes left empty cause the natives to get restless as they can’t afford a home or can’t rent a home, our Canadian dollar is no match for many of the foreign currencies. I believe this tax kinda levels the options…sort of…bottom line…our homes are more than commodities.
D.E.L.E.T.E.
It’s Friday Smoking man may need this!
http://www.actuarialoutpost.com/actuarial_discussion_forum/showthread.php?t=267222
A few problems in Vancouver:
1. Money laundry. How come a foreigner having 35% down payment get a mortgage so easy in Canada, without being verified?
2. Also on money laundry, Canada is not doing anything to investigate, and we all hope the extradition treaty to be signed between China and Canada, ASAP!
3. Prices, under 1 million, are very sticky. True, sales are dropping, listings are increasing, but that’s on detached and expensive segment of the market. Under 1M, where the sheeple wants to buy, the game is still on. Realtors tell me, any townhouse, around 500k, which looks decent, in Tri-Cities, or Langley, South Surrey, gets sold very fast !
4. Indeed not so many bidding wars, but if its correctly listed, the property is sold. If not, stays on the market, till re-listed lower, then gets sold.
I wonder how fast my brother inlaw’s wife’s father can liquidate 32 leveraged GTA properties once this sh*tstorm hits the GTA?
LOL
Markets didn’t create these insane real estate prices in Canada. Politician’s tepid regulation, banker greed, and central banker’s* addiction to low rates all played their part driving zombie-like buyers into a feeding frenzy.
It’s no surprise that it takes just a teaspoon of political will to put things right.
JT should not have dithered on reforming CMHC and collecting taxes on foreign earned income by Permanent Residents.
JT will quietly be getting big support from big banks for his inaction on CMHC. RE bubbles can be fun when taxpayers are backing the mortgages that earn you record profits.
As Garth said in his blog post the majority of price declines are in the upper SFD – NOT townhouses and condos. Those are still easy pickings for the poor plebs getting cheap mortgages and a free pack of thirsty underwear for when they realize the whole market is tumbling. LOTS of denial out there. Overheard a stock boy at the local drugstore bragging about buying a new condo. I’m thinking it’s good thing he works at a drugstore as he’s going to need some meds for his new condition: REED (Real Estate Erectile Dysfunction) which happens when the market can no longer sustain that upward trajectory. :)
Does anyone have any stories, insight or ‘feelings’ about the Saskatoon real estate market? I’ve been in the trades here for over twenty years. Sold an award winning house I built in 2015. Timing was good, I think. My problem in this city was with value. An 800 sq Ft bungalow with a crumbling, mouldy basement is not 300,000 dollars… sorry. (am liquid at present) Seems flatter now, maybe down a little, but prices are sticky, and in my opinion, way too high for what you get. I appreciate any feedback.
How ’bout those retail sales numbers? Inflation?
Talk of a BOC cut? Now that would be something…
Strange days.
#27 pounding sand in Peachland on 09.23.16 at 7:42 pm
Pension crisis…..https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/pension-crisis/the-pension-crisis-is-global/
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Martin Armstrong is correct. I outlined non-retirement years ago.
Now even d..b-a.s clowns like the governor of BOC are discovering it.
The pension crisis though is nothing.
The jobless future of our kids is everything.
Clinton just promised a 65% inheritance tax
#7 having dinner with a friend
Did you ever hear a Realtor tell anybody not to buy because the market is in a Downturn?
The market is always balanced. There is no better time then to buy now. I heard it all. I say never catch a falling knife.
At some point those prices in BC will revert back to where it made sense for off shore investors to buy back in. There is no panic in Vancouver, condos and cranes are everywhere. What I hope T2 will do is negotiate a good extradition agreement with China and perhaps property forfuture of illigal made gains. That would be worth so much more than just 15 % tax.
Re: #19 Ace Goodheart on 09.23.16 at 7:30 pm
A 15 percent tax in the GTA will topple the housing ponzi seemingly overnight.
I’ll stand firmly, and proudly, behind Joe Oliver, Benny Tal, Christy Clark, the IMF Director Christine Lagarde and a whole host of international and Canadian banks have said:
“Canada needs to take control over the housing markets and avoid excesses”
If that means a 15% foreign speculator tax imposed, I’m for it.
Continually calling it a “xenophobia tax” is racist.
@ Mark
Mostly mix driven, as the data clearly shows from Ross Kay, Mark (based on macro factors), and others.
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I’m confused. Is there an analyst named Mark or have you started referring to yourself in the third person? Is this a new thing?
You know the day of reckoning is almost here when the RE cult leadership begins to beg and plead…
“The heads of two prominent real estate associations in Ontario are lobbying government leaders not to follow B.C.’s lead with a tax on foreign home buyers, a move that comes as the spotlight shifts from Vancouver to Toronto’s hot housing market.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/toronto/real-estate-groups-urge-ontario-not-to-impose-tax-on-foreign-buyers/article32018979/
This ‘distinguished’ fella (hint: my resume is much better than his including some of the world top 10 management consulting companies) :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Poloz
and the drama teacher are in charge of our future?
If somebody creates me a tool to short the whole charade I will put all my money in it.
OMG.
#46 The Technical Analyst (aka A Canadian Abroad)
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It does not matter any more. The time to act was 2009.
Now the only thing one can do is sneak out like a quiet fart and watch the whole s..t show from a safe distance.
Sadly, Christie Clark has to go.
She just got too greedy and waited too long.
This will go down as the most self serving government that has caused the most financial damage to young people in history.
The 2 other levels of government are complicit and together have caused a perfect storm to make the lives of Lower Mainlander’s truly miserable.
