Last Friday we learned 88,000 jobs offed in January. As Ontario’s new minimum-wage law took effect, losses for part-timers hit a record. Adios 147,000 paycheques. As this week concludes, the news about real estate is just as bad – the largest-ever sales plop, down 14.5% across the nation in 31 days.
Toronto was punked. According to CREA, deals there tumbled 27%. Hamilton took a 32% hit, K-W fell 20% and Ottawa was hammered for 33%. The reason? Panic-buying in November and December by people trying to ‘beat’ the new stress test led to a bust in January.
Say the realtors: “The decline in January sales provides clear evidence that the strength in activity late last year reflected a pull-forward of transactions, as rational home buyers hurried to purchase before mortgage rules changed in 2018.”
‘Rational’ buyers? You mean the ones who bought real estate just before stiffer mortgage rules and higher mortgage rates dropped prices? Who paid more than they had to? House values immediately fell 2.4% (that’s an annualized 28%) once 2018 unfolded. It’s hard to understand how anyone could have not seen that coming – which means a lot of new buyers now carry bigger mortgages because they feared not qualifying to borrow as much later. Of course, if they’d waited, they could have borrowed less and had the same house.
Oh well. I tried.
So what next? More of the same. This won’t be a great year for real estate as the cost of money escalates. Not just mortgages, of course, but also those lines of credit which have become so bloated in recent years ($220 billion) – almost all of which are variable rate, demand loans.
Burnaby blog dog Pete, a finance dude in the health care business, has some proof for us.
“In past posts I recall you warning how lines of credit are demand loans and the terms can change at any moment,” he says, “and here is a clear example of how quickly that can happen.
“I received this letter last night from TD bank and it’s scary to think what might be happening across the country. I have a credit score over 800 and minimal debt but what about the people that have $100k LOC’s out there? This could be the beginning of the credit crunch that we’ve been long expecting right? Even a small increase could push people over the edge – well this isn’t exactly a small increase on an already high number.”
Pete’s LOC rate, as you can see, is mushrooming by 1.79%, to a withering 9.24%.
Meanwhile, have you been keeping tabs on stocks? That correction is history, it seems. Investors decided to stop being worried about soaring bond returns and accept that we’re shuffling into an era of higher-growth, higher-inflation, higher-yields and higher-rates. The odds of yet another Fed rate increase next month have risen to 90%, up from 85% earlier this week. The Dow is back above 25,000, and markets are now pricing in four more US central bank hikes by the end of next year, with three of them in 2018.
Bond yields, in other words, will continue to edge up. And it’s the bond market that determines Canadian five-year mortgage rates. So with almost half of all existing home loans coming up for renewal this year, it’s a slam dunk most people will be facing higher monthlies as a result.
Add it up. A weaker job picture, increased borrowing costs, stiffer mortgage regs and massive government intervention in the real estate market – where sales have deteriorated and prices are already under some pressure. Now coming up in the next 12 days: BC’s market-killing spec tax, and a federal budget out to fry investors and small business peoplekind.
At least Patrick Brown found his spine.
221 comments ↓
I’m a semi retired realtor in West Vancouver. Not with Angell Hasman but one of their competitors – I’ve worked with their realtors extensively over the last 28 years. I agree that the North Shore market has softened over the last 6 months and it’s probably due to much of what you’ve mentioned. But the sales figures you posted yesterday are just plain wrong. And your provided link for Angell Hasman doesn’t lead to anything but a general home page for their site – with this so called market summary not in sight.
Here are the actual numbers:
There was actually 15 detached sales in West Vancouver in January – not 3. That compares to 20 in January 2018.
There was actually 30 detached sales in North Vancouver in January – not 11. That compares to 34 in January 2017.
Who know’s what the future will bring? Possibly a soft period due to higher rates and more government regulation. But without a pickup in the current low level of listings (much lower than average) inventory, a precipitous drop in prices isn’t on the horizon yet.
As poster #1 said…….the sales continue. And until the laws of money transfer are enforced the sales……will continue.
“That compares to 20 in January 2018”
———–
I mean January 2017
that’s a terrible rate to start with, credit score 800? not with that rate my friend. I have an unsecured 50k at 4.95%. Get a new bank!
Oh, and no crash. YVR, YYZ will keep going up in lock step with the Chinese economy….
I really think we should get Smoking Man & Screwed Canadian Millennial on a blind date together.
Hopefully a hot steamy romance would blossom between the two. They are cut from the same cloth.
More time together and less time on this blog would be a welcomed relief to the 99%
My post from the big sell off when the algos and robots where going nuts.
#11 Smoking Man on 02.04.18 at 3:13 pm
Expect a huge rebound in the morning. No reason for the market to be selling off. The effects of lowering of personal and coporate taxes hasen’t even hit the engine yet.
……
Metro Vancouver sales dipped in January, but prices up 18.5% year over year once again proving Vancouver is special.
The new B20 mortage regulations have no effect….
The foreign buyer’s tax has no effect….
The clamp down on tax evasion, fraud and money laundering has no effect….
A socialist provincial government has no effect…
The legalization of weed has no effect…
BC has a strong economy built on: buying and selling condos overseas and to ourselves; sheltering ill gotten gains through money laundering in real estate; running dodgy colleges to 100k international students who buy houses; and property transfer tax revenues that are larger than revenues from any resource or tech sector.
Metro Vancouver is not the GTA. Metro Vancouver has been doing this for decades while the GTA is an amateur in structuring their economy on real estate. No wonder you guys are failing…we are too big to fail in the West.
@#1 Semi Retired Spin Doctor
“..The current low level of listings……”
+++++++
Please.
Like thats the only issue hammering the sh!t out of detached listings and prices.
Lets ignore
Foreign Ownership Tax rules.
Vacantcy taxes.
Money Laundering at Casinos….kaput.
FOMO fools and the Bank of Mom
B20 and tighter rules
Rising interest rates.
