On the same day the Fed confirmed rates will rise in 12 days – and keep rising – came historic news from the Big Smoke. The average detached in 416 has crossed $1.5 million for the first time and jumped to a record million in the minivan-infested, desperate housewives-riddled burbs.
In the space of a year, detached prices are up 32% in the city and 35% in 905. At $1.11 million the latter pool of boring houses with garages stuck on their snouts is now the fastest-rising kind of property. Never before has this level of frenzy occurred. Not even back in 1989, when the market frothed and foamed, before prices collapsed 32% and took 14 years to recover.
This is worrying a lot of people. Bank CEOs, economists, ratings agencies, financial managers and politicians. When inflation is 2% and wages gain 1%, houses cannot rise by 30% – at least for long. And now we know the interest rate environment will be changing for the next few years – taking mortgages along with the ride – it’s all a little scary.
Every listing has a bidding war, and the examples of over-paying are growing grotesque. As prices rise, listings shrink since moving becomes an impossibility for most. The market, as a whole, is in the process of seizing up – unbalanced, unhealthy, unstable and having a completely weird impact on people.
“Let me tell you about the hysteria over a unit in my building (Front and Jarvis),” says Robert. “It’s a 1 + 1 and listed at $369,000
“Spoke to a realtor and heard there been 85 showings and will go over $500,000. I see people in the lobby after work all stressed out and worried as they wait to go see the unit. Most of the people I pass by have a parent with them, maybe 50-60%….anyways I can’t imagine how stressful it is to chase the dream (using term loosely). Apparently the owner isn’t taking offers until the 7th….if my online brokerage told me to wait a few days to buy an ETF Id shut the account down faster than you can say “Smoking Man”.
“The unit is not that nice, realtor says this market doesn’t make sense anymore. People seem to “want” a place to call their own and are willing to do whatever they can to ‘get in.’”
When humans start behaving differently, so will markets. And we’re not there yet. The higher prices go and the keener the competition for scarce listings, the more obsessed people become. The more they want what’s rising in price – even to absurd levels. The more greed they feel. The greater the regret for not having bought previously, even if they could not have afforded it. This is the euphoric, panic-buying stage when no amount of logic or caution will turn off pure desire or the fear of missing out.
The outcome of all this is known. Every boom has ended in a bust. No asset has risen without end. It’s never different this time.
But between now and the end, emotion and recrimination are flowing.
My comment yesterday that nobody should expect Canadian property markets to “crash and burn” upset many of the sensitive souls who wander in here for a beverage and a tummy rub. This is exactly what they crave, believing that when Garth Turner admits there’ll be no financial collapse, prices must be ready to rise forever. So cute. And it’s interesting some people have evolved from blaming only Chinese dudes for houses nobody can afford to also including this pathetic blog.
“Indeed, I am one of the greatest fools for following you for ten years,” says a brave anon poster. “I am completely priced out of the YVR market and now its outlying municipalities, all you can offer me now is to invest my saved home down payment in the markets for a return that won’t catch me up to the prices of real estate locally. You’re a real Canadian disappointment Garth. You had your loyal flock sit back and wait while the immigrants moved in and pushed us out. This blog has ruined me.”
Here are a few thoughts, ruined one. The basic message here has always been balance and diversification. Buy what you can afford. Keep debt under control. Don’t put all your net worth in a single thing. Dial back risk. The goal of life is not a house, but the enjoyment of time – which money sure helps. And there’s absolutely nothing shameful about renting. Your mom is wrong.
Finally, my view that a correction always replaces a boom is unchanged. It will happen again. A ‘correction,’ by the way, is a price decline of 5% to 15% over the course of a few months. A crash (which is quite possible) is a price/sales drop of 20% or more, also over a half-dozen months. A ‘crash-and-burn’ is a reduction in prices of at least 30% and up to 50%, resulting in serious economic dislocation. A melt, by comparison, is when markets level out, correct, then erode over a period of at least three years. The result (prices down 30% or more) is as severe as a crash, but gets there with serious foreplay.
The latter is most likely, as we shift into an era of rising interest rates, US protectionism and massive household and public debt.
This blog has no idea exactly what’s coming. But it’s got hair on it.
156 comments ↓
Parent with them?? That explains who the buyers are. Vancouver redux
Pink Snow falling in Delta.
These guys appear to have bitten off more than they can chew.
They paid 2.1m for this 1964 build in January 2016 ,most likely overpaying by around 500k.They have dropped it down to within 5% of what they bought it for, but that ain’t making any money.
The current assessment is 1.5m and currently 5 bed houses in that part of Delta are averaging 1.6m and the city as a whole is down 13% yoy.
The market has cooled somewhat but it’s still irrational, these guys are hoping to find a Crealiever out there somewhere…
M42BC
215 54a st. Delta
Oct 24:$2,499,000
Mar 2: $2,188,000
Change: – 311000.00 -12%
https://evaluebc.bcassessment.ca/Property.aspx?_oa=QTAwMDA1VkxXNQ==
One thing I can’t get my mind around is that if there was a “crash”, and the YYZ market shaved 30% off (a serious economic dislocation), we’d only be were we were a year ago. A year ago everyone one this blog thought the market was overvalued. Doesn’t that mean we need a haircut of at almost 50% to get us back to where the sky was falling about 2 years ago?
Pink Snow falling in Langley.
These guys just took 1% off the price of this house in Langley because they are pretty much down to what they bought it for.
Purchased for 850k in May 2016 ,try as they might they just can’t sell.
They are in one of the hottest areas in Langley which could save them, but overall the city is down 13.5% yoy.
Might get $200 and a get out of jail free card…
M42BC
21161 79a Avenue, Langley
Feb 13:$884,800
Mar 2: $875,000
Change: – 9800.00 -1%
https://evaluebc.bcassessment.ca/Property.aspx?_oa=RDAwMDBCNUVYQg==
P.S . Blacksheep the other day I was trying to communicate with another poster who goes by BS ,who was interested that Vancouver Westside houses were going for well less than assessed. You intercepted it and at least I now know how you feel about the matter.
Also just to clarify one point.
You said I contradicted myself by saying a lot of people are in trouble and a lot of people are making lots of money.
The people selling that bought in 2014 and before are doing well.
The people selling that bought from 2015 onwards are on notice at this moment.
Some will do well ,others will have to grind it out.
Nothing wrong with this listing ,just doing it for reasons of mischievous entertainment.
The people at the splendidly named Goldenrod Crescent are still looking at making a solid profit.
Although they don’t seem to be as firm as they used to be…
M42BC
5766 Goldenrod Crescent, Delta
Dec 17:$2,600,000
Mar 2: $2,299,000
Change: – 301,000.00. -12%
#57 WUL on 03.02.17 at 10:29 pm
Despite the impending doom and economic cataclysm that will arrive on the Ides of March, FLOP and I can rest easy and feel joyous. Sunday, March 26 a fixture with Fremantle vs. Geelong.
FLOP, I got 5 quid, garnered in the Athabasca oil sands, says the Dockers whip the Cats. You in?
Get well soon.
//////////////////////////////////
Hey WULLY, you asked me the other week who I thought I would win the whole show and I replied Geelong even though I am am a lifelong Carlton fan.
All my teams…
Carlton Blues
Philadelphia Flyers
Manchester United
are in some sort of rebuilding phase so not much to cheer about .Man U won a trophy the other day but Ross Kay wouldn’t get out of bed for that one.
As far as my surgically repaired ankle goes ,I have started hobbling around the house.
It was taking too long to crawl down to the spare bedroom to sort out my tax paperwork.
I’m sure the Metrosexual Messiah appreciates my sacrifice.
I thought the sign in the hospital cafeteria said…
Great Tuna Sandwich …but alas I signed up for the…
Garth Turner Special…you know the one where they put 12 screws and some other shrapnel in your ankle
I was going to crack a joke the other day that my new motivation to get better was to give a couple of guys on here a kick up the backside when I get better ,but I didn’t want anyone to get upset that I was threatening violence.
Back to the bet ,you are a Washed Up Lawyer and I am a gimpy ,meathead , construction worker who has always made my living from the neck down but I think we can do better than 5 bucks.
Let’s do $20 or a box of beer and I might as well throw in a brand new Pink Floyd t-shirt that I was trying to work out a way to get to the retiring Stojoking Man.
I am getting sick of wrapping and unwrapping that t-shirt.
One minute he is a millionaire fx trader with hidden stashes.
The next minute he is broke bum who walks around in $5 Walmart flip-flips….
Let’s leave Flop out of this…
M42BC
First?
This will not end well. Market seems to be stabilizing and in line with incomes here in Calgary. Can get a beautiful detached with 1800 square feet, nice yard, walk to provincial park, beautiful mountain views and a 20 min drive from the core for 480k. Beats a crappy semi in Whitby for 700k any day.
Kind of funny when the average incomes here are higher. I do not miss the rat race that is the GTA. I will continue to enjoy my sizeable portfolio and trips to the mountains every weekend. You can enjoy the 401 and the polluted pool of slop that is Lake Ontario.
Going to have a craft beer by the fire later and maybe hit the slopes Sunday. Later everyone.
Garth, great job on CBC Toronto. It always shocks me how polite you are on the radio!
The further I get from this blog, the mellower I am. — Garth
What’s coming?
A big hairy worldwide Debt Jubilee.
Time for a reset, then bargoons galore for those with loot.
Whoopee!
What Garth is saying is if prices come down, they will come down to 2015 or 2016 prices in TO which won’t affect anyone since the vast majority 99% + have bought before then!
It’s going to take a Great Depression to bring them down again… ie high unemployment…
When do people think that will strike???
You need to learn math. — Garth
Mr. T:
I respectfully agree with everything you say here except for “interest rates WILL be rising.”
They SHOULD have been rising for the past 3 years and did not. Now with even more of a debt pile any “normal” rate rise will be suicide for likely 80% of the population and governments world wide….
One and done in 2017….maybe. It hasn’t happened yet and as fast as it now became “a lock” this month, it can be postponed due to data dependent BS just as fast.
14,000 people LEFT BC in the 3rd quarter for ON
30% less international immigration
no wonder the market there is cooling before it falls off a cliff.
********************
Changes in population from migration and immigration:
Positive international immigration added to gains due to inter-provincial migration, resulting in a net increase of 10,286 people to British Columbia’s population in the third quarter of 2016. This was a decline of 36.2 per cent from the previous third quarter.