We have no life other than finding ways to pay for real estate.
#13 15 games Please let us know how you’re house hunting in China goes. I’ d like to hear what the process is like.Can you really buy land in China? I somehow doubt it .
Hey now. The shrubs might have an intellectual life actually:
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Plants-Fascinating-Emotional/dp/0060915870/ref=sr_1_2?
Every once in a while some doubter challenges Garth’s assertion that a balanced portfolio can kick out 7% through thick and thin. Here’s Gordon Pape saying the same thing.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/inside-the-market/gordon-pape-my-defensive-portfolio-has-delivered-over-8-annual-growth/article31998916/
#51 NEVER GIVE UP
“This will go down as the most self serving government that has caused the most financial damage to young people in history.”
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True, but it won’t hurt them a bit.
#54 Andrew Woburn on 09.23.16 at 9:28 pm
Every once in a while some doubter challenges Garth’s assertion that a balanced portfolio can kick out 7% through thick and thin. Here’s Gordon Pape saying the same thing.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/inside-the-market/gordon-pape-my-defensive-portfolio-has-delivered-over-8-annual-growth/article31998916/
==================================================
This is “paywalled” so no access for the masses.
Unfortunately.
Crusty Christy’s foreign buyers tax in Vancouver has served to increase house prices in Victoria and elsewhere on Vancouver Island. Probably Kelowna & the Okanagan also.
Whether it’s Vancouverites now buying here (Victoria), foreign buyers buying here to avoid the tax, FOMO or a combination of all those – the upshot is the prices are going up. Crusty must be so happy, all is going as planned, she’s making lots of money for Province of BC coffers. She’s hoping it’s made her look like a hero to Vancouverites & she’ll get re-elected. Well, from what I’ve read on social media etc, the majority of BC’ers can not stand her & her corrupt Liberal party.
Next provincial election: bye-bye Crusty & the BC Liberals.
I do believe many are getting more aware of little Justin too. Make lots of noise about doing “something” about the crazy house prices but does absolutely nothing. Plays kiss-up to China. Every day little JT goes further down in my personal opinion poll and no, I am not a Harper lover, he had to go. I had high hopes for JT, not any more.
What’s all that seriousness? It’s party time all around the world… Enjoy while it last. You will need something to remember.
Nothing very interesting happened today for me to report on my dogs, I actually did some work stuff, which is intolerable now that I have writer flu which I caught right here on GF and it’s never going away, there is no cure for this madness.
How the hell can I write code when I spend a lot of my time hiding in the bushes in my back yard waiting for weirdos to walk by, I play strange animal noises downloaded to my phone to see what kind of reaction I can attain from the freaks from Long Branch, and trust me there are plenty down here.
I need to get a Job, I need supervision, things are getting out of hand. Last few weeks I thought I had the perfect solution to my boredom, Drink a Coffee, after every shot, Repeat every hour during the day. You get to a point where stagger really quickly which can easily lead to a serious injury.
The question now remains, will I have enough guts to visit the General Store this weekend and say hello to the god of dogs. Sir Gog himself.
If he shows up in a robe, holding stone tablets with the 12 Commandments, I’m out of there.
Zolo says Vancouver home prices are down 14.9% quarterly, but still up 7.9% since this time last year. And Up 5.6% just in the last month… The tax scared people off for a couple of weeks… But crazy can’t be cured overnight…or with one dose
#52 jay on 09.23.16 at 9:11 pm
#13 15 games Please let us know how you’re house hunting in China goes. I’ d like to hear what the process is like.Can you really buy land in China? I somehow doubt it
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My refugee application is looking great so far.
Not many ahead of me in the line. One step at a time. Sunny days are ahead.
That sucks. I want to buy a house in China, they will certainly slap similar tax on Canadian buyers.
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You can’t because the land is government owned.
Otherwise the US would of bought them out years ago when they were poor
Hey now. The shrubs might have an intellectual life actually:
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Plants-Fascinating-Emotional/dp/0060915870/ref=sr_1_2?
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It’s an absolute mind blowing book!
You will understand why Native Americans talk about the “plant people”.
I never imagined to look at plants as I do now, since reading this book.
Canada with what 35, 40 million people, same size as USA
land wise (August sales overall were down 24% and the average SFH shed $294,000)
Must be the shortage of land in Canada cos its not the aspenite, drywall or brick that cost so much.
$294,000 should be the total house price…..
“JT will quietly be getting big support from big banks for his inaction on CMHC. RE bubbles can be fun when taxpayers are backing the mortgages that earn you record profits.”
The ‘problem’ happens when JT has to raise taxes to pay for CMHC bailouts when everyone with housing and consumer debt is suffering. Its becoming increasingly obvious, in hindsight, that Harper and friends essentially ‘threw’ the election precisely because they knew the mess that was coming down the pipeline.
What if foreign buyers are still buying, they’re just not ticking the “I am a foreign buyer” box on the paper work?
#64 meslippery
You grossly underestimate the degree of stupidity in this frozen land.
It could as well be 40 billions a house, just look at the PM and the boss of BOC for Christ’s sake!
#57 Denise#1 on 09.23.16 at 9:50 pm
I had high hopes for JT, not any more.
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You did? Why?
#19 Ace Goodheart on 09.23.16 at 7:30 pm
RE: 15% Chinese real estate purchaser tax in Toronto:
What Chinese purchasers? Toronto is not Vancouver. We are nowhere near South East Asia. Really folks, what foreign purchasers are we talking about in Toronto? They aren’t Chinese. I don’t know who they would be.