Economy slowing.
Trudeau taxing and spending.
Yeah, its all about the low level of listings………
Sorry Pete, that is not at all reflective to all people. You can easily get $50k – $100k unsecured at P+1 (4.45%) right now at most of the big 6. Also, the pricing has nothing to do with the demand nature which is callable. Committed facilities can be repriced also. In short, find a new bank or there is key details being omitted here.
It still amazes me that you can tell people:
* This time is not different
* The Canadian housing market hasn’t reinvented the wheel
* There is nothing new under the sun
* [Fill in your favourite proverb/saying here]
No one ever learns.
A budget det to fry investors?
Wait, what?
That bafflegab double-speak news release that you quoted a few days ago was impossible to decode. I was expecting flow-through shares to boost investments in innovation, or something.
What have you heard?
#1, #2,….. I like the way you guys colluded on your answers to make it look like you didn’t…. damn russkies!
Canadians are happy to know that big business is not making any money in Canada, and we don’t have to worry about trickledown economics while a few Big Shots are eating steak. Screw the GDP, who cares? Perhaps we’ll all be better off without all of our nasty pollution emitting companies that put profits before employees. I’ll go with the flow, whatever Justin and company can dream up suits me just fine, but then again I have chickens and a big garden.
“Add it up. A weaker job picture, increased borrowing costs, stiffer mortgage regs and massive government intervention in the real estate market – where sales have deteriorated and prices are already under some pressure.”
-I just saw an article on the CBC website proudly proclaiming that the GTA housing market has fired back up.
I honestly do not know who to believe.
Anyways, during the oil slump in 2015 we continuously heard about how the job market was being impacted.
This kept the BoC “cautious”.
So,
If the job market is expected to be weaker, how can we realistically expect higher rates moving forward? If it is strictly the bond market, then a prosperous US down south should help improve our economy. I still see tailwinds for GTA housing, sorry.
MF
#1 Semi Retired Realtor on 02.15.18 at 4:51 pm
I’m a semi retired realtor in West Vancouver.
/////////////////////////
I have some homework for you if you are feeling charitable.
Or you can be like all the other guys on here and talk the talk but not walk the walk.
I’m sure there are a couple of wins in this pile.
There are people watching,but I can’t do it all on my own…
M43BC
January 2018 Sales Report/Realtor Assistance Needed.
Pandora paid 1.29
https://www.zolo.ca/vancouver-real-estate/2712-pandora-street
1st Ave Paid 1.41 condo
https://www.zolo.ca/vancouver-real-estate/88-w-1st-avenue/1101
Milford Paid 1.23
https://www.zolo.ca/coquitlam-real-estate/1508-milford-avenue
Sophia Paid 1.47
https://www.zolo.ca/vancouver-real-estate/5748-sophia-street
Farmer Paid 1.21 Sold 1.21
https://www.zolo.ca/abbotsford-real-estate/34288-farmer-road
Jaskow Paid 1.9 Sold 1.58
https://www.zolo.ca/richmond-real-estate/5691-jaskow-drive
Woodhead Paid 1.31
https://www.zolo.ca/richmond-real-estate/4231-woodhead-road
79thave, Paid 845k
https://www.zolo.ca/delta-real-estate/11288-79-avenue
Chamberlayne Paid 1.02 Sold 1.08
https://www.zolo.ca/delta-real-estate/5295-chamberlayne-avenue
Coventry Paid 2.83
https://www.zolo.ca/richmond-real-estate/4260-coventry-drive
Sunland Paid 1.3
https://www.zolo.ca/burnaby-real-estate/4582-sunland-place
Pintail Paid 1.62.not sure if sold yet as not cleared.
https://www.zolo.ca/richmond-real-estate/11580-pintail-drive
72nd ave,Paid 560this cheaper option in Surrey actually sold in late December but I will put it up in the hope it helps someone.
Was in Possible Pinkies Folder but most likely made money.
https://www.zolo.ca/surrey-real-estate/14948-72-avenue
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Feel free to make a donation.
Flop For Fox Fund…
http://www.terryfox.org/get-involved/ways-to-give/
#219 45north on 02.15.18 at 3:51 pm
Old Ron: Quick now without thinking too much, what three things should Andrew Scheer do immediately upon taking office that would make things better for Canada ?
allow MPs to be pro-life
********
I am not sure I interpreted your Con text correctly. Are you actually saying you want to lose more than half the electorate before the campaign begins?
Ontarians are so ready for change they might make another mistake. If Ford gets in, the Federal Liberals will use him as the poster boy for planned parenthood.
Do you have an opposing strategy?
Garth:
You left out all the help the middle class will get from the Bill and Potboy show budget in the name of fairness
/sarc remark in case anyone was wondering.
People will be in trouble and unfortunately there will be no bail out.
For those following market timing advice, yesterday did confirm 3 days up and I did purchase into the markets based on my own advice and the advice I gave the banks I advise. Seeing a technical bounce is one thing, acting on it is where you profit.
Markets were up again today and pushed passed the 2727 S&P500 resistance level which became support at the higher close.
Another good buying opportunity for tomorrow if you want to time the market.
Techincal’s may be fun and useless to some who do not understand them, but for others, it is called profit.
Trade positively.
RE:Bond Yields.
Have been tracking provincial bond yields since the beginning of the year.
About middle of January most provincial bond yields, for an 8 year bond (maturing in 2026) were around 2.5 – 2.6% depending on province. (Manitoba was 2.65%)
By Feb 1 the bond yields were around 2.8 – 2.85%.
(Manitoba was 2.81%)
Yesterday was notified that Province of Manitoba bonds maturing in 2027 were paying 3% interest annualized.
Yep, bond rates are going up.
And provinces and Gov of Canada that continue to run deficits will pay more and more to service that debt.
So that means either fewer services, or more likely, higher taxes, cuz our pathetic leaders do not know how to ‘not spend’ your money.