Changes in population from movement within Canada:
Some 17,617 people moved to British Columbia from other provinces in the third quarter of 2016. This was down 6.5 per cent from a year earlier. Fewer people came to British Columbia from Ontario compared to a year earlier.
A total of 14,038 people left the province for elsewhere in Canada in the third quarter, an increase of 12.3 per cent from the same period in 2015. More people leaving for Ontario accounted for the majority of this increase.
The result was a net gain of 3,579 people to British Columbia’s population in the third quarter. This was a decrease of 43.5 per cent from the third quarter of 2015.
Changes in population from immigration:
International immigration added 6,707 people to British Columbia’s population in the third quarter of 2016. This was a decrease of 31.5 per cent from the same period in 2015.
source
http://creastats.crea.ca/kaml/migration.html
Vancouver’s already seen a 30%+ fall in detached prices. A place a few doors down from me recently sold for $1.3M, was listed at $1.7M
Yup hog town sounds a lot like YCR did 12 short months ago. But you gotta wonder about the elites that are now so concerned about price escalation, you’d have to be dead, or Lethbridge not to know what was coming in TO. It appears the elites live in Lethbridge, who knew?
Onto stats. The trouble with averages is they don’t give a really good idea what’s happening in the various price segments. There is little doubt I can buy a much nicer house than I could a year ago for my $1.4 million. Unless something changes I expect that trend to continue, and I expect to buy sometime in the next 18 months that’s really nice. As this is the house I plan to leave in a box, I could care less what it does after I’m dead. That’ll be for the kids to worry about.
I don’t see the same thing happening here in province of Qc. People are falling deeper and deeper into debt but there’s no residential real estate bubble.
In any case, if people are stupid enough to overpay for a property and call it ‘their home’ while the bank owns it in reality, then shame on them. Do not buy what you can’t afford. Ain’t that easy to understand ?
I think Vancouver will follow the “erode” path more than likely. It will be uneventful, but slow, as people think that it’s just around the corner that the market will come roaring back.
The latest VREB release is hilarious and I love how they try to justify the slow sales on low inventory (funny how low inventory didn’t seem to slow sales last year at this time…..)
I’ve been mortgage free GTA homeowner for a several years, but I still feel like a fool. I thought that the stock market peaked and that the housing was overheated bubble doomed to go down, so I’ve sat on my money for few years watching it lose buying power. A prudent fool, in the meantime people have been making a killing ……
He is right, the goal of life is not a house. What happened to freedom, flexibility have having a large stock portfolio? Go chase your dreams, if priced out, be glad you’re not tied down to a house. Besides most underestimate the long term maintenance, Reno’s, insurance, and property tax really adds up. And we are at high risk because prices are so high. Why burden yourself? Loss aversion and loss opportunity is what people dwell on so badly and makes them make even more poor decisions.
Stats pack for Feb 2017 from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver:
http://www.rebgv.org/sites/default/files/REBGV%20Stats%20Package%20February%202017.pdf
Apparently, sales are down because of bad weather in February. Or maybe Russian hacking. #winning #AlternativeFacts
Found this gem on the personal finance Canada sub reddit.
Poster like me wondering how so many can afford million dollar homes received this response among others.
Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/5x5tdh/real_estate_this_much_wealth_in_the_gta/
“Just bought my first house in GTA, and I am only one of many buyers, and definitely I do not represent the majority of them, but my case can be simplified as: Chinese Money.
After I moved to Canada, secured my job (took me 7 months btw), I sold my shitty tiny 2BR condo in Beijing for ~800K (CAD), and put it into a house in GTA. Because I am a Permanent Resident, technically my fund does not qualify as foreign money, but still it is from China.”
Not good news. Average Canadians can’t compete with global citizens when they are bringing in untaxed money to this end!
How is it a bad thing that Canada got an $800,000 investment from a new citizen? And why should his own money be taxed? Fuzzy thinking. — Garth
Odds of a rate increase this month have just skyrocketed. Realtors everywhere are soiling their corduroys. It looks like rate increase deniers (e.g. TrumpNation) will once again be exposed for the comic relief buffoons they are.
Yellen, do the right thing and jack up rates at least 3 times in 2017. The faster the better!
Garth, I just heard some wimp on CBC radio saying
this afternoon that there “would be a 20% correction but I can’t say when…” for Toronto.
Sheesh!!!
Well I say there will be a 25% correction in Toronto, by November 30, 2018.
So there!
Could someone tell me what tax implications are for holding a Reit such as VNQ in a RRSP? thanks
Well, I guess YVR is “almost” in official “crash mode (if -20%+ is the cutoff point) as prices are off 19% since the peak according to CREA.
And, it is worth mentioning that Ross Kay’s data says that YVR in NOW down 27% but that this will not become “evident” until a couple of months have gone by.
He also states that the BC economy will have lost $320B by this summer alone through loss of home equity, etc.
He has been right about this all along. Anyone listening to past podcasts where he has been a featured guest can check the audio vaults at Howestreet.com.
Here is an even more grotesque example of prices gone mad – http://wottnews.com/robo-realtor-runs-amok/
#3 Dogger
”Doesn’t that mean we need a haircut of at almost 50% to get us back to where the sky was falling about 2 years ago?”
—————————————————————–
That could never happen. (ha ha) Too many people would be hurt. At least that’s the theory. Didn’t seem to matter back in the 80’s smash did it? Going to be a doozy when it does happen.
In the space of a year, detached prices are up 32% in the city and 35% in 905. At $1.11 million the latter pool of boring houses with garages stuck on their snouts is now the fastest-rising kind of property. Never before has this level of frenzy occurred. Not even back in 1989, when the market frothed and foamed, before prices collapsed 32% and took 14 years to recover.
“in 1989, prices collapsed 32% and took 14 years to recover”.
The price collapse in 1989 is an example where the market healed itself. Ross Kay says because most people kept up their mortgage payments, in 14 years they were back where they could renovate or move.
Or I guess retire.
I articulated “the crash will be epic” in May 2016. I am holding on that one. I may be a tad Michael Burry but, I am holding firm. I am seeing things that indicate I am bang on. However, I also am not clear on how much offshore money we are prepared to permit to dislocate our residential zoning. If municipalities and provincial and federal governments are happy to go with upwards of 25% offshore-owned housing, prices are moon-bearing. Canadians, taxed as they are and devoid of oligarchical opportunities, can never compete with offshore wealth like China, Russia, Iran.
Mr. Garth Turner, I will promise that I will not violate your ToS on this one. Let er rip:
Bank of Canada Governor Stephen S. Poloz will not raise rates this year. If he raises rates or even keeps it at 0.50%, he will not become the Champion of Women’s Rights for the Suffragates who live in affluent Toronto Districts likee Yorkville, York Mills, Rosedale, Bathurst, Forest Hill, downtown Toronto.
We need to let Poloz know that he should cut interest rates in Canada to 0.00% to lower the costs of mortgage interest for affluent class women in Toronto.
It is unfair that a career woman from Toronto would have to incur an extra interest charge to purchase the latest Penthouse at 1 Bloor or 55 Wellesley, or to find out that her Line of Credit which she used to finance love tourist vacations in Aruba are increasing interest costs because of the Bank of Canada.
Poloz should introduce a National Economic policy for Career Women Living in Toronto by creating a Law where women in Toronto who need to vacation abroad in American currency, will have the chance to exchange their forecast 60-cent Loonie to American dollars at Par.
We need a 0.60 Loonie to boost exports in Canada, but we also need to make luxurious housing and 5-star vacations affordable for our women in Toronto.
Poloz, do the right thing and cut interest rates for Womens’ Rights in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
We need a 60 cent loonie & 0.0000000% interest rate to promote an equal economy for women.
We need a 60 cent Loonie to attract globalist corporations to exploit cheap labour from immigrant women to work in factories, while we need 0.00% interest rates to lower interest costs for affluent women in Toronto to purchase a luxury house in Toronto.
We also need a Genderized Foreign Exchange Rate where Affluent women in Toronto can exchange $10,000 Canadian dollars for $10,000 American currency for 5-star vacations in Aruba and Singapore.
I am a close friend of Justin Trudeau. We should all be a feminist.
Oh, and for all my doom and gloom (earlier post), I booked a 5 year fixed at 2.79 this morning — exactly 120 days from close! — figuring there would be some yellin’ in my near future.
The markets dont make sense…..kinda like the photo.
Mr Deplorable has his gun stuffed down the backside of his pants with the grip set for a right handed person…..but his wallet is in his left pocket….?
No doubt that this type of appreciation is not healthy. In Toronto, this is being exacerbated by a demand/supply imbalance. As soon as more supply hits the market then price will recalibrate.
A more difficult question to answer is how over-priced is the current market. Canada has posted higher GDP growth rates than the US over the last six months, and in Toronto there is no doubt that over the last few years there has been major capital investment flowing into the city.
Tto establish
As for the Toronto market exploding into a Vancouverized frenzy of insanity…..
Gee, wasnt such a big deal to the banks and politicos until its in THEIR backyard…..”Mommy there’s an 800LB gorilla in the backyard aaaaand its pooping everywhere!”
Cant wait to see who the “powers that be” blame when this financial sh*tstorm engulfs everyone
To establish fair market value what do you compare to? While Toronto is not yet a world class city in the same vein as New York, London or Paris, you could also argue that you shouldn’t compare Toronto housing prices to Toronto of 10 years ago. It has changed significantly enough that you would be comparing apples to oranges.
This might help to prevent people taking wrong message from the blog..
Just adding a disclaimer and summarize the core message of the blog in every blog post that relates to real estate.
What did I tell you about Richmond Hill Garth several years ago ?? Check my previous posts.
Yonge st north of Hwy 7 and 407 up to Major mackenzie between bayview and Bathurst is a goldmine for RE values.
Will outstrip anything in T.O proper in terms of rate of appreciation.
Flop # 4
You clearly missed this the other day.
Here it is, just for you:
Flop # 148
—————————————————–
FP: “Everyone knows that a tonne of money has been made in the Vancouver market the last decade or so.”
“What is the point in showcasing that.”——————————————————
If your going to play reporter showing the potential downside to the Van RE market with multiple daily posts, might I suggest you at least wait until, there is actual losses occurring.
Painting scenarios like today, comparing sold prices to BC tax assessed value is completely pointless, as I’ve just shown. Or your fave, showing original list price, minus, revised list price, like it’s a loss in dollar figures?
No $’s have been lost or made until the home sells, till that point its pure speculation.