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Russian
Persian
#60 Wog on 09.23.16 at 9:57 pm
Zolo says Vancouver home prices are down 14.9% quarterly, but still up 7.9% since this time last year. And Up 5.6% just in the last month… The tax scared people off for a couple of weeks… But crazy can’t be cured overnight…or with one dose
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See “Bull Trap”:
https://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch7en/conc7en/img/stages_bubble.png
The goal of all this? Ostensibly it’s to crater prices so people can afford houses. But really it’s about political optics, to be seen ‘doing something’ about a problem which government cannot solve. They can only crash, as it happening now in YVR.
it’s about optics. Changes to CMHC regulations could crash house prices. Completely crash them. The goal is just plain stupid: to make housing more affordable while the price of houses goes higher.
And so the real story begins.
the real story is the decline of the real estate market in the Greater Toronto Area. More Liberal seats in the GTA than in all of BC.
Canada with what 35, 40 million people, same size as USA land wise
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There is a reason why almost all of those people live within a short distance of the US border and not all over the map. Ever considered the effect of this fact?
Canadians might in the near future afford a house, a home to have a family and grow a community. I say a foreign tax across the country. The brain twister game is over.
Didn’t catch any pink salmon in the Campbell River river, slow in numbers last year and next to none this year. It looks like over logging (automation) as every year when it rains muddy water flash floods the rivers washing the eggs away.
Did anyone tell the black bears, birds, other fish eating animals how to find the fish farms? Nets, sorry, not fish farms, the stores, okay then, did anyone tell the animals to buy fish at the store and have cash or use a credit card? No, then what are they going to eat? Run!
This is no accident or poor judgement call.
The banks have manipulated the consumer for maximum profits.
That’s what they do.
They access the most powerful computers in the world which determine the people’s fate.
The banks make money regardless of which way the wind blows.
Come on people think outside of the box.
Not only should BC impose a tax on real estate purchased by non-Canadians, but it should impose a similar tax on real-estate purchased by any Canadian citizen or resident who does not pay taxes in BC?
What business does a dude from China or India or Spain or Quebec or Alberta buying a house in BC? If they don’t pay taxes in BC it means they do not live here. So why would they need a house?
Oh, you want to invest?!
Then go buy a house in your own province or country, there must be plenty on the market.
So am I a xenophobe? Don’t think so.
#73 Entrepreneur on 09.23.16 at 10:53 pm
Canadians might in the near future afford a house, a home to have a family and grow a community. I say a foreign tax across the country.
—————————————
Or better yet, simply correct the mistake that caused the mess in the first place; ELIMINATE CMHC.
The free market (sans government intervention) will do the rest.
Honestly, I don’t understand why a crash in the Toronto market would be a bad thing. Granted, I do understand that you are writing from your boomer homeowner perch and don’t want to lose money, but a correction needs to happpen to bring the Toronto market back in line with fundamentals. A whole generation of young people are getting screwed over here and hoping for a soft landing seems self-serving for boomers. I hope this market continues to crash and all the speculators get burned… timberrrrr
I lived in the US for many years and recently returned to BC. I regularly travel to Alberta and Saskatchewan. The thing I noticed is there are lots of really angry people in BC. I think its always been that way. Just never noticed before.
She also plotted a come back in the polls. Clearly the 15% tax is what the people wanted. What ever her motives where it was the correct move to get elected. At least for now.
http://www.bnn.ca/b-c-premier-christy-clark-s-approval-rating-spikes-after-introducing-foreign-buyer-tax-poll-1.571599
When I see and hear a single Canadian politician speak like that I would believe there is hope for us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q49NOyJ8fNA
And this is precisely why Trump will win in US.
Enough of politically correct idiots with no IQ.
#76 When Will They Raise Rates?
free markets?
Oh my god, how will they then ‘legally’ steal from you?
I’m confused. Is there an analyst named Mark or have you started referring to yourself in the third person? Is this a new thing?
WalMark is a strange unemployed fellow. His latest money losing investment has been co concentrate holdings in gold over the last few years and watch it disappear. Gold is useless he learned
Now that YVR sales are down, I’m looking for prices to drop. Hopefully prices in Toronto fall as well. Real estate prices in Toronto have been going up at a blistering pace for the last decade, fuelled by cheap credit and boomers
Toronto real estate prices increasingly insane
http://news.buzzbuzzhome.com/2016/09/toronto-real-estate-new-low-august.html
Wynn has messed up Ontario. Taxes, user fees etc are all going up. Why tax the local population when you can use the ‘foreigner tax’ to reap revenues and restore budgets AND now bring down home prices? WIN – WIN. No brainier.
T2 and China have an agreement on return of assets stolen by fugitive corruption suspects.
Time for all that dirty money that has been washed into real estate to ‘cash out’ and move elsewhere.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2021977/china-canada-sign-treaty-return-assets-stolen-fraud
Get over it, Globalists are done.
https://youtu.be/JvSUmci7qm0
As an immigrant to Canada I am quite unnerved to see some of the comments made by fellow Canadians towards foreigners. From what I’ve seen here and in my old country, the majority of the locals are entitled, and its the immigrants, often from poorer countries that work the hardest to better themselves. I don’t see many white Canadians running gas stations or local grocery stores…
The housing bubble has been created by low interests rates, government policy and the media. Canadians have had the wool pulled over their eyes in the most Third Reich of ways and willingly blame the Asian scapegoat for a problem that was MIC by Canadians.
We’ve been played ladies and gents and its about to get ugly.
Don’t buy those preferred shares just yet, Minister Moroneau (inherited a human resources business from grandpa) says he’ll push for a rate cut after discovering tha Trudumnomics will create even slower growth well into the foreseeable future. Aren’t we already in recession. What happens when a recession worsens. Oh yeah, depression. Great news Liberal voters, 100 percent taxation and a bread line for starving seniors is all going to be included in selfies.