The end of cheap money has begun.
Boy, Burnaby Pete must be one bad “finance dude” to get snookered into such a blatantly bad LOC.
And if he is a smart one,,,,,,,,,,what are the others doing?
Ouch.
How many of those lost jobs in January were the seasonal Christmas part-timers? Aren’t these expected job loses that would have been priced in by the market/people who took the jobs in the first place?
BC’s market-killing spec tax, and a federal budget out to fry investors and small business peoplekind.Remember how the 15% foreign dude tax was supposed to kill the market. Or a few fractional increases? I doubt even the new legistlation and taxes will cool Canadian’s house horniness, nor, in the specific case of Vancouver, do much to throttle back smurfing of foreign capital in to the city. There are too many work arounds and people are still very much in FOMO mode.Call me back when housing prices approach that of what used to be supported by economic fundamentals…. So a good 30-50% price correction off of where we currently are at in the GVRD and GTA.
@#1 Semi Retired Realtor
Any comments about one of your brethern?
https://thinkpol.ca/2018/02/15/richmond-realtor-helps-daughter-make-205000-profit-misconduct-receives-5000-fine/
This is spot on. We were sold a HELOC back in 1993 ( if I remember the year correctly) for a home purchase by our then banker, Canada Trust. We thought it was an amazing product and always made our payments. We had several work moves around the country and always sold and bought homes for our family, fees and moves paid by our generous employer. Then…the poop hit the fan in 2008 when everything went south in the economy. TD Canada Trust was watching it’s own behind and sent us a letter saying they could demand and we were to meet with our branch mortgage specialist ASAP to lockdown much of the LOC into a mortgage. We did. We have better credit than Santa Claus but being human with sporty teenagers and lots of costs, the balance had crept up in time with market increases. They were only too happy to re-evaluate our home and increase our limit twice when times were good. Then it all fell off a cliff. I could tell you more about TD not understanding rural properties for us in 2012, etc- we stopped banking with them in 2012 after 29 years as they just didn’t and wouldn’t offer us the products we needed.
An aside- we had poor timing and listed our big GTA house in late 2007 as didn’t need to rattle around in a big home as empty nesters anymore. The market promptly dove off a cliff. Our realtor panicked and wanted us to drop the price over $100,000. We laughed and took it off the market, only to relist in 2010 and GOT $200K more than we originally asked. Rollercoaster, overreactive market. We are in different times though, now. Far more debt & folks unaccustomed to normal interest rates. I believe ours was 6% when the bank was retrenching. Bet your bottom dollar the big banks will close in on you as fast as you can say “Oh crap”.
No where near as bad in the RE market of the GTA as this blog portends. If sellers don’t get their price , they will simply delist and sit. Been like that in the GTA
For 3o years .
Richmond hill listings south of major MACKENZIE ( not hinterland Richmond hill)few and far between and if you want one of them, good luck getting it for less than 10% of what you would have paid last April. Fact
I want real estate to collapse in Toronto the feminist capital of the world, and in Vancouver the Nickleback capitol, but I also don’t want our Loonie to crash to 50 cents $US$.
#23 crowdedelevatorfartz on 02.15.18 at 5:45 pm
$200K up after fine ! Yeah that’ll teach them !
Crazy this continues to go on…
Pete’s LOC rate, as you can see, is mushrooming by 1.79%, to a withering 9.24%.-GT
No wonder TD stock was up today.
In other news January sales in the Niagara region were down 24.7% YoY
Danger, Will Robinson!
All of the realtors (snake oil salesmen) are coming out of the woodwork now, pumping for all they’re worth.
Everybody selling their game.
The age of lies, non-transparency, inducing fear is coming to an end, and they don’t like this.
Do not listen to them.
Question for the dogs.
I currently hold
VUN- Us Total Market
VDU-International but no US
VEE-Emerging markets
as part of my holdings.
The management fees are low but I don’t like the low trading volumes. Can anyone (except Mark) recommend some alternatives.
Thanks
Garth, don’t you have any friends who work at Statscan? How can you possibly claim with a straight face that the entire country lost jobs because of Ontario’s minimum wage? That doesn’t even make sense. Have you even thought this through?
I already explained to you that the January jobs report was an obvious correction to the blockbuster numbers in November and December. This is so obvious. There’s no way the labour market is actually this volatile. Cmon man. It’s basic ECON101 that you don’t place so much emphasis on 1 jobs report. You should know better Garth. I would expect better. The next time there is a blockbuster report, are you going to reverse course and praise Trudeau and Wynne? Somehow I doubt it.
Canada goes on ‘hiring splurge’ in November with 79,500 new jobs
https://www.bnn.ca/canadian-economy-adds-79-500-jobs-in-november-1.931528
78,600 jobs were added in December: StatsCan | CTV News
https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/unemployment-falls-to-lowest-in-40-years-statscan-1.3746827
Canadian economy lost 88,000 jobs in January
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-employment-january-1.4527905
How do you explain Quebec losing 31,000 jobs when they didn’t even raise the minimum wage? You can’t explain it.
And I also posted this chart from Bloomberg which shows the job losses were in higher paid categories. Cmon man.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-09/blame-ontario-minimum-wage-hike-for-canada-job-plunge-or-not
***The job losses were spread across industries and included higher paid work, according to the statistics agency. Employment in the food and accommodation sector, where many workers make minimum wage, was little changed.***
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/part-time-job-losses-too-soon-to-blame-ontarios-minimum-wage-hike/article37917112/
Nothing grinds my gears more than conservatives, politicians, and wealthy elites who love crapping on the working poor and telling them how bad it is for them to make more money. The workers aren’t complaining about the higher minimum wage. They love it. If the higher minimum wage is as bad as for the workers as all these wealthy elites make it out to be, then why aren’t workers out in the streets fighting to go back to $11/hour? All of the anti-worker, pro poverty advocates should just stop pretending like you care about them.