————————-
FP: “People were saying prices weren’t going down. I showed otherwise.”
—————————————–
Of course some of the 1.5 million + prices are off for reasons already acknowledged here.
When a party that paid 3 million, is forced to sell for 2 million, get all over that shit and shout it from the rooftops. If you support your perspective with: bought / sold prices my critiques will disappear, because we both become just witnesses to facts.
—————————————————–
FP: “Probably wasting time doing this post right now that I think of it…”
———————————
We all have our distractions in life, hope the ankle heals up soon….
Boombust: Ross Kay says that YVR in NOW down 27% but that this will not become “evident” until a couple of months
he is sticking to his guns: BC real estate has lost billions and is going to lose more.
The common denominator of Vancouver and Toronto is it’s the same banks, the same CMHC and the same federal government who have to be asking themselves “what happens if and when the GTA is down 27%?” CMHC is to a large measure protected since it doesn’t insure houses over $1 million. (anybody want to comment?) My guess is the big banks are writing first mortgages for under a million whatever the selling price. And they’re not writing second mortgages. At all. Nobody has said where buyers are getting their money. Anybody?
Who knows how the bubble will deflate. It’s not hard to think of a scenario where houses go up to 10 mln/piece. Owners will suffer under that scenario.
From W11 2DZ – Toronto is not the big smoke – it is just another large rather boring city in N. America
Calgary has been flat or slightly down for several years now. And where Calgary goes, so goes the country.
Most people don’t realize it, but Canada’s biggest export is energy, mostly oil and gas (but some coal goes to China too). And Ottawa gets a lot of money from those exports in the form of royalties. But when prices are down, so are royalties. It’s a sliding scale.
Ontario might be able to reverse the Canadian trend and increase exports of manufactured goods, that is the hope anyway. But beats me what they plan to make and sell competitively. I even have a set of skis here that were “Designed in California, Made in China” (like an iPhone I guess). I wonder what the Chinese dudes who put them together thought they were for.
Speaking of skis, or skiing in particular, there must still be some money out there because the resorts are plenty busy and prices were up again this year. That is not totally surprising, the one thing that is as faithful as the sun rise is that lift ticket go up 10% per year, much faster than the rate of inflation. It has reduced the amount of days I ski per year considerably. Including gas, lunch and lift tickets it’s pretty easy for a family of 5 to blow $400-$500 per day to ski now. But yet the parking lot is jammed. You’d think the economics must be there to build new ski resorts but it isn’t happening very fast.
#143 Johnny Boy on 03.03.17 at 3:54 pm
Really sorry about your brother man. My only constant point is we all worry about the small shit. Family is everything.
We come into the world naked and if your really lucky you leave it naked in a hotel room with a stranger.
Have as much fun as you can with sort time we all have here . Screw saving and planning is all I advocate. Look at me I’m dead broke and pissing away what little I have left at seneca tonight.
When I totaly run out. I’ll go beg at Union station and put guilt trip on the boys from the tax farm..
It’s because you never bought my book damn it.
Don’t worry about me…Alien DNA.
Came close last April…beat it. More fun….
When you realize your real purpose in life is to be worm food in the end. You see yourself in the caskit
All obsessions about doing the righting are exhaled out the window like a good cigarette. .
Dr Smoking Man
PhD Herdonomics
I’m happy to report that since I started reading Garth every night I bought a house and GICs and voted Liberal! The best thing about this blog is the perspective it provides.
I really appreciate how much you’ve thought me about potential downsides to my decisions — you’ve really informed most of my major purchases so I didn’t go in blind.
But ultimately we are responsible for our own choices and applying what we learn to our own lives. Which is great:)
When the band you’re in starts playing different tunes,
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.
Fact: Every single Canadian vendor wants the maximum amount of cash for his property. They do not need counseling from the experts on this blog as to the legitimacy or legality of the source of the money
Fact: FINTRAC compliance is in effect and followed by RE brokers, agents and lawyers.
most of that cash collected by Canadian vendors stays in the Canadian economy and circulates
if you type here, that ‘foreign’ money has created a problem you have to prove it, and no one has.
Fact: the only people privy to the source of money in a real estate deal are the principals and their representatives
Conclusion: the people here blaming foreigners don’t have a house to sell
YVRT # 13,
“Vancouver’s already seen a 30%+ fall in detached prices. A place a few doors down from me recently sold for $1.3M, was listed at $1.7M”
——————————-
Some Dogs are having trouble with the math.
Let me help…..
———————————
Original list, minus, revised list = Irrelevant
Tax assessment, minus list = Irrelevant
Asking price, minus, sale price = Irrelevant
Buy price (with renos), minus, sell price (with RE fees) = EVERYTHING!
——————————-
Not one dollar is lost, or made, until the house is sold and the above basic math is applied.
Your welcome.
Johnny Boy. Further to my point. You where not around a few years ago when I unleashed at God one October drunken night.
Challenged Him.
He takes my nephew. Mark was an amazing kid. Working in Switzerland for PWC he loved mountain climbing. He was training for everest about to become a partner at the tender age of 28.
He was on a short hike on a small mountain. Slipped 500 meters. Splat. I read the autopsy report and told his folks. No foul play… then burned it..
That was the thing I think made me go over the deep end.
My point.. don’t sweat Trump or Hillary.
Do what you love doing and don’t worry to much. Cause you really have no control over your fate.
Enjoy the ride and take lots of pictures. ..
#40 Brian
Come on…we all know the solar system revolves around Toronto…get with the program.
Very nice speach addressing the Congress. That”s my president!
Not much to add other than seriously ‘real’ rates will not raise in the near future, BoC said themselves. Regardless of what the FEDs do BoC will be doing everything imaginable to avoiding hikes, mr BoC said himself.
Buy what you can afford (which is very little if zero for most) is the message here.
Don’t expect to magically wake up to 50% less than today on MLS.ca, forget that, not in my lifetime or yours. The dutch and other scandie lands has been down that road. Their governments fought tooth and nail like ours truly are no different.
As much as I’d like this garbage to halt, there’s no stopping majority rule here.
Good luck!
The BoC does not set Canadian fixed mortgage rates. — Garth
@ “Ruined One”
The movie ain’t over yet, go get some more popcorn and thank your lucky stars you are not sitting on a pile of debt while paying the banker’s mortgage payment…yes in the face of rising interests rates. I get it – 1 -3 yrs seem like decades when you are younger, but 30-35 years of debt is servitude is truly knutty! Double Yikes!
Look at the long term picture…get away from this short term herd induced thinking.
Patience
This blog ruined him?
So he chose Garth’s advice over Mom’s.
Renting vs. ownership.
Wonder who’s dressing him these days…
Whew… that makes me feel a little better. The insanity has to end and prices get at least a bit more affordable.
I think what people also forget is that even a small correction will put an end to situations like homes going for double asking, bidding wars, only selling “as is”, etc.
My husband and I are going to be completely debt free this year and will wait for the correction to take a reasonable plunge into the market.
We’re thinking about 500k with 25k down. We have 120k in income and 100k investments (25k not included) and hope to keep on banking more money into investments. That would keep within the rule of 90 correct?
“The latter is most likely, as we shift into an era of rising interest rates, US protectionism and massive household and public debt.” – Garth
————————————————–
I say BS. The US is pickled in debt. They can’t afford higher rates. Eventually the debt will catch up to reality. Time will prove that.
folks still calling for that free fall in Toronto house prices?
up 27% in a month
too funny
#6 For those about to flop… on 03.03.17 at 6:20 pm
//////////////////////////////
Hey Flopper
this statement is from the heart.
You need to find a new hobby.
You are borderline OCD.
Trust me, the more time you spend off this blog the better your mental health will be.
You seem like a good bloke.
Best wishes.
M51ON
#26 Ronaldo on 03.03.17 at 7:08 pm
#3 Dogger
”Doesn’t that mean we need a haircut of at almost 50% to get us back to where the sky was falling about 2 years ago?”
—————————————————————–
That could never happen. (ha ha) Too many people would be hurt. At least that’s the theory. Didn’t seem to matter back in the 80’s smash did it? Going to be a doozy when it does happen.
****************
It didn’t seem to matter more recently in the US, Spain, Ireland. Canada is sitting at the back of the roller coaster.
My thoughts: Initial correction, then slow melt with intermittent avalanches as rates rise and mortgages renew and financial pressures ensue. (illness, divorce, loss of job (protectionists policies), lower US corporate tax rate, less regulations – can all get in the way).
I take it the last 3 days of flat markets is factoring in a rate hike after moving abruptly after the King’s speech.
#54 Penny Henny on 03.03.17 at 8:41 pm
#6 For those about to flop… on 03.03.17 at 6:20 pm
//////////////////////////////
Hey Flopper
this statement is from the heart.
You need to find a new hobby.
You are borderline OCD.
Trust me, the more time you spend off this blog the better your mental health will be.
You seem like a good bloke.
Best wishes.
M51ON
*****************
I understand the sentiment, but I look for those posts. Good public service. Much like the host of this miserable
yet spectacular blog. Bring on the Saturday class, more on ETFs please!
Garth, pressing question. Are you an iphone, bb, android or ‘flip’ phone user?
Uh, why? — Garth
From my perspective, my mind has been opened to the benefits of renting with thanks to this blog vs the blah, blah, blah stability is the ultimate goal that my mother attempted to instil in me.
6 months into a new job finding out my manager has been excessively billing a client (who has moved beyond suspicious) on a project that was passed down to me shortly after starting… and the options appear to be blow the whistle or be the fall guy.
Feels priceless right now knowing my total obligations are a couple months rent and my portfolio can carry me well into the sunset if necessary.
Cheers Garth, I’m pulling out the good scotch tonight.
Blow it. — Garth
When you lose your mind and your most presious value in life is trying to put a good sentence together that makes someone think about something they never thought about.
Your a trillionair…
That’s when you realize your a writer. You don’t have to be that good for the feeling.
The feeling you get inside when it un hinges someone or showes them light.
Incredible.
I’m sick and tired of reading about how Chinese Monkey is making housing prices rise,
Hey Smokey Jimbo, tell me an afternoon and I’ll buy you a couple of pints at south side johnnny’s.
Please bathe first and no flip flops.
M51ON
Keep those reports coming Flop. Nothing more interesting than hearing about homeowners that are breaking even. I think it’s great that you have the time to chronicle the historic 3% correction of Feb 2017. If you don’t, who will?