A SMOKEY TIP.
Buy Buffalo real estate.
In a landslide. Listen to the speech.
https://youtu.be/rayCtT27Kwc
Dr’s with Phd’s in Herdonomics are so under rated.
Wait. I’m the only one for now.
Look for the course in a university near you in the future after a Trump Landslide.
If you give a 14 year old hormonal teenager a Pit Bull for a pet, bad things are going to happen! What I believe is happening in Canada is the 1%ers (whether Chinese or Irish Catholics) have way too much money causing bad things to happen in our housing market. They are using our housing market as their own private stock market. They buy a 2.3 million dollar crappy house, let it sit empty and wait for it to appreciate and then sell it. For their own good and for our own good, we need to take some of that money and give it to the poor so they can feed themselves and the middle class so they can raise a family decently. Lets us tax that Pit Bull from the 1%ers and give them say a nice little French Bull dog – harmless, low maintenance and a great companion that will keep them out of trouble. Yes, I know what you are going to say Garth, the 1%ers worked hard to earn that money; my father was a truck driver who worked hard driving a truck at least 10 hours a day 6 days a week but he never made that kind of money.
When you elect Communists
https://youtu.be/9vST6hVRj2A
Vancouver isn’t really crashing.
Townhouse we passed on 14 months ago for $650K just sold again for $750K. I mean it’s not the 830K it’s neighbour sold from in May but it’s still far from a crash.
Hillary supporters
Such a perfect song for you.
https://youtu.be/8SbUC-UaAxE
Garth is a voice in the wilderness, making a post every day, and God bless him.
He is saying the same thing over and over using not these words:
You are responsible for yourself. Please spend more time educating yourself then watching TV.
If you don’t then you deserve everything you get and we wont save you.
Also helps to own a ex police dog
My idea is better than the BC Liberals. My Mom even says so when I come upstairs for dinner.
Cancel the 15% sales tax on foreigners.
Then increase everyone’s property taxes by 1%.
Finally, give everyone who submits a provincial income tax number for that year in the province a 1% property tax deduction.
The result would be people who do not contribute income tax in the province they reside, would need to contribute more property tax.
If some of you guys have too much money,you can always give some to me…
M42BC
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/547993/New-plastic-5-notes-going-for-megabucks-online
Sales have slowed in greater van, but prices have not dropped…get a grip
#52 jay on 09.23.16 at 9:11 pm
#13 15 games Please let us know how you’re house hunting in China goes. I’ d like to hear what the process is like.Can you really buy land in China? I somehow doubt it
—————————————————-
Locals can lease land for I believe it is 75 years,but since the leasing started none of the land has come up for renewal so the whole country has no idea what will happen to their land when the lease is up. The gov could go easy or hard on them with the new lease payments.
Foreigners can purchase condos but you do not own any land and the lease again is up in the air.
In China everyone understands that the Government owns the land under them. People do have some rights to profit when selling their rights but the Government can come anytime and tell you to vacate if they want the land and they try to compensate at reasonable value.
If you fight back you will lose. So their is no price discovery.
Garths probably counting sheep right now.
Not I,
Coffee between shots of arthritis killer bitches. He’s probably just as scared of me as much as I’m fearful of him. What the hell are we going to talk about tomorrow?
Seriously.
Nice weather, while we will be eyeing up each other up, fear, loathing , and terror in one sentence of Hello. I’m Smokey.
I’ll be thinking shit this was probably the last good day to be on the boat begging god for a wave that I can ride into shore using no horsepower so I can tweet David Suzuki and Butts see I’m trying assholes. They won’t care, they have a good income stream selling their shtick.
Garth will be thinking. I should go to the back room and bring out a vintage bottle JD, and put a pistol in my back pocket just in case.
I don’t know what the hell we are going to talk about.
Emergency interest rates,
CMHC guarantees for the banks,
Unregulated Foreign money free for all ponzi scheme,
Money laundering tolerance,
Moving expenses.
All the above has the fingerprints of a series of criminal governments.
There has never been such a large transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy in the history of our nation.
What a pathetic, morally impoverished nation we have become.
I wonder what these gangsters (Our Governments) are going to say to their maker when they reach the pearly gates?
According to the news out here in the best place on earth, if you’ve never lived anywhere else, foreign purchasing of housing has crashed because of a 15% tax on our homeland. I don’t understand why. The extreme incompetence of the Harper regime has resulted in a 30% devaluation of the Canadian dollar. By my calculations that still means a 15% discount over the suckers and losers who were born and raised In this pathetic excuse for a country. I think it’s temporary:
Look, the banks are doing what the banks do best in this situation, make money for their shareholders.
The banks make money off the interest they charge for loans. Actually, they make their money on the DIFFERENCE between the rate that they pay (the prime rate) and the interest rate they charge for loans.
In times where interest rates are higher, small business loans prevail, because although business loans are fewer in number and lower in value, the higher margin on rates makes those loans more palatable.
In a low interest rate environment, the bank has to do two things to make money:
1) increase the amount of the loan (the principal) and
2) increase the number of loans.
This strategy only works if the two conditions are met. The first adds risk, while the second (appears to) reduce risk through (seeming) diversification.
The risk is further diminished by CMHC, which underwrites the principal of residential mortgage loans, so that in the event of default, the banks only lose the outstanding interest on the mortgage, not the principal itself, which the bank had to borrow at prime, anyway.