You blew it. Now we don’t know who to believe. Lol.
#21 Concerned Reader on 02.15.18 at 5:38 pm
How many of those lost jobs in January were the seasonal Christmas part-timers? Aren’t these expected job loses that would have been priced in by the market/people who took the jobs in the first place?
—————–
The job losses were first of all across the country, which has nothing to do with Ontario’s minimum wage rate (duh), and second of all, they weren’t even in minimum wage industries. Garth completely ignores this of course. See my post above.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-09/blame-ontario-minimum-wage-hike-for-canada-job-plunge-or-not
***The job losses were spread across industries and included higher paid work, according to the statistics agency. Employment in the food and accommodation sector, where many workers make minimum wage, was little changed.***
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/part-time-job-losses-too-soon-to-blame-ontarios-minimum-wage-hike/article37917112/
***Job losses were heaviest in the services sector, which shed 71,900 positions in industries including educational services, finance, insurance and real estate. Among goods-producing firms, the construction sector saw the biggest decline, losing 14,900 jobs.***
It’s hilarious to me that from 1 jobs report, people are acting like the sky is falling.
The unemployment rate is still at 40 year lows but I guess selling sensationalism, panic and fear sells.
Canada’s unemployment rate falls to lowest rate in over 40 years: StatCan
https://globalnews.ca/news/3947536/canada-unemployment-lowest-40-years-december-2017/
Also, retail took a hit in Jan because the Sears workers were finally laid off with the final liquidation sales ended.
Don’t “corrections” almost always retest the lows? Or am I just being old fashioned again.
#18 The Technical Analyst, CSTA, CPD on 02.15.18 at 5:24 pm
Markets were up again today and pushed passed the 2727 S&P500 resistance level which became support at the higher close.
Another good buying opportunity for tomorrow if you want to time the market.
Techincal’s may be fun and useless to some who do not understand them, but for others, it is called profit.
Trade positively.
///////////
Please let me know when you see a sell signal again.
I think I have to transfer another 200k tomorrow.
#23 crowdedelevatorfartz on 02.15.18 at 5:45 pm
@#1 Semi Retired Realtor
Any comments about one of your brethern?
https://thinkpol.ca/2018/02/15/richmond-realtor-helps-daughter-make-205000-profit-misconduct-receives-5000-fine/
/////////////////////
You know they can’t speak ill of each other. Didn’t you?
Drove through a new part of Brampton (formerly farmer fields) today. Yikes houses, houses, houses. If you’re a roofer you’ll be busy in a few years with all these cheapo particle board houses. Roofs as far as the horizon, houses packed / stacked / racked gobbling up the free space. Make sure your roof crew are not afraid of heights. As interest rates rise, your Brampton customers better pay in advance as they may be house rich and cash flow poor…
The era of low interest rates and easy credit has created yuge amounts of liquidity, so safe yields / returns have been hard to find, therefore causing asset bubbles especially in hard assets like housing. It is gonna take a looong time, lots of inflation, and a reversal of bad govt. policies for things to return to “normal “ and the average family can again afford the average family home in GVRD or GTA.
DELETED
@#31 Screwed Canadian Millenial with the massive Ego
“It’s basic ECON101 that you don’t place so much emphasis on 1 jobs report. You should know better Garth. I would expect better.”
++++++
“Ladies and gentlemen. I would like to introduce an anonymous 20 something internet troll that knows more about macro economics than a former Finance Minister……..”
Just curious SCM.
Is your Crown getting a little tight on that swollen head of yours?
Canadian dividend increases, so far this year:
– Canadian Utilities (+10%)
– Atco (+15%)
– BCE (+5%)
– CN Rail (+10%)
– TransCanada (+10%)
– Brookfield Infrastructure (+8%)
– Brookfield Property (+7%)
– Brookfield Renewable (+5%)
– Brookfield Asset Management (+7%)
– Manulife (+7%)
– Metro (+10%)
– Suncor (+12.5%)
– Great West Life (+6%)
Rub tummy
Weird. My unsecured LOC with RBC is 3.45%…has been this rate for past few months now, must be a promotional thing. waiting for it to shoot back up over 5%.
Garth:
Who or what insures Credit Unions should they fail..
….are there limits on deposit insurance?
More good news today.
Global wacked 70 positions across Canada.
21 in Vancouver (yay!)
God help us all the “churnalists” will have to put on their own makeup and comb their own hair…….
Halifax “Local” news…..will be beamed from Toronto.
Cant wait to hear the howls of outrage when a Torontonian Bleached Blonde Bimbo mispronounces Kejimkujik or Scheubenacadie……
Hell hath no fury like a Maritimer mis scorned
Last Friday we learned 88,000 jobs offed in January. As Ontario’s new minimum-wage law took effect, losses for part-timers hit a record. Adios 147,000 paycheques.
Reevely: Toronto’s economy roars while the rest of Ontario hollows out
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/reevely-torontos-economy-roars-while-the-rest-of-ontario-hollows-out
Naturally, the things the government has been doing anyway are the right responses: “These findings are exactly why we took historic action to create more opportunity and security for workers with a plan for fairer workplaces and better jobs,” Del Duca said. “A plan to raise the minimum wage, make university and college tuition free for middle and low income students and to provide free prescription drugs for everyone under the age of 25. We’re committed to this plan and to creating more fairness and opportunity all across the province.”
The Liberals started focusing on this stuff after Donald Trump was elected, hoping to head off some of the hopelessness and economic anger that fuelled his candidacy for president.
which is why the feeling Liberal policies are off – they’re running against Donald Trump. The article points out that even before the minimum-wage law there were yuge disparities across Ontario! Now the minimum-wage law just doesn’t feel right – it’s not a economic study – it’s a feeling. Same thing for university and college tuition – the Liberals are running against Donald Trump. Who’s says this is the right move for Ontario? It doesn’t feel right.
Look what’s happening in Richmond.