This will be a period of time that will be remembered forever, the time when 1.6mm houses sold for 1.5mm. Renters rejoice, the tide is turning! Guys like Ross Kay that called for a correction 8 years ago will finally be right, when 2017 houses correct back to winter 2016 levels. I long for the days of cheap 2016 prices! Pink snow indeed. Blood on the streets. God help us all.
Blacksheep on 03.03.17 at 8:12 pm
YVRT # 13,
“Vancouver’s already seen a 30%+ fall in detached prices. A place a few doors down from me recently sold for $1.3M, was listed at $1.7M”
——————————-
Some Dogs are having trouble with the math.
Let me help…..
———————————
Original list, minus, revised list = Irrelevant
Tax assessment, minus list = Irrelevant
Asking price, minus, sale price = Irrelevant
Buy price (with renos), minus, sell price (with RE fees) = EVERYTHING!
——————————-
Not one dollar is lost, or made, until the house is sold and the above basic math is applied.
Your welcome.
///////////////////////////
Black sheep ,this is the last time I am going to write you.
We just have to agree to disagree.
House on market…6 months then sold.
House details entered into b.c assessment….3months.
= Too late.
There are plenty of people on here that appreciate my efforts.
I have found Pink Snow in all price points, in all neighborhoods hoping to spark a conversation at the dinner table that goes something like this…
” You know that house on such and such street ,that flip is in trouble.”
Too many people in this city believe that no one will ever lose money on real estate and it will always go up.
There are plenty of other people for me to share my ideas on here ,you are clearly not my target audience.
Take care ,Flop…
I guess android, maybe we need a survey to guess? -off to watch the fifth estate
Garth, pressing question. Are you an iphone, bb, android or ‘flip’ phone user?
Uh, why? — Garth
“The BoC does not set Canadian fixed mortgage rates. — Garth”
You have gotta be tired of saying this. Like ‘Sayed’ said – might be an idea to post on each real estate blog.
No one can predict a market top, as this blog has so eloquently shown in the past. Having said that, no risk, no reward. If you didn’t risk your money in the Canadian real estate market then you can’t sit here and complain that you missed the boat. C’est la vie.
This insanity is just the beginning.
Stop thinking about the new conditions with your old mind. When your grandparents or parents bought their homes, the world economy was far more fragmented, money had more restrictions in moving internationally and the amount of money was kept in check (relatively speaking).
Nowadays, you have the ability to move grandiose amounts of funds instantly between any two points on the globe, you have emerging economies spilling money everywhere to gobble up assets, and plus to all this – central bankers injecting liquidity into markets at hundreds of billions PER MONTH! Where do you think all this goes? Into valuables, of course! Also called “assets”.
It’s a different world and if you didn’t jump into this gravy train, you lost big time – like myself – a “smart renter” who too followed Garth’s advice to not buy because “it makes no sense”.
This madness will not stop, because the true rulers of the world have the investors’ interests at heart and will not allow a devaluation of their investments. Don’t hold your breath for it…
Wow
Sounds like you are defeated
There’s balance, diversity in owning real estate….and then there really is better deployment of capital for a greater return. Yes, you have to live somewhere but you don’t have to own somewhere.
Valuations don’t makes sense for real estate at these prices (GTA) for my investment dollars, and in regards to a home, buying now simply seems like a rip off. A million dollars seems like a lot of $ just for a place to live. I can rent comparable for less.
One thing that unites canadians regadless of your programing and belief system or what you where on your head. I’m my case nothing but smothness.
Gord Downy…..
I’m canadian and proud and hammered. .
Hi Flop
ask Blacksheep what he thinks about moon landing was it faked, and watch him go from sheep to shep in an instant.
For those about to flop..
Thanks for the Vancouver updates. And cheers.
https://www.youtube.com/shared?ci=y9LHbo8u-bE
He’s a beauty. ….he’s still kicking….
CANADA IS GREAT.
For the fker chirping garth about his special relationship with smokey, that and I get away with murder.
Have you ever been to the general store.. met garth , dorathy. And that beauty bandet. He’s afraid of aliens.
He dident come close. Can’t fool a dog.
But really, next time one of you ass holes want to chirp gartho … go get an ice cream at the general store or I will send a lightning bolt to your for head.
He’s to good for his own good.
Lovely people.
I’m into the JD right now…I should be angry. Hard liqueur.
Getting good at drinking.
..
Flop,
You keep posting and I’ll keep watching for some actual losses, to be shown. Like I said, when facts (Basic math) are displayed, all agendas disappear.
Thanks for the reasonable convo.
Flop, you’ve got my support. Thanks and keep the pink snow coming…
M49ON
this is an artificial economy created by low interest rates. will interest rates rise suddenly and create a crash? No.
Real estate will keep rising and so will the stock market.
Both have been reaching new peak levels and will continue to do so until something drastic happens e.g. Wall street/banking fraud- part 2, Europe goes belly up, World War 3.
Chinese dudes tax in the GTA. Will it crash the RE market? No, will it make a dent? Yes. Maybe enough to tip the scale like YVR.
There is no supply shortage in the GTA. It would be great to have data on how many people own more than one property. I bet it will be high and this is what is driving the market to reach new astronomical levels. With a up to 30% Year over year return, why wouldn’t anyone invest? Risky, but so far, since 2008 when Garth started this blog, its been proven effective.
Never time the market, invest based on what you can afford whether you go long or short.
“Here are a few thoughts, ruined one. The basic message here has always been balance and diversification. Buy what you can afford. Keep debt under control. Don’t put all your net worth in a single thing. Dial back risk. The goal of life is not a house, but the enjoyment of time – which money sure helps. And there’s absolutely nothing shameful about renting. Your mom is wrong.” (Garth)
So true – buy what you can afford – not what you, 2 of your closest relatives,and your dearest beloved
can afford. Do you really want to spend many, many, many years in a soleless box which you have over spent to purchase. Goodbye to the vacations, the dinners, out the good times- hello TV, homemade pizza and crappy furniture.
But that’s the least of it. If you buy a condo in YVR you can be sure of paying massive ‘special assessments’. Only buy into a building where the owners are VERY well off. They will vote to ‘pony up’ when the plumbing fails, the building envelope leaks and all the windows have to be replaced. No special assessments! -low monthly fees! – you can be sure the owners are impovershed and building is falling apart around their ears.
Be warned! The only ones feeling no pain are the YVR speculators who get in and out before they have to face reality.
Are we in a bubble?
Do the banks know it?
Do the realtors know it?
Do the sellers know it?
Do the buyers know it?
What do you think and feel?
It’s Tickle me Elmo time again.
There is a time to get in and a time to get out.
Buffy says it best “when people are greedy be fearful..when people are fearful be greedy”
There were many smoking deals in 1991….but in 1989 it was just like now…prices going up every month…the euphoria ended
@ #38 45north on 03.03.17 at 7:40 pm
Toronto & Vancouver are considered organized crime havens where cash flows like water. I’m not speaking about the xenophobic Hot Asian Money conspiracy theory, but the local Canadian Millennials who work in criminal enterprises like criminal extortion, prostitution, drug dealing, murder for hire, gun smuggling, scams, fraud, telemarketer, etc, etc, etc.
One time I saw on Instagram this 21-year-old female from Toronto flashing at least sixty to ninety $100 Canadian bills in her hand, in addition to another picture where she took a picture of her posing near “bricks” of fifties and hundreds which I estimate to be in the $100,000 range.
This feminist-talk from her replies to her critics were unbelievable.
How she deserved her money (whether she declared that cash to the CRA or not, or how she earned it whether legitimate or illegitimate means), and that she is using that cash to pay down for a house in Toronto.
I’m safe from any backlash from that female, because I don’t have an Instagram nor would I reply to an Instagram account which appear to flaunt illegally owned cash. How many Millionaire Chinese do you see stacking “Bricks” in their mattress to evade taxes to the CRA?
Anyone who is an Entrepreneur or Businessman would know that “stacking bricks” in their crib for a long time loses its value to inflation. A Chinese investor isn’t going to stack his Yuan under his mattress. He is going to invest in it whether it be real estate or business.
You’d be amazed that while these NIMBYs are yelling racist slur at foreign investors to Canada for purchasing a house in Canada where House Horny Canadians started the Bidding War, those NIMBYs sons or daughters are “stacking bricks” for Instagram, earned from some illegitimate enterprise.
I can’t even withdraw 1/4 of my monthly salary $10,000 in cash without being questioned from the local bank Manager and/or reported to FINTRAC’s database, but these 21-year-old Toronto females that Poloz wants to lower interest rates for are earning money through questionable means while evading tax.
Even if I were to condemn such people like those Instagram females from Toronto, I’d likely to be “targeted” by thugs while the female ends up on national TV accusing me of being a misogynist.
It’s unfair that I can’t withdraw over $10,000 my own cash without being subject to FINTRAC involvement, but these brick stacker Instagram celebrities in Toronto are evading taxes and earning their money illegally.
There was also that story of women from Toronto who were arrested in Nigeria for criminal extortion using sex as blackmail. It was told that those women extorted at least $1.4 million US Dollars in total from at least 400 Nigerian entrepreneurs to prevent false accusations of rape, boggery and adultery.
These xenophones in Canada should check their daughter’s mattress for “laundered money” instead of pointing fingers at owners of corporations from China or India or Russia.
The CRA will go after the professional corporations for “tax evasion” with a vengeance, but feminists Trudeau and Poloz would never go after those Instagram females who flash bricks of cash in the 100s of thousands which was earned from illegitimate means and undeclared for tax.
P.S. @ I’m not Poloz…I know you’re Poloz. When you pooch the Loonie to increase spending in Canada, people are going to pay $10 for Cauliflower. The Loonie should be at 85 American cents right now. Not 60 or 50 cents! That will cause hyper-inflation!
I don’t live in toronto and the thing I’m wondering about is the Toronto job market. Do some people have magical jobs that allow them to make crazy over bids? With the current state of prices how can one afford the things that make life worth living?
Finally got Tickle Me Elmo for $2 at a rummage sale…Glad I saved $698 from the peak price…C if you wait dreams do come true
This blog saved me from eternal damnation in the seventh circle of hell.
Well… not really.
But this blog may have stopped me from dumping the the windfall I got from the sale of my Vancouver house in 2010 back into real estate.
For me it was the right decision. The gain I crystallized then (tax free) is all still with me and quite a bit more thanks to following the investment advice dispensed here (also free) for the best part of a decade.