The point is that as the residential market rolls over, the banks will be well motivated to extend the terms on residential mortgages to “good” customers who have a history of making payments, to keep collecting that interest.
For “delinquent” clients, the banks will cut their losses, foreclose, and claim the insurance from CMHC. And CMHC only pays the difference between what the foreclosed property sells for, and the amount of principal remaining on the loan.
Also, the banks can’t claim insurance, if there is no mortgage insurance in effect, so anyone with a loan to value less than 80%, will be sure to get every opportunity to pay more interest, instead of being forced into foreclosure.
The interesting thing will be to see what happens to CMHC in a few years, when falling property values cause loan to value ratios to soar, from below 80% to above 100%. Will mortgagees be forced to buy CMHC insurance on renewals, in lieu of making large balloon payments?
You betcha. Who wouldn’t add $10k in CMHC premiums to their bill at renewal time (amortized with the principal at a profitable interest rate), if the alternative is to write a cheque for $100k to make up the difference at renewal.
It’s not that the banks will fail in the event of a housing crash, it’s that generations of homeowners will be bled dry by degrees, trying to keep up with their interest payments.
Interest payments being pure profit for the banks.
#75 Cristian on 09.23.16 at 11:01 pm
————————————————
The hard asses will say “If they pay their property taxes then they should have the right”.
What right? If you live here you pay $40k taxes a year. and you blow the rest of your paycheque in the local economy generating lots of monetary velocity in the local economy. Outside real estate investors should be shunned for this very reason.
You don’t sell everything.
You don’t sell you daughters do you?
There is no replacement for real estate. It is only for those living here as a space for them to operate their lives.
For every house in the Lower Mainland that has dark windows, A million commuters and visitors to Stanley park have to drive a fraction of an foot farther to get there.
Think of it this way. Say all the houses were in one long line stretching to Calgary and 10% of the closest houses to Downtown Vancouver were owned by rich foreign investors and they left them empty.
Then it is easy to understand that 80% of the people would have to travel farther to get to the most popular area of the city (Downtown and Stanley Park).
This also drives up the price of land as everyone wants to reduce the travel time.
Totally agree with Cristian. The amount of foreign investment in Canada, especially Vancouver is probably much higher than the stats provided by Christy Clark’s government, resulting in many Chinese living in Vancouver but paying little to no income tax (homemakers and students). It’s not racist to point out we have a group of people (not all), but potentially many taking advantage of services provided (medical, education, clean air etc) while paying very little in taxes. Either you tax those whose choose to buy homes her or you reduce taxes on Canadians who actually work here!
Very glad that finally YVR is limiting foreign ownership with tax. Works in Australia where chinese have cleaned RE and pumped prices to unaffordability for locals. Let’s implement foreign buyer tax in the GTA and across Canada. Canadian soil is for Canadians. Try buying in Dubai or the Emerites. As a foreigner you can’t buy land or property: you can only lease for 99 years in allocated areas (the foreign ghettos). That’s what Canada should have to guard our natural resources on our land. Foreigners launder your money elsewhere.
That’s the essence of a dangerous asset – bloating price on collapsing volume. Like the S&P 500? Oops, wrong chart.
So prices have cratered a bit in YVR . Its still an unaffordable market . How much further would they have to crater before Joe Average can actually afford to buy something and actually feed himself and his family at the same time ? My guess is it’ll never get to that point .
FYI, scroll way down to the first week of September posts at this address (ignore the vitriol of the poster) of 100’s of GVRD detached, townhome and condo price reductions from MLS itself (take note of red text in the upper right corner):
https://twitter.com/timberjrackie
Also FYI, go to this Realtor site where he merely averages the selling price of all properties sold in REBGV and FVREB every day. You will find that since July 1 the List Price is always > Sales Price:
http://www.robchipman.net/
Ross Kay postulates that what buying there is going on in YVR RE is from those that lost bidding wars over the summer and those that managed to sell, looking to buy.
bsant54
Toronto is not Vancouver…it cannot happen here. Yes, 416 has NEVER had a RE asset bubble pop for all the reasons Commenters have so eruditely discussed today, including SM…this time, it will be different.
Let the Denial phase begin.
Cannot wait for that to give in to the Anger phase. There are some talented Commenters from 416 posting on this Blog, so it should be an entertaining read for the months to come after a 416 Crash Tax.
bsant54
I can’t quite follow the logic of this post.
There were 2,064 sales to foreigners and now there are 60. As has always been claimed on this blog, the foreign impact is/was negligible. But the sales drop is a record of “Biblical Proportions”…?
Well, which is is? The foreign influence was an important driver, or it wasn’t? You can blame the tax for drying up the foreign money, fine. But then to try and maintain the foreign money wasn’t a factor is well, if not hypocritical, at the least highly inconsistent.
But “here’s the thing, the market was toppling anyway”.
So why again, the angst about the tax? If it was applied to a sector that was irrelevant and the correction was coming anyway?
Sorry, but todays offering is somewhat incoherent.
Yes.
Alberta update. People leveraged to the ceiling on rental properties are showing stress, verbally and physically. Were telling me a couple of years ago if interest rates went up a couple % they were in big trouble. % hasn’t gone up, but the price of oil crashed. They didn’t see it coming. Now on their second/third round of lowering the rents charged. The noose is tightening. Over leveraged. Greed and Fear. The 2 Biggies.
My bank, TD, a real bank, reckons that 3rd Qtr GDP should be a “barn burner”:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/economy-td-q3-forecast-1.3774405
I hope they are correct; however, we will not know until next week with the July GDP numbers in hand and for the entire 3rd Qtr not until 2016-11-30.
I must say that the above coming from CBC Business gives me pause (a.k.a., Radio Moscow), but some good news is always better than no good news.