Detached sales down 62% yoy…
M43BC
https://www.zolo.ca/richmond-real-estate/trends
Look what’s happening in West Vancouver.
Detached sales down 67% yoy…
M43BC
https://www.zolo.ca/west-vancouver-real-estate/trends
That letter from the bank about the LOC going up will give me nightmares from the past. The banks will rarely lose their profits and are HARDass at heart. Don’t expect nice talk when rate go up and they want their profits. I guess a lot of people will learn that, I already learned the hard way several years ago. (no pun intended)
What are the odds of Canadian rates rising in March?
#25
“Richmond hill listings south of major MACKENZIE ( not hinterland Richmond hill)few and far between and if you want one of them, good luck getting it for less than 10% of what you would have paid last April. Fact”
What Fact? You are a Moron! Sell prices SOUTH of MajorMac are down anywhere from 15% to 28% and listings are up over 100%! All you see are detached, 2 story properties being relisted over and over again, with the majority of those listings NOT selling! Fact.
Canadians who were not sure whether to sell their home or not in an up-market are going to list in the down-market.
When sales are sagging, those wanting to downsize or wanting to reduce their RE exposure will “GET OUT” early to beat the rush to the exits.
The warning signs that this market has peaked are everywhere including in the alleged hottest property market in this world – Vancouver.
Will be near impossible going forward trying to find buyers for the $3 mil plus detached. Very tough getting out of $2 mil plus deals.
Plenty action at the bottom though … for now.
Doesn’t help the empty nester wanting to downsize and
try and enjoy the massive equity windfall.
The correction will start at the top where the higher cost of debt and added scrutiny by the banks will hurt the most.
I dramatically dropped TSX exposure last year .
Canada will continue to inderperform — ytd just over 5% vs us markets. I was dumbfounded taht folks were increasing Canadian exposure
#31 – “If the higher minimum wage is as bad as for the workers as all these wealthy elites make it out to be, then why aren’t workers out in the streets fighting to go back to $11/hour?”
Min. wage making workers don’t know how to fight, that’s why they make (and deserve to make) min. wage.
.
Hi from GVR
No end to RE party here. Onwards and upwards.
Is that a normal rate for a LOC?
I thought a HELOC was prime plus .25 or .5%, depending upon how much the bank liked you….is it that much of a premium for a LOC?
SCM I don’t know what unicorn fantasy world you l8ve in.
If your a local coffee shop owner no problem spike prices and your generation will say thank you.
If your a business owner and trying to compete in a global market. You are in trouble, you can’t compete. The cost of doing business in Ontario is sky high. I know a lot of people in mfg who are planning a relocation to the USA.
People with zero experience running a business should keep quite and not look so stupid.
#14 MF on 02.15.18 at 5:20 pm
“Add it up. A weaker job picture, increased borrowing costs, stiffer mortgage regs and massive government intervention in the real estate market – where sales have deteriorated and prices are already under some pressure.”
-I just saw an article on the CBC website proudly proclaiming that the GTA housing market has fired back up.
I honestly do not know who to believe.
Anyways, during the oil slump in 2015 we continuously heard about how the job market was being impacted.
This kept the BoC “cautious”.
So,
If the job market is expected to be weaker, how can we realistically expect higher rates moving forward? If it is strictly the bond market, then a prosperous US down south should help improve our economy. I still see tailwinds for GTA housing, sorry.
MF
****************
Like a roller coaster. The US is in the first car going up the hill and we are in the last car about to go down the hill they just went down.
#50 Jimbo on 02.15.18 at 7:00 pm
#25
“Richmond hill listings south of major MACKENZIE ( not hinterland Richmond hill)few and far between and if you want one of them, good luck getting it for less than 10% of what you would have paid last April. Fact”
What Fact? You are a Moron! Sell prices SOUTH of MajorMac are down anywhere from 15% to 28% and listings are up over 100%! All you see are detached, 2 story properties being relisted over and over again, with the majority of those listings NOT selling! Fact.
=========
=========
Truth lies in the stats. Richmond Hill SFH prices/sales have been collapsing: https://richmond-hill.listing.ca/detached-home-price-history.htm
#50 Jimbo on 02.15.18 at 7:00 pm
#25
“Richmond hill listings south of major MACKENZIE ( not hinterland Richmond hill)few and far between and if you want one of them, good luck getting it for less than 10% of what you would have paid last April. Fact”
What Fact? You are a Moron! Sell prices SOUTH of MajorMac are down anywhere from 15% to 28% and listings are up over 100%! All you see are detached, 2 story properties being relisted over and over again, with the majority of those listings NOT selling! Fact.
——-
People who reply to posts in this manner are generally unsure of their position and thus the anger . Yelling doesn’t make your beliefs any truer.
Go try and buy one of those relistings you speak of for 28% below last April and see what response you get from the seller .
Another round of layoffs at Shaw. Guess they are not getting enough income from Realty companies for adds. It’s not worth watching their news on TV any more as most of the reporters that are left seem to have just reached puberty. Better to stick to Garth’s news.
I just checked my Loc, unsecured 50k. I’ve never used it, 6.2%, don’t know what my credit score is, I never had debt. If CIBC increases my current by 1.70 I’d be inline with the above case. It might be that the big banks are trying to rain in unsecure debt.
B-20 rules forced CIBC to axe the foreign student no income verification on Feb.1, 2018 and several other banks following suit. This is a big target.
Funny how these channels for money flows have been left open for so long. And how long until a work around is in place?
Apparently the CRA wants to know how the income verification of many Vancouver residents is lower than what the property tax on a house is. Poverty level income, million dollar + homes.
It couldn’t be the banking systems allowing huge flows of unverified cash pour through could it?
If you don’t believe me, watch this documentary:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ecljz
It is all interconnected.
So when they slow down the flows…tighten rules and raise things like interest rates that affect the domestic leveraged borrowers…look out.