In the meantime, I’ve rented and lived comfortably in downtown Vancouver within a mile of where I was born in 1950. It was the easiest and best financial decision I’ve ever made.
Truth in advertising: I was at the point in life where I was done with houses anyway. Expensive, burdensome, time sucking stucco boxes, picking your pocket every day of the week.
“The basic message here has always been balance and diversification. Buy what you can afford. Keep debt under control. Don’t put all your net worth in a single thing. Dial back risk. The goal of life is not a house, but the enjoyment of time – which money sure helps.”
Yup. That’s how I’m trying to live my life. Well said.
Not good news. Average Canadians can’t compete with global citizens when they are bringing in untaxed money to this end!
How is it a bad thing that Canada got an $800,000 investment from a new citizen? And why should his own money be taxed? Fuzzy thinking. — Garth
Because this the reason the real estate market is out of control.
False. Locals do 95% of trades, then blame the newcomer. Shameful. — Garth
I very much enjoy flop’s Pink Snow updates. The fact that they seem to irk some people pretty much confirms that they hold more than a grain of truth…
It’s true that a loss is only a loss once it’s crystallized – just like a gain. But having to drop your ask 5, 10, 30% isn’t exactly a sign of seller strength, is it now? lol
Scanning the housing bull comments tonight. Seems Vancouver is finally returning to normal, whew! Sorry to hear about those big price drops people. Absolutely temporary of course. As for the GTA, seems to be entering an entirely new paradigm. Of course! We’re like New York just without all the stuff. Absolutely nothing to see here. Please move along. http://ygraph.com/chart/2135
“Here are a few thoughts, ruined one. The basic message here has always been balance and diversification. Buy what you can afford. Keep debt under control. Don’t put all your net worth in a single thing. Dial back risk. The goal of life is not a house, but the enjoyment of time – which money sure helps. And there’s absolutely nothing shameful about renting. Your mom is wrong.” (Garth)
An opportunity lost is an opportunity lost. No going back in time to Dow at 7500 or pre-greater fool real estate prices any time soon. Just not going to happen. A huge transfer of wealth to the older generation has occurred on the backs of the young. Some were lucky enough to get a piece of the action and improve their lives dramatically, if they didn’t follow the so called “prudent” advice here. All the while, governments will do anything to inflate debt away and keep the market going. Vacancy rates are simply too low (not enough supply of homes) to put any downward pressure on the market as more people migrate into the urban cores for employment.
1st i’d like to say im a 15 year mortgage broker. Ive made alot of money off this market lately, but I dont like what I see these last couple years. I know its not healthy.
I can also tell you in my grapevine of realtors and MB’s, everyone knows its the foreign money that is driving this market. EVERYONE. Listings priced in 888’s is probably the most obvious giveaway of who sellers think is about to buy their home for top dollar.
Garth, with almost 40% value increases in some pockets of Toronto and GTA , there really only is one main culprit. Foreign speculation. Only an outside power with massive wealth can drive this market up so fast like it has.
And the last 90 days have been insane , proof the foreign money from China and elsewhere came here after the Van tax ….
Juwai.com , Chinas leading website for foreign buyers to view Toronto homes, says we are now in the lead here. Realtors are constantly hitting my hood with flyers that blatantly advertise “overseas cash buyers ready to buy your home!”
The ex Treb president, now realtor, has made a business out of it, selling out Toronto homes to China and India, hes even been on CBC bragging about it . I find it disgusting how they even give this sellout realtor any airtime. He is selling out Toronto resident’s and childrens future to any rich foreigner he can find.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/richard-silver-foreign-buyers-treb-1.3968484
Even one of Torontos more popular realtor blogs has said it….
http://torontorealtyblog.com/archives/16635
“The foreign buying in Toronto is massive. I’ve never seen anything like it thus far in 2017.”
He also said…
“Business at “The Bank of Mom & Dad” is booming.”
Which I totally agree with, but, the kids arent really buying the 1 million to 2 million homes. I know, I arrange their mortgages. They are looking for condos and towns, because thats all their beginner salaries can handle…
Toronto was warned by the G&M and FP articles that this would happen, when the FB tax came to Van and didnt happen here. It was pretty much a certainty Toronto was the next target.
Why did our government sit back and do nothing? Provincial mainly. Morneaus dinky little rule change just squashed some minor league first time buyers. Made no difference to the over million home buyers.
Now detached has hit $1.5 mill in toronto and (wait for it) $1 million+ where the cows roam the streets . I just saw stoufville at 1.3 million , STOUFVILLE!!!
At what point do the politicians realize this is a massive mistake to let this run any more wild than it has. That people will be so dangerously stretched to manage these massive mortgages at continually higher rates through 2017.
Do they care? Are they all about the property tax and land transfer tax windfalls?? Or do they finally see that its not worth that money, because in the end, the economy will be crippled by people unable to buy anything , just to afford there 1.5 mill detached in leslieville.
I guess im looking for your opinion, because you were a politician. Im trying to figure out what Wynne and Tory are saying about this market behind closed doors. They cant possibly think this is healthy or normal for a market to jump 40% in one year.
They cant possibly think that having our residents pushed out of their hoods where they grew up , is a good thing.
We had warning after warning from bank CEO’s last week. Yet no response from Wynne or Tory.
I think another mortgage rule from Wild Bill is foolish. The next move has to be a foreign buyer tax and speculation/flipper tax and empty home tax. I can 100% guarantee , that will finally put the brakes on this market and bring some normality.
I love your blog Garth, never miss a post. But you need to get louder about the foreign takeover of Toronto. Everyone needs to get louder about this issue. It is wrong to let foreign money compete against local, tax paying , hard working Canadians. Because there is no competition, they will blow away local workers every time.
It will ultimately destroy this city. They dont care about us , they only care about their profits.
Help this city Garth. We need you more than ever.
it will all come down to our human nature; Fear and Greed .. the past 10 years or so was all about Greed .. one day the music will stop and the reverse will kick in.
Yeup. Stay diversified. That’s the theme here. But what about Bill Gates, Jack Ma, Mark Zuckerberg, Francesco Aquilini and Larry Ellison to name examples of a few billionaires? They didn’t build their wealth in diversified ways.
Taking a nominal amount of wealth and compounding in a diversified fashion will almost never create the wealth of these billionaires I named. Diversification is for some people but even people worth a few hundred million will balk at an investment earning say 10%/yr. They tell me “if I invest $1m in 7 years I will only have $1m more”. Then they say “Besides, I already have $2m”.
In the spirit of this blog I can’t advise a hugely larger allocation as that wouldn’t be diversified.
But what the investor is really saying is find me something that at least doubles in a year.
Those type of investments exist. I originally met Jack Ma of Alibaba at a California investment conference where he had the table beside me and was trying to raise funds from the few hundred VCs in attendance. I was selling a software deal.
He didn’t raise a penny there but the next year SoftBank invested.
A $10k investment back then in 1999 would have generated millions. I should know hehe.
I think diversified portfolios are for people with a bit of wealth who want a bit more. Would Aquilini, the billionaire developer and Canucks owner, become a billionaire if, after liquidating their first few real estate holdings, had gone diversified.
It’s like bank loans. They are generally only available to borrowers who don’t need them (except Canadian real estate of course).
If you have some wealth and want to grow it steadily go diversified.
If you need to create wealth or want to be a billionaire+, it’s pretty obvious the main way is not through diversified investing.
Apis Cor has recently 3Dprinted a house at a cost of $10K something and it took only 24 hours to finish it. They say it could last up to 175 years…
This blog has saved me from spending too much on upsizing in Hick Town, Ontario. Instead we are staying put and renovating to create the space we need for a growing family. It will cost the same we would have spent on realtor, lawyer, and land transfer fees. Thank you, Garth and fellow crazy commenters.
A while ago I postulated that the ultra rich Chinese politicians would be half hearted in their efforts to limit capital outflows. When a communist country liberalizes its economy, the powerful steal the nation’s resources. The kleptocrats. They need to get their moolah out. Faux regulation. Whose ox will be gored? Not the legislators in the Chinese parliament. Too many billionaires facing a tightening noose.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/02/chinas-parliament-has-about-100-billionaires-according-to-data-from-the-hurun-report.html
Stawks=Sucker play do the math( leaches suck commissions)
TSX is actually down 25% in dollar terms in two years
Toronto houses up 4x
Gold up 4x
They are just killin the currency as the dollar becomes worth less
They want you to pile into stawks to support their ass-ets…cause they are lazy and want to sponge off other peoples money
Toronto millennials house buyers don’t need to chase after Toronto central,Toronto West, Richmond Hill, Markham or North York when there are still quite a few houses/condos in Toronto southeast area selling for less than a million CAD – only less than 3 quarter of a million in USD for newcomers bringing in fresh $$ or foreign investors . TTC rides from Kennedy subway to downtown is an hour or less , 30 minutes or less by car .
Just sold a house 1.3 not to a Chinese Buyer….Chinese buyer mantra is out there because it attracts eyes to ads…not critical thinking……Dats right what about all those Japanese buyers before WW2…yah put em in camps and steal their assets…..sheep are easily led astray by fear porn…..buy safety….diversify..follow me LOL
Hungry Now goin to Timmys for a Choc Don’ut
turned down the cushy new job offer. phase 1 of getting out of the TO rat race. planning on moving to europe for the girl, to a country where I can’t speak the national language and likely won’t be able to find a job. could this be a mistake? likely. wouldn’t be my first…
Someone that has not taken an evening to seriously plan their retirement, whose house has appreciated $200k in the last few years is smart.
Someone that not only has a deep understanding of this, but spends every day trying to spread that knowledge for free with humor is dumb.
Keep it up Garth, at least a few people get it.
I need an advise . I want to downsize from 3000 sq fit house to 2200 and be mortgage free. Logically because low inventory of homes I would buy something first and the sell my place . But every were you go is a betting wars and I hate that , because I know Im overpaying . On the other hand I understand that some one will overpay for my house . So I have a dilemma sell first and be forced to buy something or keep looking and betting for that perfect house , and I cant rent because most renters dont like big familys with dogs …
There are a lot of rebuttals I could make to the comments here but I don’t have the time or inclination.
If you don’t have the time or inclination to become an active investor, you’re better off being a passive one and following Garth’s advice or another financial expert’s.
Some of you people are way off. It’s okay: Zero-Sum Game.
I am also doubtful of rising interest rates.