The Cdn. economy could do with some good news…here’s hoping; otherwise, it is and has been looking grim.
bsant54
Ooops, pardon my HTML. Missed the / from the blockquote terminator.
I’m still trying to figure out who the nutcase is.
#10 ColinColins on 09.23.16 at 7:20 pm
Sellers have become so incredibly stupid.
Supercilious greed has irretrievably addled their little brains.
So much will be left on the table…..
#46 The Technical Analyst (aka A Canadian Abroad) on 09.23.16 at 8:58 pm
I’ll stand firmly, and proudly, behind Joe Oliver, Benny Tal, Christy Clark, the IMF Director Christine Lagarde and a whole host of international and Canadian banks have said:
“Canada needs to take control over the housing markets and avoid excesses”
If that means a 15% foreign speculator tax imposed, I’m for it.
Continually calling it a “xenophobia tax” is racist.
___________________________________________
It did not mean a 15% tax…There were lots of ways this could have played out, like a speculators or capital gains tax; you get dinged if you do not hold for say 3 years instead of 6 moths etc…
This is definitely biased in the wrong way and sends the wrong message.
Thanks God govt did not intervene in the sale of resource assets to foreigners before that bubble had burst…remember Nexen Energy…
Several years ago a recurring commercial on Atlantic Canadian TV.
Scene one: inside a small bright starkly Ikea furnished living room, two couples drink coffee, holding saucers. A beaming man is saying ” so we won the million and bought this condo, wait till you see the view!”
Scene two the four of them crowd on to a balcony the size of a sheet of plywood, peering over the edge, the camera pans twenty floors down to a massive highway interchange with flyover ramps occupied by Semi trucks with the stacks blowing soot and noise, amongst commuters vying for lanes, honking horns. The winner says ” show them the garden honey” and the camera focuses on a kitty litter box on the balcony the corner with some challenged tomato plants.
Then the winner then says” bet you don’t have anything like this in Lunenburg!”
The guest gulps uncomfortably, making eye contact with his own wife and says, ” No, I guess not.”
Scene three: A beached speed boat with its bow lit by a roaring camp fire looms over tubs of cooked lobster, beer on ice, a man bbqing steak, while some happy people cavort and others cook marshmallows while yet another plays guitar.
Voice over: Play Atlantic Lottery and win a million dollars where a million dollars is still worth a million dollars.
My point? Why hold a million dollars equity in a slanty shack, when you can migrate to S.W. Nova and have the a better climate and house for twenty cents on the dollar, or less?
RE: #69 Financial Freedom at Forty:
“Russian
Persian”
Can you see anyone in Ontario winning an election by enacting a tax to keep Russian and Persian people from buying real estate in Toronto? I mean, really, is that a campaign slogan? “Vote for me, I kept the Russians and the Persians out of Toronto!”. It sounds so dumb. Racist and stupid. Toronto is not Vancouver. I don’t know what’s going on out there, but we are not like them. We don’t need racist “foreigner taxes”
RE: #72 Illusions:
Canada with what 35, 40 million people, same size as USA land wise
—
There is a reason why almost all of those people live within a short distance of the US border and not all over the map. Ever considered the effect of this fact?
Yes there is a reason. The reason is called “Crown Land”.
Canada is mostly made up of this type of land. It cannot be bought or sold. It has no land title. You can camp on it, but you cannot own it.
The last general sale of Crown land in Ontario occurred in 1952 (when most of your grandparents bought the land and built the cottages that you now enjoy each summer).
Since then people have just been buying and selling existing land titles. 85% of the Province of Ontario is made up of Crown land. The other 15% is either Provincially owned land, native reserves or land that can be privately owned and bought and sold. Less than 10% of the land in Ontario is available for purchase and re-sale.
RE: #45 Tony:
“A 15 percent tax in the GTA will topple the housing ponzi seemingly overnight.”
Not necessarily. We are still around 500K to 750K away from the “sweet spot” or “goldilocks zone” where houses remain affordable to the middle class.
As we approach the limits of middle class affordability, what we will see is a decrease in listings and an exponential increase in prices. This is caused by people being frightened to sell their houses, because they feel they could not afford to buy another house in an ever increasing market. Toronto is heading towards that “zone” right now. When you are at that point, that is the best time to sell, but it is a hard point to call.
Past that point, you exit the “sweet spot” and sales will decline like they are falling off a cliff. That is a sign you have passed the point of middle class affordability (ie a middle class family, using every means at their disposal including borrowing, savings, gifts from relatives and all available cash, cannot afford to purchase a house anymore). At that point you are selling to the 1%. That dooms your market. Sales basically stop at that point and then the market has to adjust.
So it is not clear that a tax on “foreigners” would have any effect in Toronto. But we are approaching the top of the market here.
From “Investment Watch Blog”:
“Everyone wants to know when the next financial crisis happens. It will happen, but once again, it will surprise the economic establishment because, in the eloquent words of the BIS (Bank for International Settlement), debts always “appear to be at manageable levels” – until suddenly, they’re not.”
“The only saving grace is the permanently near-zero-interest-rate environment. Because that’s what it takes to keep this thing from deflating, according to the BIS, and even then there are “concerns.” But these countries, particularly Canada, are going to be in trouble when rates rise even a little.”
“So have central banks painted themselves and their entire bailiwicks into a corner with their ingenious emergency policies that have been dragging on for eight years? You bet. Is there a way out? Nope. Not a good one, at least. It’s just a question of when and how – and who gets to pay.”
——————————————————————
Can anyone out there please explain how the situation will unfold when the defaults start to mount? How will all these debts be repaid? Who will ultimately be on the hook?