#40 crowdedelevatorfartz on 02.15.18 at 6:32 pm
@#31 Screwed Canadian Millenial with the massive Ego
“Ladies and gentlemen. I would like to introduce an anonymous 20 something internet troll that knows more about macro economics than a former Finance Minister……..”
Just curious SCM.
Is your Crown getting a little tight on that swollen head of yours?
————————————
All due respect to Garth, he was never Finance Minister. Smarten up. I guess this “anonymous 20 something” knows better than you.
>Is your Crown getting a little tight on that swollen head of yours?
Right back at ya.
———-
I gave you a plethora of evidence with sources, as I often do. Funny how you chose to completely ignore it and instead hurled petty attacks against me. Typical.
Quota. – Garth
#54 Mike on 02.15.18 at 7:10 pm
.
Hi from GVR
No end to RE party here. Onwards and upwards.
***********************8
Did you post before or without reading today’s blog?
FFS!
I also like poster #1’s comment – “in the current low level of listings (much lower than average) inventory, a precipitous drop in prices isn’t on the horizon yet.”
Maybe not your horizon. Listings can swell overnight once sentiment changes and panic kicks in.
#40
King Nothing by Metallica is what SCM theme song should be.
Still does not look inflationary in the slightest. But then again, this is coming from the peanut gallery.
my dad never had a credit card, never will, well he is 81 now.
never travelled so never has to rent a car or hotel room. or even have a computer let alone by chinese junk from amazon.
so…. simple, pay cash, you never has to worry about interest rates again. your pawns in the big goverment, big corporate infrastructure.
dont want what you cant afford, it will just lead to hardship in the end. be free, sure you might not have it, but trust me, you lived without it all your life, you can live without out.
why cant people just settle for a little house, thats paid and go to work every day. I find people want way too much out of life.
My daughter will never have to worry about mortgage rates, I only have one and she can pick and choose which house she lives in from 3, so she might not be motivated, but she is not stressed out. I would rather be in that position than completely stressed out over rates, work, taxes and life.
The biggest threat to the RE market in BC right now is the work that Peter German is doing supported by David Eby.
That Vancouver realtor posting on here about West Vancouver knows this.
I had a feeling that the B-20 had hidden stuff in it to start putting pressure on the banks like axing the foreign student no income verification loaning as of Feb.1, 2018.
Think of RiverRock Casino no longer accepting bags of cash. It is a start (somewhat laughable in 2017)…but it is a start and just shows how lax Canada has been in the money business. Canadian banks have never looked so good.
If the grownups in Canada do their job and enforce laws, some of the money movement will slow. Just remember, money movers won’t give up and will forever try to find ways to work around.
Interest rate increases will slow the domestic lending that has been trying to compete with the pouring in of money.
No surprise in the stats coming out.
The allowance of corruption has reduced the standard of living by about 50-60% from Canada’s next generation of people.
Wake me up when a too big to fail bank is actually allowed to fail.
@#63 Screwed Canuck Millenial
“Quota”
++++++
ha ha!
CIBC Kills Foreign Income Program , Makes Buying Canadian Real Estate Harder
So your 1.6 mil (at market peak) will be worth 900 grand at the end of this year in Richmond Hill. A cool 700 thousand dollar loss. Your mortgage doubles from $30,000 per year to $60,000 per year. In 4 years you lose another $120,000 if housing prices don’t continue to fall after this year. The opportunity cost of making a better investment than housing would easily be $180,000 over the four year period. That my GTA friends is how you go about losing a cool million bucks. You can now brag to all your buddies at the next house party about how real estate is the only way to go. Once your wife realizes your down a million she’ll be gone, then your house is gone, and you are done.
The thing I don’t get about BC’s spec tax, isn’t money made on a second home already charged capital gains?
So if I am a savvy and well to do individual with $1,000,000 to invest, should I spend $500,000 on my own home and $500,000 on a rental, pay spec and capital gains taxes when it comes time to retire, or just spend $1,000,000 on my own home and enjoy all those lovely capital gains tax free? How can this help the rental market? And don’t forget all these new land transfer taxes, which are a direct cost to would-be land lords. It’s gotta go in the rent. Land transfer taxes only make sense when house prices are exploding higher, especially when they are writ as large as in BC and Toronto. How could anyone afford to move for a job if the land transfer tax is going to be a whole year’s salary after income taxes? People used to move on average once every 5 years but I think now they will be staying put for life or renting.
And don’t worry they will be coming for the capital gains on your primary residence soon enough, even though in large part those gains are just the result of inflation.
What the actual affect of all these new taxes is going to be is not to make houses more affordable for the average homeowner, but the opposite. Government at work again. Instead, the actual affect will be to make it impossible for anyone to be able to purchase real estate that does not intend to hold the property indefinitely. That means REITs. Because the average individual cannot afford to move every five years or at all with real estate commissions (on which the realtors pay tax), land transfer taxes, capital gains taxes, property taxes, carbon taxes to heat the damn place and keep the pipes from freezing, HST if it’s a new house, and on and on, what will happen instead is that the only entities who can afford to buy a house or apartment are going to be REITs and other long term holders, everyone else has to rent. Once that comes to fruition rents will be set higher, to cover all costs and make a profit. That, my friends, is what your friendly government is actually trying to do. They aren’t trying at all to improve housing costs. If they wanted even slightly to do that all they would have to do is allow for increased supply (which would also increase jobs). If Mattamy can take $90,000 off the price of a new home and stay in business the problem is not enough supply.
Lower interest rates do cause higher house prices because of what the rates do to the monthly payment, and central banks understand that. What they were expecting to accompany higher prices, but didn’t get, was a building boom as a result and all of the associated economic activity throughout the supply chain. Instead the local politicians who’s campaigns are largely financed by developers throttled supply and added a bunch of their own taxes.