After seeing the trend over 50 years you can see that the general trend is overpoweringly down.
It is hard to deny that there have been good times in between the recessions and that the interest rates did not recover to their previous highs in between recessions.
So now if the trend is to be respected then we are looking at negative rates during the next recession.
It may be forces we do not fully understand but there is obviously a lot of debt out there that is not intended to be paid back by the US government.
Meanwhile the US Currency is at risk of becoming less of a reserve currency or mixed in a basket of BRIC currencies thus losing the advantage of spending money everywhere that never has to be repatriated.
I would bet on low interest rates even though the FED is wisely gaining some buffer zone for the next recession.
It seems every recession is caused by a new cause that no one thought of before!
http://www.macrotrends.net/2016/10-year-treasury-bond-rate-yield-chart
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/interest-rate
Here is one hypothesis:
The world is awash with fiat currency that can be created quickly and easily by governments at will and injected into economies usually to their “friends” like banks and presumably it is to be loaned out to produce wealth.
When one builds a house for say $300k They borrow the 300k from the bank.
After doing so the bank has $300k owed to it.
The builder received 300k
and the owner who bought it has a home worth 300k
So much wealth is being created and is going into the hands of the upper crust that they do not know where to stash it in order to hedge inflation.
So now we have allowed them to monetize and use property as a futures market. Buy, Sell, Flip.
Lets hope they do not start to do this to the food supply.
I think there is too much easy money out there that is just not rare any more.
The history of currency is that anything rare can be used for currency.
Special shells, gold, certain other metals.
Then some smart guys who saw a free ride invented fiat currency.
Something for nothing.
Now there seems to be too much of it and we are seeing the result through relentless inflation way above the official 2% Government sanctioned fake rate.
Way to go ONTARIO!
Your leader has socialized the cost of electricity so you can all share in higher taxes to pay for your neighbors lights!
#72 AACI Homedog on 03.03.17 at 9:22 pm
For those about to flop..
Thanks for the Vancouver updates. And cheers.
————————————————————-
Ditto. Keep em coming.
Ooooooo-boy Gartho buddy, that’s some serious resentment being levelled at you by Mr. Ruined; it’s misguided but not entirely without merit. And so much angst and beauty in the comment section today, just had to jump in and stimulate myself amongst this writhing group.
I’ve been reading you intermittently since ~2009, a few short years after the halcyon days of Alberta circa 2006-2007 when it all went vertical in Oilmonton and we all made a killing trading houses for a few years, until we didn’t, and the last of the poor souls in in the spring of 2007 found themselves underwater until… well, I guess they still are. Got lucky at that time, dodged it by lucky timing, and not due one bit to any brains. Never got bored of your wit or your style, but eventually tired of the endless predictions of the coming correction that never materialized. And like Mr. Ruined, there were times I was angry at myself for taking your advice- I moved a lot with work, and I missed several opportunities to own multiple, rapidly appreciating assets because I was terrified to own more than one house at a time in case TODAY WAS THE DAY it all fell apart. Those decisions cost me hundreds of thousands in lost opportunities. And I often scoffed at the irony of your preaching, infused as it was with such masculinity and primal thrusting, that houses were at the top and poised to fall while simultaneously preaching the benefits of a well balanced index-linked portfolio because hey, who the hell can time the markets or a stock, right? I saw you as a bit of a Trump before Trump, the Ann Coulter of real estate, inflaming emotions and stoking controversy to drive traffic to the site. So I left. Wandered the woods of life without the guidance of the trusty GF blog for a few years from around ~2012-2016. Lost. Searching. Often naked.
Peeked in on ya last year as I prepared to bet big on some stuff….same story: RE’s dangerous, it’s going to crash…and GT, you gotta admit you HAVE called for significant pain and correction, don’t try and wiggle outta that one with your fluidly prosaic definitions of melt vs correction vs. crash…BUT, in the intervening time I must have grown up, because although you were still singing the same old tune despite another half-decade of 20% annual gains in YVR and TO eroding your credibility as a market timer, I saw here what I should have noticed all along: Underlying the thunderous climax that is your writing style you were trying to deliver the same wisdom you have been since the beginning, and it’s summarized by your words tonight:
“The basic message here has always been balance and diversification. Buy what you can afford. Keep debt under control. Don’t put all your net worth in a single thing. Dial back risk. The goal of life is not a house, but the enjoyment of time”
Yeah, heeding your warnings about debt and your insistence that houses don’t always go up cost me a few hundred grand. But it just as easily could have saved me from bankruptcy. It taught me to evaluate risk, and to manage it. I googled “WTF is an ETF” for the first time after reading your blog oh-so-many-years ago, and it introduced me to the world of investment theory, thereafter which I voraciously gobbled everything I could learn about low MER, long-term, balanced-portfolio index investing. Yeah, you suck at timing the RE market….but so does the girl who bout a house in Vancouver in 2009…and the guy who bought in TO in 2012 (and so did you when you and Dorothy were gobbling up love-shacks in the 80s and 90s that are worth millions today) they just won the coin toss this time. If they went all-in highly leveraged into houses they could barely afford and that would have destroyed them had the market turned even slightly, they made bad decisions (and millions, yes I know). But it’s no different than actively managed mutual funds….give 1024 people a coin to toss and odds are good some SOB is going to flip heads ten times in a row and look like a goddamn hero…but watch out for the eleventh flip. All your glandular discharge and testosterone was indeed intended to arouse and provoke, in the simple hope that people would be entertained enough to listen to the simple underlying message I quoted above. So, tonight I wanted to say thanks. Thanks for being right on the things you can be right on. Thanks for being wrong on the things no one can predict, and not letting that deter you from your path. Thanks for teaching hundreds of thousands of Canadians, me included, about balance and financial assets. Thanks for being Ann Coulter enough for us to pay attention to. Thanks for keeping my ass out of trouble. And thanks for maintaining what I believe is the best, more informative, most diverse and thought provoking comments section on any financial blog in Canada. As gold as your posts are, the comments are platinum in their aggregate wisdom.
Now about those comments, I actually didn’t come here to make out with you but to immerse myself in the sea of flesh that’s gyrating here tonight:
#7 Guy in Calgary- Right on brother. Glad you found home here in my native AB. Why any young person without a MD or LL.B behind their name tries to grind it out in YVR or TO is beyond me. Great places to wake up naked next to strangers and catch a cab to the airport from.
#11 common sense- they already have- 25 basis pts in 3 months, more to follow. Yeah she’s still cheap but she’s no longer free.
#17 boomer88- see my comments above. Just because the roulette table is spitting out winners doesn’t mean you should have bet. Get that cash into some liquid assets in a balanced portfolio SLOWLY over the next couple years. Don’t blow your whole wad on the S&P tomorrow or it could spit it out at you and drop 20% the next day. Your obviously closing in on retirement, put 50% of your cash in fixed income right away, divide the rest into 24 equal monthly contributions and get it into growth assets over the next two years. Don’t stress timing it- invest on the first of the month and forget it. Live a little, cause tomorrow ain’t guaranteed.
#29 I’m NOT Poloz- you’re a misogynistic ass and I don’t like you. You’re a bad person, and may want to consider trying to change that if you want your life to be less miserable.
#39 Leebow- actually that is kinda tough. Please, enlighten us.
#51 Don- sage advice.
#67 the beginning- I thought yours was the most thought provoking comment of the night… as much as I claimed above that “no one” can predict the market, as Michael Burry proved sometimes there IS a flaw in the math and it only becomes visible to the majority in hindsight. I tend to agree that the asset inflation that is going on world-wide right now is because money has entered a new paradigm- the globe is awash in money looking for a place to grow, billions can be moved across the globe in seconds, the cost of capital is still near all-time lows, and much of it is chasing tangible, non-renewable assets. One of the points I disagree most profoundly with the Big DOG Gartho on is the role of foreign investment in driving up RE in YVR and TO…no coincidence that things cooled in Van after the CDT and that’s about the same time TO went from ridiculous to straight up…and it doesn’t take much of a unbalance in supply and demand to drastically change the price of a commodity like housing, and foreign money is certainly enough to contribute to pushing an already unhealthy imbalance right over the edge, even it does only make up a couple percent of the purchases. Just think, on an island with 100 people and 100 rations you’ve got harmony….same island, same people, but 99 rations and you’ve got cannibalism. But don’t kid yourself- there is a top and it will correct. Go to teranet, look at the graph for Edmonton 2005-2007…on a percentage basis, it was even more extreme than what’s happening in TO right now. On the hole, house prices nearly doubled in a 18 month span…I bout one in ’05 and sold it for a 177% gain in 2008, and I’d have done better unloading a year sooner…and then things crashed 20% and still haven’t come back to the same level. My advice? Buy something you can afford comfortably, or don’t buy at all. Can’t find it in TO? Move west, you’ll never regret it. Alberta has two of the most livable, highest quality of life cities in the world. And if you’re young, healthy, and un-bridled by debt, you didn’t lose sh*t, because you have it all. It’ll take you a few more years to realize that though.
#88 Don P- If you’re a millionaire and want to be a billionaire it’s actually quite easy. Take $1M to the roulette table and put it on a single number of your choosing. If you win, let it ride. If you hit again, Presto!! $1.296B. One out of every 1,444 millionaires can become billionaires this way. For everyone else, I suggest diversification.
JFC it’s almost midnight.
@#3 Dogger
“One thing I can’t get my mind around is that if there was a “crash”, and the YYZ market shaved 30% off (a serious economic dislocation), we’d only be were we were a year ago. A year ago everyone one this blog thought the market was overvalued. Doesn’t that mean we need a haircut of at almost 50% to get us back to where the sky was falling about 2 years ago?”
——————————————————————-
You’ve it exactly backwards – it only takes a 30% decline to erase a 50% gain.
I gotta say, I feel the same way. I wish I didn’t find your blog for a few years. I was ready to buy in 2011, but while researching the decision I stumbled here…. Yes, the downpayment has nearly doubled, but I can’t help but wonder what my life would be like with the extra 400,000.
It would have been speculative, gambling, and it’s no way to run a society, but it’s what the government and BoC went with – – all in on housing. You couldn’t have known that buyers would be so stupid and our leaders would be so complicit, but I’m actually very depressed at the moment. This blog dog needs a long look in the mirror. Maybe we’re the idiots for trying to be responsible in an irresponsible world.