An economy held hostage by a .25% interest rate rise or fall is not an economy.
Political economies are not free market economies.
All this is a good example of why Trump is so popular. Working people have a legitimate concern regarding their quality of life (i.e. housing costs), they voice their concerns, and the progressive elites come out swinging with charges of racism/xenophobia to shut down discussion. So not only are their concerns shut down, but they’re labelled as haters. The pendulum has swung too far. I’m not a trump supporter, but I get his popularity, and I think it’ll be a tight race.
Seriously? The world is divided into ‘working people’ and ‘progressive elites’? This is what all those highly-educated Millennials think? We are so screwed. — Garth
So much I could say…
It all comes down to fear and greed fuelled by those who stand to profit most. The backstory to all history is economics and the backstory to all economics is demographics.
Christies 15% Foreign Buyer Tax is nothing differently motivated that above. I suspect she and her administration are quite surprised by the impact. That’s what happens when you sometimes shoot from the hip. Now she’s got to stand by her decision.
Monetary policy is too often like a kid behind the wheel of a high powered automobile. Too much gas or too much break leads to too much of the other. It’s a wild ride.
Plenty of Saturday banging & hammering going on here in downtown Toronto. Starts dawn usually done by lunchtime.
How far off is a debt Jubilee?
http://money.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-size-u-s-national-debt/
#10 ColinColins on 09.23.16 at 7:20 pm
…was listed at $3M a week before the tax was announced. It dropped to $2.8 a week after the tax, then $2.7 two weeks after that. At the end of August they pulled it off the market and relisted it for $2.5 pretending it was a new listing…
…in that short two week period the house literally dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars.
___________________
Sorry, no, not based on what it was listed for. This type of logic is flawed. Just because someone lists a house for 3 million doesn’t mean it was every worth that much. If comparable homes were selling at 2.5 million weeks ago and are still selling at 2.5 million now then the house hasn’t gone down a penny.
Listing price is completely irrelevant, selling price is the only thing that matters.
Oh and BTW, organized real estate, good organized real estate and single agents, know it is no for them to manipulate the market but to report the market. A good agent checks emotion at the door and brings logic to the table.
The market is what it is whenever it is. We work with the facts helping clients do their due diligence and making the right moves. It is our job to look after the best interests of our client be it Buyer or Seller. If someone is willing to pay an astronomical price for our Sellers property it is our duty to find that Buyer.
For Buyers, as much as it is our duty to get them the best deal, so too is it our duty to explain to them the realities of the market. Maybe their expectations are too lofty and they should abandon their pursuit. So too can it be of Sellers.
#118 Wrk.dover on 09.24.16 at 8:53 am
…you can migrate to S.W. Nova and have the a better climate and house for twenty cents on the dollar, or less?
__________________
Can you clarify your definition of a better climate? When I watch the weather network between November and April all I see is the Maritimes getting pummeled with snow. What am I missing here?
And yes, I’ve visited and it’s a beautiful part of the country in the summer with lovely people.
https://weatherspark.com/averages/28340/Yarmouth-Nova-Scotia-Canada
While we are not allowed to talk about off topic stuff anymore,I am hoping this one gets a hall pass.
There were four teams left in the Australian football finals including the Cats and the Dogs,which I was hoping was going to be the grand final ( our version of super bowl)
Well the Cats got beat but canine lovers will rejoice as it is the Dogs versus Swans in the final next Saturday.
Just to keep on topic ,I hear some of the players once bought overpriced real estate…
M42BC
Here are a couple of non-scientific observations. I’ll be in good company as many (most) of the observations on this site fall into this category.
1) It seems to me the pace that homes under construction before the tax are being completed has picked up. I asked my wife and she noticed the same thing.
2) We need a home and so having given up after the spring lunacy I still watch. When I go to Zolo for Burnaby I am struck by the number of listings that have no inside photos or are empty. Perhaps they couldn’t afford furniture…or they are speculators?
3) Folks don’t know how averages work. I see comments that Zolo prices are up or down. Its simple to me, sell fewer Townhouses or Condos the average price goes down.
Sorry The average price goes up. Its early on the West Coast
Canadians may face higher mortgage insurance costs as regulator tightens capital rules
http://www.bnn.ca/canadians-may-face-higher-mortgage-insurance-costs-as-regulator-tightens-capital-rules-1.572453
Kevin O’Leary on why OSFI’s warning to the banks is ‘irrelevant’
http://www.bnn.ca/investing/video/kevin-o-leary-on-why-osfi-s-warning-to-the-banks-is-irrelevant~918951
Good ole Calgary. Sept ’16/Sept ’15 detached houses. Sales up, new and active listings down and average sales price up 8%. My kinda town. No idea why.
Ontario’s Crown land represents 85% of the province.
https://www.ontario.ca/page/crown-land
It looks like unresolved aboriginal land claims are major part of this situation.
A young couples retirement plan in the Financial Post today.
http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/family-finance/young-couple-with-a-baby-will-need-two-incomes-to-finance-their-goals-and-ensure-a-secure-retirement
No savings, a rental property and looking at adding another one.
What could go wrong??
Seriously? The world is divided into ‘working people’ and ‘progressive elites’? This is what all those highly-educated Millennials think? We are so screwed. — Garth
No, there are neocon “supply side” believer elites too.
Plus the guy runs a house contracting company for his income. Talk about all your eggs in one basket.
Here in YVR you see those in the real estate industry have the most invested in the industry outside their day jobs. Especially realtors. Now with sales falling off a cliff and HELOCs drying up with declining values those payments are going to be tough to make. Death spiral coming.