Think about how the math works for a city council. They need to appear to have a reasonable “mill rate”. So if a house is worth $1,000,000 you can extract $5,000 a year in property taxes and it looks like the mill rate is only 0.5%. But what happens if that house drops in value to $500,000? It’s not the taxes that change from $5,000 a year down to $2,500, it’s the mill rate that goes up to 1%, and people choke on it.
Property taxes, like all taxes, depend on a one way movement of prices and that movement has to be up. Price declines bankrupt banks, we all know that, but they also bankrupt governments. The powers that be are well aware of this. This is why managed inflation with the odd bubble is allowed, or even multiple bubbles, whereas any retrenchment in prices is severely countered.
This is also why gold & silver will never again circulate as a currency. You can’t pay off debts with something that has gone from $20 an ounce to $1350 an ounce no matter how wild the ride was. The only way you can pay off debts is if the currency is stable or preferably goes down in value over time.
My furnace quit working a while back. I had just replaced a flamer starter for $350. I was not happy with the gouging and I figure this repair billing will hurt a lot more. I have a gas fireplace insert and a few electric heaters so I lit them up and turned the furnace fan on to manual. The repair can be made when the work is sought. Hey, it is an experiment for a single guy and February has been cold in Calgary.
The trade-off looks to be about 10 gj for 500 kw. It looks like a plus but it is earlier to tell. I suspect a consequence is being targeted as a grow op – just leave my tomato seedlings alone. I was also thinking of trying my hand at potatoes and pot this year.
BTW, I cannot eat what SCM brings to the table but it is interesting where minds get stuck. Personally, if less than a few like it, I try something different.
I’ll just leave this illuminating post from a discussion board in Milton the other day…
“I contacted my financial adviser because we wanted to sell our townhouse and buy a new home at 16 mile creek (Milton). This was the response I got. I am thankful for the advice. My friends purchase at the Preserve(Oakville) for $1.6mil. They are newly weds in the 20s with a town home. I am sure this would have been helpful to them that’s why am sharing it.
I apologize for not being able to get back to you yesterday; I had a bunch of files closing and also had to leave early for a family function. It was a busy day!
I do not have good news for you…
With the new mortgage stress test that the Federal Government imposed on Canadians on January 1st, you will no longer qualify for a mortgage for a house purchase price in this range you’re considering.
Your RMG mortgage is portable, however, you do still have to re-apply for the mortgage when you are ready to move to the new home. The application is underwritten as a new mortgage, with income and all the other usual criteria checked, and you’ll have to qualify at the rules in effect at that time.
I’m not sure how much you know about the new mortgage stress test; We now have to qualify the borrower at the greater of two rates: for fixed-rate mortgages, the Bank of Canada benchmark rate (currently 5.14%), or the new mortgage contract rate + 2%; and for variable rate mortgages, the Bank of Canada benchmark rate.
The 5 year fixed rates are currently priced at about 3.60% for conventional-type applications like yours, so this means I’d have to qualify you at 5.60% – and you will not qualify for this rate on your income alone.
I am not comfortable encouraging you to proceed with the new-home purchase plan for a couple reasons – the biggest reason is that there is too much uncertainty with respect to the chance that the Government will continue to impose further restrictions on borrowing. If, when the home is ready to close, you don’t qualify with RMG or any other institutional lender, then we will have to look at a subprime-type mortgage – which means a much higher interest rate than what you are currently paying. For example, subprime mortgage pricing today for borrowers who no longer qualify under the new stress-test rules is about 4.89%. That’s a big difference compared to what you are currently paying!
Another reason why I’d hesitate to recommend this purchase is that there is much uncertainty with respect to home prices, while we wait for the fallout of the stress-test to hit real estate prices.
A perfect example of this is the issue that Mattamy is experiencing at another project they are building in Whitby (I think it’s Whitby, or some other east-GTA area). The builder has priced its second phase 90K less than the first phase homes were sold for. Those Phase 1 homes have not even closed yet, and they have dropped in value. That is a very real risk that you need to be aware of.
If you have the extra cash available to make up any shortfall in house value, then it won’t matter as much, but if you are dependent on getting a mortgage for a substantial chunk of the purchase price, then it is a very risky investment.
If you want to move to a larger home, then I’d recommend you look at the resale market, not new construction. But, even for resale, you will not qualify due to the new stress test underwriting rules. We’d need more income on the application, in addition to what you earn.
My advice is to just stay where you are, and hammer away at your mortgage – by increasing the payment, or bulk up your savings. If rates continue to increase, you’ll be somewhat insulated from that payment increase shock.
I’m sorry I’m trying to talk you out of this – The timing just is not right!”
Re: #192 Stan Brooks on 02.15.18 at 2:23 pm
Here it is, the world of oligopolies:
Weston family’s Choice Properties buying Canadian REIT for $3.9 billion
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
That was bought, imo, on the money they scraped from the points they skimmed from their PC Plus-Optimum program, where I was in a battle with over disclosure of points earned when they decided to cancel PC Plus and go with PC Optimum, because their new program gives you even less information on points earned.
With Galen’s private bank in Barbados to hide that dough, it’s conceivable that my hunch is right. With 13 million cards out there, it’s pretty easy to scour the bottom for a couple billion.
I have a complaint in with PC Optimum to get an accounting of my points, that is more than a week old, even though their website says I’m supposed to get an answer within 3 business days.
I even phoned again today to speak with a human since I have been trying since the changeover at the start of the month. The message when you get in is so garbled that you can’t go anywhere. Check it out points collectors.
Next step, another complaint to go along with my original complaint with the Competition Bureau that wasn’t completed because of the turnover to Optimum from PC Plus.
How convenient, eh?
Time for a revolution.
# 58 victor V
I mean this respectfully victor , I really do but are you really going to use that chart to convince anyone that the market in RH , or anywhere else for that matter is rolling over?
It might be , only the future will tell but it can easily be interpreted as a minor blip in a long term trajectory .