Garth I live in the ex-EU as you know so I don’t follow actual Canadian stats but I do know that my brother has lived at Younge and Eglinton in TO for all his life and his neighbourhood is now nearly all wealthy Chinese and Arabs. All the original families have had to move out to survive. I also know that his children will never be able to buy anything at all in the city of their birth and this leads to broken families and instability. Govt at all levels should have acted long before now. All the young will blame the Drama Teacher. That bit has to be good news.
I don’t understand why the banks are fronting these massive mortgages for slanty semis but of course they don’t, the taxpayer does through the CHMC. Fastest way to end it would be for the CHMC to make the banks eat the first 25% of any loss. Watch them suddenly pull the mortgage plug.
Plus parents who should be saving for their own retirements are losing them through these risky home purchasers for their kids. So the financial losses will wipe out generations in families. Again why is the govt still sitting on their hands. Of course it is because 25% of the whole Canadian economy is dependent on people selling houses to each other at higher and higher prices.
This crash will be epic and will take T2 out. Kevin Whats-his-face is now getting press in GB. I see why.
And how do we call a decline of 50-70 % across the border and in some places over 70 % as it occured in Ireland in 2008-2009?
Because this is for sure what we are facing.
Decine of 5-15 % invalidates any theory about housing bubble until at lest May 2016 (?!? WTF) and we have been talking abot that bubble since 2008.
DELETED
Garth — have read your website with interest for some months. Despite complaints from some of your readers, you have called the housing market almost exactly: quiet times during the new year, then a spring rush pushed forward by the first interest-rate rise and a desire to “get in while you can.” The rise seems to have been more vigorous and earlier that you predicted, but the direction of travel is spot on. This will not end well, and yes, it will be like crash in the late 80s. On Vancouver Island, where I was at the time, people were buying land after flying over it in an small airplane, or otherwise sight unseen. One house in Nanaimo was listed at 160K, quite a bit in those days, then sold at auction some months later for 29K. It’s going to happen again: we are in a classic bubble. Peripheral places are a good way to judge where we are, often no clear in the centre where there are wider complexities muddying the waters. This informs my strategy to some extent.
But the real problem here is the culture of Canada, don’t you think? You posted the remarkable case of the young professional in Manitoba and his detailed calculations. Of course it’s good to plan, but this was astonishing. Aside from all the things a young guy in his 20s should be ‘normally’ thinking about, surely something needs to be done to wean Canadians away from their housing addiction. If they have something to invest and want to take risks, the country should see something useful, like a new enterprise, a clever invention, a business, new trade ideas with Japan, why, even a corner shop. The nation is impoverished, lacks diversity and business creativity. It is ominuous, and I know you don’t like the T2 plan, but capital gains on houses, and heavy taxes on second homes, is a very good idea. Government is there to govern, encouraging people to invest (as they do, and on which you wisely comment). We need rules and taxes that move the focus away from property as the ‘investment’ ambition. The fly in the ointment is that this needs to be handled carefully or many will come down with the crash. Sadly, the matter is at a crisis stage and government intervention is already too late, in my humble opinion. It will end in tears. Perhaps post-crash (about October would you say?) Canadians can start to rebuild and make a more creative economy and society. Imagine going out to dinner with your friends and NOT talking about the price of houses, but some new clever idea? yours, dr. zip.
PS: keep at it, there are many who read and do not comment.
the fix for 416 is simple:
more subdivisions, north, west and east.
more jobs and houses
scrap the green belt
the province wants to ‘curb sprawl’
thats UN speak for no SFD houses with backyards for millennials
http://www.placestogrow.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9&Itemid=14
Fed funds rate increase would be announced on March 15th. That’s the same day the debt ceiling holiday expires. The US Treasury will start burning through cash starting March 15th, and by summer there might be a crisis. Normally you could count on politicians to vote to raise the debt ceiling, but with Trump and all the Trump-hysteria you never know.
God Bless.
Can robots rescue a rural school from closure?
“Other trustees question whether the program would be sustainable and if it might displace teacher positions, thereby contravening union rules.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/can-robots-save-oxford-station-school-1.4009303
Garth something doesn’t add up. How is it possible for some one to get a mortgage when the average sfh goes for more than 1.3 million. Over a million dollars and you need 20% down payment. That’s 260 k. Meanwhile I look at people in godless Toronto and they don’t have 2 dimes to rub together and the average salary is around 70 k.
Sir Garth:
Holy S69T,
Go to rt/news, the Keiser Report, episode 1040!!!
Garth, you called it! Its now happening! Right before our eyes.
The next twenty years are going to be H3ll.
Thanks for the warning…
Changing the channel.
You could have won this sorry race for the CPC leadership.
Best bet – Mike Chong.
A few corrections ;
A) Toronto is not godless
B) plenty of cash in Toronto -don’t judge a book by its cover
You have a keen eye; however, there’s a chance that the deplorable is mixed-handed or ambidextrous.
#110 zippymarmalade
well written. great idea. but how do we get there?
My anecdotal story, friend’s neighbours down the street with a 50s ranch bungalow in old Agincourt, Scarborough, needed to sell, in order to move closer to Grandchildren, house as is, no staging, agent decided to toss out some “open house” signs around neighbourhood, a couple weekends ago. If not sold that weekend, then a flurry of paintings off the wall, furniture editing, repainting, etc. Was necessary before putting it on MLS for 999,999.
Yup, it SOLD on weekend open house whimsy for 1.3M$
INSANITY REIGNS!!!
My post didn’t make it to print last night?
I’ll try again…
You can’t even remotely compare the money one has made on real estate vs the stock market the last 10 years
1) You ain’t getting a $500,000 mortgage from the bank to play the markets
2) Not only has your investment tripled or quadrupled depending where you owned, but you’ve also had a place to live the last decade… pretty sweet.
The poor shmuck that’s been waiting for a correction the last decade has missed out huge and spent his down payment on rent.
He’s now priced out and will rent the rest of his life.
Note: No bank of mom and dad
It’s not a contest or a race between real estate and financial markets. Wise people have a balance of assets. You should go talk to one. — Garth
#100 Never Give Up
“It seems every recession is caused by a new cause that no one thought of before!”
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Correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blackswan.asp
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242472.The_Black_Swan
#86 Time to Step it Up Garth… on 03.03.17 at 11:32 pm
Wow, well said .. totally agree with you.
I spoke with lotsa Realtors & residents of Vancouver while there last winter. Took interest in a hole in the ground at a fine location that was a soon-to-be tall condo build: sorry, Sold .. all, every one of them bought up by mainland China folks before a shovel mark.
Even only 5% offshore (street-level says much higher) will, and has, influenced the other 95% .. it only takes one person to yell “fire” for everyone to scramble toward an Exit sign. We are lemmings.
In these times of info overload and much uncertainty, its in our nature to want to “nest” within our own(ed) 4 walls and not be intruded upon by anyone .. including a preening landlord or a nosy peacocking neighbour (or friend) who wants to brag optics that he’s got the bigger (net worth) .. “and my, my, are you renting?”
#104 T-Rev on 03.04.17 at 1:53 am
Among the best posts I’ve ever read .. you’re bang-on.
Yes, who else in this country takes on the challenging role of “geting us to think”?
‘Planet-Pluto-Predictions’ may sometimes seem a local call for Garth, but I believe his ‘calling’ has been to provide his astutely wise money-matters perspective to “the disturbed and the disturbable” who visit here.
Thank you Garth. For all you do. And how well you do it.
Snowing again in the Lower Mainland this morning…….
Chicken Little…..
unlike change climate deniers……..was right.
climate CHANGE deniers…….yeesh.
Coffee is perking….I’ll be okay in a few mins.
@#118 Reply to reply
True, but (Butt) one wonders how often the gunsight gets caught on the pants as it is withdrawn….a potentially life ending flaw (or a ‘ripper” scar) in those jeans.
Not to mention it looks like a wimpy little .40 cal and not a one shot, man stopping .45 which, if the well worn back jeans are any indication, would be stuffed down the front of his jeans.
Or he could wear a “strap on” like the green pants “partner” kneeling next to him…..
The freudian overtones(undertones?) of this conversation is drifting into territory that I dont feel comfortable with.
Time for coffee and then a morning spent “polishing” my “pistols”
T-Rev, please post more often.
#20 Millenial905er on 03.03.17 at 6:52 pm
[…]
How is it a bad thing that Canada got an $800,000 investment from a new citizen? And why should his own money be taxed? Fuzzy thinking. — Garth
*******************************************
He is a Permanent Resident, not a Citizen. And there’s at least 2 or 4 years delay between the two statuses.
Anyway, it’s a problem. It’s literally Chinese money disrupting the local real estate market.
It’s not like the money is invested in the a Canadian company with positive side effects to the economy.
Nope, it’s just more money into a growing bubble, money coming from a different economy.
And for whoever makes their money by working inside the Canadian economy, this is unfair competition in the real estate market.
Then again, life is unfair.
There is no verifiable evidence to support your position. — Garth
What the heck is “pink snow” ?
When i was young wiper sniper,best friend of mine and I day dreamed how nice it would be to have our own software company, it took few hour before we finally we settled with name APDF, (analogue project for digital future), i remember us spending few days making a logo it was AWESOME.
Considering that we were half way thru grade 10 it was ingeniuos, by the stroke of bad luck shortly after $#!7 hit da fan, all that fall apart, and somewhere in a process of me dodging $#!7, realizing that my teenage yrs are gone, i made conscience decision not to grow up ever. So here i am, many years later 41 yrs old adolescent…
Exactly 19 yrs ago a arrived to Canada, a day late late because i was to drunk to board a plane day earlier, but that is a story for another day.
I can say that lived half of my “thinking” life here in canada, altho there are times when i made conscience decision to avoid thinking by any means. There were some challenges, but truth to be told there were ups and just one with downs, so i have to figure it out how to take care of that one, how to prepare totally analogue person for surviving completely digital world.
“If people are failing, they look inept. If people are succeeding, they look strong and good and competent. That’s the ‘halo effect.” – Daniel Kahneman
Good bye blog dogs and comments section, to much distraction here, i’ll miss you all equally…
NoName, over and out.
Really lost all faith that anything will change. Real Estate is so ingrained in Canadians minds as the be all and end all of success. Really, why wouldn’t it be. If you bought a house in YVR 20 years ago simply to live, you are now a millionaire. The last 10-15 years has turned average working class stiffs into millionaires by doing nothing.