For those about to flop… on 09.24.16 at 11:20 am
While we are not allowed to talk about off topic stuff anymore,I am hoping this one gets a hall pass.
There were four teams left in the Australian football finals including the Cats and the Dogs,which I was hoping was going to be the grand final ( our version of super bowl)
Well the Cats got beat but canine lovers will rejoice as it is the Dogs versus Swans in the final next Saturday.
Just to keep on topic ,I hear some of the players once bought overpriced real estate…
M42BC
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Where’s the link?
:)
meslippery # 64,
“Canada with what 35, 40 million people, same size as USA land wise (August sales overall were down 24% and the average SFH shed $294,000)”
“Must be the shortage of land in Canada cos its not the aspenite, drywall or brick that cost so much.”
“$294,000 should be the total house price…..”
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3/4’s of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of the US border.
It’s provides milder climates and employment opps do to proximity to the US of A.
I’m guessing this 100 mile wide strip has the land mass of about France.
This, “Canada is huge, why so expensive” mantra doesn’t look where people actually chose to live. Some live in: Prince George, Edmonton, Saskatoon, not to mention more northern climates, but you couldn’t pay me and it’s clear the majority of the population feels the same, based strictly on Canadian home prices.
By the way, like many Van locals are witnessing, the Fraser Valley RE market has not changed much.
No listing explosion and sales are still brisk.
Definitely no crash scenarios taking place, sorry bears.
Maybe next year…..or the year after?
A correction is more likely than a crash. They normally take months to build, and years to reverse. Too early to call anything. — Garth
” 25% of homes in Richmond are sold to foreigners and 90% of those are Chinese. Call it xenophobic if you wish, but facts are facts.
I agree FOMO is the biggest player, but there would be no FOMO without the foreign onslaught. Chop off the head and the body falls. Glad the facts are now coming out and that fear is dissipating.
It’s funny how a little bit of information in a blinded market can change everything.”
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totally agree…Christy was helped sell us all down the river to ‘the highest bidder’, didn’t do squat until the shameful exposes of kathy tomlinson, ian young, sam cooper and david eby came along (their exposes on greasy New Coast realty, shadow flipping and other nefarious speculative practices, ie Kenny Gu) showed how complacent and complicit are our ”leaders” prov and federally)…then they try to play ‘Dr’ and lifesaver with a politically motivated tax.
Dave Eby of the BC NDP had alternative vision of how to discourage offshore (speculative included) investing vs the 15% boomerang (as it’s now in litigation) foreign tax.
http://www.bnn.ca/b-c-ndp-housing-critic-income-tax-data-is-the-key-to-measuring-foreign-money-in-real-estate-1.527573
excerpt
“REAL ESTATE
Jul 15
B.C. NDP housing critic: Income tax data is the key to measuring foreign money in real estate
Michelle Zadikian, BNN.ca Staff
B.C. NDP Housing Critic David Eby says examining income tax data is the key to figuring out how much foreign money there is in Vancouver’s real estate market.
“If you’re not paying your worldwide income tax in British Columbia and you’re buying $3 million homes, where’s the money coming from?” he said in an interview with BNN.
“There are two answers I think. One is tax evasion and the other is simply that there aren’t any taxes if you’re bringing the money in from outside to buy real estate,” he said.
The B.C. provincial government currently tracks citizenship, an approach that Eby calls inherently flawed.
Eby points to a new report by MountainMath which shows nearly 10% of homes in Metro Vancouver report incomes that are lower than their shelter costs.
The Canada Revenue Agency is reportedly dedicating a team of auditors to look into the Vancouver real estate market. Their task is to identify incidences of house flipping, non-compliant builders and residents who are underreporting their income levels.
The ongoing hunt for foreign buyers in Canada’s housing markets has recently prompted accusations of racism and xenophobia.
“That’s why we shouldn’t be measuring citizenship data or place of origin of the purchasers,” he said. “We can use the income tax data the province already has and we can get away from this discussion that’s so problematic in a such a multicultural society.”
You are obsessed (judging by your posts) while Eby is a blowhard opportunist who would violate civil liberties and privacy laws. Shame on you both. — Garth
“That’s the essence of a dangerous asset – bloating price on collapsing volume. It shows fewer and fewer buyers were entering the market, that prices were being skewed higher on a reduced number of trades, and a correction was already beginning.”-GT
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What you’re describing Garth is the proverbial “bag-holders”. They’re typically the least informed of how the markets work.
They’re a needed entity as the ‘smart’ money needs someone to sell to at tops. We’re now witnessing this in RE and in high-dividend stocks (yes, I’m now short a couple US ETFs of high-dividend stocks: IYR, XLP)
TCC
But, important as all these elements are, none captures the way Trudeau has consistently signalled he wants, and ultimately expects, his government to be judged. After all, his campaign platform last year was called A New Plan for a Strong Middle Class.
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/justin-trudeaus-fall-agenda-big-files-and-economic-worries/
here’s an nice visual:
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-truth-about-justin-trudeaus-tax-cuts/
but there’s a conundrum: on the one hand a strong middle class needs housing it can afford. So housing right now is too expensive so it needs to be cheaper. Simple. Let the price fall and it will be. On the other hand the middle class is heavily indebted and especially heavily mortgaged. If the price falls 20% then the middle class will be wiped out. ( a fall of 20% and more is on the table. )
My plan is to give every family that loses its home because of financial stress $1000 a month for a year. Yes yes I know, about recourse mortgages but the Prime Minister should make a speech about being on the side of the middle class and offer legal assistance to make sure the banks don’t over step the law. They’ll get the message.