Just get a massive loan from the Bank- get bank of mom to gift you money and to co-sign and become a millionaire. It’s so easy. That is why everyone is desperate to buy at any cost even if it makes no sense. Just buy and rich Chinese or rich foreigners will come in and buy it from you for double the price in a few years (money is no object). Can’t lose. Who cares about the debt. Banks don’t , Canadians don’t (prudent Canadians have been the biggest losers) , RECKLESS behavior has been the biggest winner in this new economy.
Prove me wrong. Prices no longer reflect any kind of fundamentals, Banks and government policies have encouraged reckless and ignored criminal activities with regards to the real estate economy…everything is being done to keep it going.
To me it makes no sense to have locals choose between sky high rents, insane accommodation prices or leave the city. How is that good for a community? But obviously I m wrong because no one seems to care- otherwise something would be said or done about it. Typical reaction- oh well, it is what it is…so nothing is going to change anytime soon.
Just keep the debt coming. It can always be pushed down the road. Weird mentality.
They are barking up the wrong tree or pointing the finger at wrong place, (not immigrants as much as REITs) this real estate mess is due to REITs, apparently they are chasing after single family homes these days and are on buying frenzy along with everyone else. Always thought they only bought average multiple unit rental buildings but no they are in on the single family real estate these days and thats whats causing the problem. There was supposedly 8,000 rich immigrants that came to this country last year, half maybe settled in Toronto, the other half dipersed through the country. CIBC won’t deal with chinese money any longer.
You are full of it. — Garth
#107 jane24 on 03.04.17 at 3:14 am
“This crash will be epic and will take T2 out.”
—————————————————
Then the pain is justified.
#114 Sitting on the toilet thinking on 03.04.17 at 6:34 am
Garth something doesn’t add up. How is it possible for some one to get a mortgage when the average sfh goes for more than 1.3 million. Over a million dollars and you need 20% down payment. That’s 260 k. Meanwhile I look at people in godless Toronto and they don’t have 2 dimes to rub together and the average salary is around 70 k.
———————————
Very few people have any money in GTA/Toronto, most have real estate and debt only, and no retirement hopes.
Juts go to the Woodbine track and see the desparate gamblers hoping to win their reritement, then look at the big lotto line ups (again old people with no retirement hope)
This place is like purgatory, it purges you from any money or assets, you pretty much come naked and leave naked with nothing left for your hairs.
Even couple of doctors with no kids can not afford SFH in Toronto these days, pay it out and save for retirement.
#117 114 on 03.04.17 at 8:03 am
A few corrections ;
A) Toronto is not godless
B) plenty of cash in Toronto -don’t judge a book by its cover
—————————
Looking at the mortgage and mortgage stats and the CMHC balance sheet I diasgree.
Average family income bellow 80 k (before taxes) but SFH cost 1.5 mil? Only in La La Land.
I know of family of 4, only one working with 100 k income having a house at the beaches, another one on 50 k income living in 650 k semi in the middle of nowhere (i.e. Britannia Road, Mississauga)
There are no words to express the absurdity of this, it is absolutely surreal and becoming more crazy by the day.
#98 Vit on 03.04.17 at 12:31 am
House hunters-Very few overbidding in Toronto southeast as this may be one or two bargain areas in Toronto for buyers . New builds detached are mostly 2000-2500 sq.ft. for less than 1.4 m. Old bungalows starts at over $400000. I’m in this southeast Toronto & goes downtown weekly by car in less than 30 minutes . Go up to north Scarborough & North York in less than 30 minutes by car weekly too .
No need to overbid for any house. Sellers wants the asked price-sellers are not selling at a loss at this time . Sellers might have to sell at a loss in some distant future if the present buyers overbid on houses in Toronto NOW.
#121 Harry Butt on
What you see as ‘gains’ in house prices is pretty much based on the ashes from burning the savings of retirees and the destruction of the economy and on the ongoing debt, it is clearly unsustainable.
It beats me how people can have a pleasure of living in ‘million dollar’ homes’ counting what they ‘gained’ while facing extremely high costs of living, non-retirement, absolute lack of good jobs for the young and ever increasing taxes.
I would call it an excellent case of brainwashing where general populace becomes so stupid and complacent that it can not have independent opinion or critical thinking any more. They even teach and ecnourage that (obedience and couch-potato-ing) at school.
Every sane person will simply move out of the insane place to for example US, in Minneapolis a house can be had fo 20-25 % of the prices in GTA (even Mississauga and Brampton!), it has excellent jobs and standard of living, similar weather.
Sometimees I feel likee Jack Nikolson in ‘one flew over cuckoo’s nest’, absolute insanity, every talk is about real estate and how much ‘everyone made on their newly purchsed house’ in just months or even weeks, even before closing!
Some sort of cognitive dissonance, probably driven at subconsciousness level due to the extreme debts, so everyne want to feel assured that he/she made the right decision when taking on that pile of debt and starts noting the facts that support that view point only.
Nothing new under the sun, classical form of collective delusion.
People praying for a RE crash should welcome the blow-off stage we appear to be entering now in TO. The bubble needs to get to these extremes before it will burst.
Personally, I’d rather not have seen the bubble get inflated since the bursting is always painful, and the inevitable government (oops, taxpayer) bailout takes money from the prudent and rewards the speculators.
One lesson I have learned fighting the nanny state my whole life is that you’re not likely to win that battle, so better to go along and be the speculator rather than the sucker who bails them out.
Lots of upside, and very little downside, even in a crash. And if you are not too greedy, you can get out in time. Like now. Lots of warning. Only the pigs get slaughtered.
Terrible lesson to have to learn, but it is what it is.
Thing is, in the next crash the central banks will already be at 0 interest rates, so they won’t be able to do much there (yeah yeah, negative 0.5%, whatever).
But they will be able to print more paper by the bushel, so that’s guaranteed. Velocity of money will be super low though, so might not do much for a loooong time.
Should be interesting.
‘There are no words to express the absurdity of this, it is absolutely surreal and becoming more crazy by the day.’
surreal? nah. Winners and losers in life. Folks that bought real estate a few years back when people were yelling ‘it’s too expensive!!!’ got it right. Folks who bought a decade ago are laughing to the bank, they are now millionaires . Those that bought multiple properties are multi-millionaires , :)
If shit is to hit the fan, so be it. In the interim, it’s a great day out there…..a bit chilly.
Toronto Mayor John Tory ‘very concerned’ as house prices continue soaring
http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/1446816-toronto-mayor-john-tory-very-concerned-as-house-prices-continue-soaring
Hello Toronto and Ontario government! It ain’t 5% like TREB says!
http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0304/c90000-9185391.html
#117 114 on 03.04.17 at 8:03 am
A few corrections ;
A) Toronto is not godless
B) plenty of cash in Toronto -don’t judge a book by its cover
__________________________________
Yes I’m sure they pray everyday when they stand in line waiting to be a debt slave for the rest of their lives.
Garth may be calling for a slow melt I’m saying there is going to be a catastrophic housing crash that is going to wipe out the middle class.
For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction
Gentlemen,
Never believe anyone that tells you they can predict where the price of any asset will be in the short term. They are full of $hit or are trying to sell you a technical analysis based trading system. I follow another blog jugglingdynamite.com by Danielle Park. She’s a super smart lawyer/financial advisor who has been calling for an imminent catastrophic market correction for the last 5 years. She posts all these pretty technical graphs showing the market about to drop off a cliff. As a result I sold most of my equity positions and have missed a good chunk of this bull market. IMO buy mostly blue chip dividend paying stocks, bonds, reits and hold them for a long time.
#137 Euro Observer
Yup… There’s never been a bigger lottery in a baby boomers lifetime then owning a wooden box.
From the hyper inflated 20% mortgage rates of the 80’s where you could assume the mortgage on some other poor saps house for $1 it’s been the winning ticket.
Rates just kept falling to record lows and prices kept rising to record highs.
The definitions section made me happy. I appreciate you addressing criticisms head on.
I am in my mid 40’s and am in a 40% tax bracket because of my $125,000 job salary.
RRSP’s and TFSA’s are the place for me to keep income taxes at bay.
This is why my 3.60% zero coupon bonds currently $650,000 in RRSP’s and TFSA’s will be worth $1,350,000 by retirement.
I will be in a lower 25% to 28% tax bracket by retirement when it is time to start taking income from RRSP’s.
John Tory is likely perfectly happy to see the real estate market go crazy given his wife owns a property development company – http://southasiandaily.com/canada/no-conflict-of-interest-in-my-wifes-company-my-sons-job-mayor-elect-john-tory/
Given Seattle realtors are saying that they are selling half their homes to Chinese purchasers since the Vancouver tax (30% before), seems unlikely we are only selling 5% in Toronto even after the tax
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-04/vancouver-housing-tax-pushes-chinese-to-1-million-seattle-homes
Step it Up: I’m a 15 year mortgage broker.
At what point do the politicians realize this is a massive mistake to let this run any more wild than it has. That people will be so dangerously stretched to manage these massive mortgages at continually higher rates through 2017.
Tenor and mood is alarmist. Like Garth, like Lewenza. People who know are alarmed. Terrified. They recoil. They wish they didn’t know.
jane24: I don’t understand why the banks are fronting these massive mortgages for slanty semis but of course they don’t, the taxpayer does through the CHMC. Fastest way to end it would be for the CHMC to make the banks eat the first 25% of any loss. Watch them suddenly pull the mortgage plug.
if the banks had to eat the first 10%, they would pull the plug. This measure would require political risk, even sacrifice.
This crash will be epic and will take T2 out.
damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t
Hey Garth,
Yes, we know that there are lots of moisters obsessed with real estate, but can they be the reason for average detached home reaching 1.5 mil. in Toronto?
I thought their Bank of Mom is helping them get into the condo market.
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This blog may have ruined you, but it’s done me good as I’ve learned a lot from it. As I said last year at this time about the Vancouver market, why isn’t there a massive flood of listings by greedy people trying to cash in their winning lottery tickets in the GTA? To use my engine governor analogy, I was travelling through the mountains of the South Island on the Intercity Bus. At a place near Hanmer Springs the bus was going down a steep hill. The driver had the transmission in low gear, and the engine was revving at a high speed. It was producing no power, but rather using compression and internal drag to absorb power and behave like a brake. The GTA market should be behaving in a similar manner, with no one buying and a lot of people trying to sell to cash in their gains.
Canadians only think of real estate as their one and only choice for an investment for one simple reason.
They couldn’t save a dollar bill if their life depended on it!!