Any predictions for the London, Ontario market? Just moved here from the GTA for a new job. I was tracking the GTA market in detail for the past year and am trying to determine how long I should wait to buy here. There are limited historical stats available but when housing tanked in Toronto in 89 London just flatlined. The price to rent ratio here is about 25 which indicates it’s about 35 percent overvalued. There are ALOT of new developme ts with inventory and lots available. Opinions?
#64 Reality is stark on 02.15.18 at 7:56 pm
So your 1.6 mil (at market peak) will be worth 900 grand at the end of this year in Richmond Hill. A cool 700 thousand dollar loss. Your mortgage doubles from $30,000 per year to $60,000 per year. In 4 years you lose another $120,000 if housing prices don’t continue to fall after this year. The opportunity cost of making a better investment than housing would easily be $180,000 over the four year period. That my GTA friends is how you go about losing a cool million bucks. You can now brag to all your buddies at the next house party about how real estate is the only way to go.
////////////////////////////
Your hypothetical scenario has already become reality in West Vancouver.
At a higher price point ,granted.
After we added opportunities lost the final figure was roughly 1.05 million lost in less than 15 months.
Fact not fiction…
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
CONFIRMED PINK SNOW.
Well,here is confirmation of the biggest loss I have recorded since my study on the Vancouver real estate market started.
I do original reporting and research and don’t go regurgitating someone else’s porridge.
The details…
Paid 5m in April 2016
Sold 4.4 m in July 2017( the deal was done in late May)
Roughly a 17% loss after expenses and approximately 850k mistake with known expenses.
Seems like it is only a matter of time before someone takes a million dollar hit…
M43BC
Sold on May 22
4765 Pilot Rd West Vancouver 5m.paid asking 5.295
https://evaluebc.bcassessment.ca/Property.aspx?_oa=QTAwMDAyOTFTRA==
https://www.zolo.ca/west-vancouver-real-estate/4765-pilot-house-road
#59 Cottingham a bargain on 02.15.18 at 7:27 pm
People who reply to posts in this manner are generally unsure of their position and thus the anger . Yelling doesn’t make your beliefs any truer.
Go try and buy one of those relistings you speak of for 28% below last April and see what response you get from the seller .
********************************************
This guy must not have read your memo.
https://www.mongohouse.com/soldrecords/5a7f2fe54df2c4074965cb91
Asking Price is Oct. 2017 – $1,700,000
After multiple relistings sold for $1,270,000 on Feb. 9th
Isn’t that a 25% haircut off of Fall prices. What would he have gotten in April 2017?
I have the answer for you. Here is what a similar house sold on that street for in April 2017
https://www.mongohouse.com/soldrecords/58f6fa821120cc3160424c54
$1,720,000
Now, look at this from a broader picture.
https://www.zolo.ca/richmond-hill-real-estate/trends
I don’t think you have the slightest clue what you are talking about.
You just know that this blog has finally gone completely off the rails when it starts defending a guy like Patrick Brown, a serial-libeling hypocrite who is quite talented at dishing it out, but completely spineless at taking it.
Maybe some day the PC’s in this province will find the spine to promote someone with integrity from their ranks to lead their party.
Until then, it’s continually entertaining to witness the self-serving, right-wing nut-jobs in the province repeatedly eat their own offspring, dooming us to another four years of Liberal larceny.
Neither you nor I know if Brown is guilty of a crime. But he cannot be faulted for standing up for himself. – Garth
GT: SCM is trying to teach you something.
This is not food bank economics SCM. Nobody cares what grinds your gears. We are all waiting for you to leave this country. You cannot even do one thing properly and you want us to commend T2 and Wynne on a job well done.
If it were not for the wealthy and the risk takers your poor breathren would not have a job. Give it a thought and leave the idea that you are entitled to anything other than 2 blog posts a day (not sure why but that is GT’s call).
Oh and you forgot to blame the boomers today. Make sure you stick to your narrative.
————————————–
#31 Screwed Canadian Millenial on 02.15.18 at 6:15 pm
I already explained to you that the January jobs report was an obvious correction to the blockbuster numbers in November and December. This is so obvious. There’s no way the labour market is actually this volatile. Cmon man. It’s basic ECON101 that you don’t place so much emphasis on 1 jobs report. You should know better Garth. I would expect better. The next time there is a blockbuster report, are you going to reverse course and praise Trudeau and Wynne? Somehow I doubt it.
Nothing grinds my gears more than conservatives, politicians, and wealthy elites who love crapping on the working poor and telling them how bad it is for them to make more money. The workers aren’t complaining about the higher minimum wage. They love it. If the higher minimum wage is as bad as for the workers as all these wealthy elites make it out to be, then why aren’t workers out in the streets fighting to go back to $11/hour? All of the anti-worker, pro poverty advocates should just stop pretending like you care about them.
“Oh well. I tried.”
Yes Garth…you did try.
But consider what you are up against.
1. A huge gang of real estate agents who are the modern day…… thieves led by their bosses that spend more time on the golf courses than you have time to sleep.
2. A huge propaganda machine tied to radio, TV, newspapers like the Toronto Sun…..spinning off misleading stories that it is always a good time to buy.
3. Journalists who don’t read your blog…..but always run to those connected to the Toronto Real Estate Board….for a quick story….because as you know this field, if one tells the truth as you do, requires a lot of work .
And too many more reasons to mention here.
Lastly…..you don’t have the deceitful Russian propaganda machine behind you like ” Don Donald ” had to lie to American voters.
But yet you have your integrity …you didn’t make a secret pact like the Trump family receiving money loans from the Russian money lenders……….And…..who knows what else!
It is though a valiant effort on your part to tell it honestly…..only if more would listen to you Garth.
I will….may the force be with you….truth will always win…just need more time for it to sink in and be understood.
A 9% LOC? Sorry but this guy doesn’t have good credit or he is way over leveraged. I do have good credit, am not overleveraged and have a unused, unsecured LOC at TD at 5.4% and my mortage is at an insanely expensive 2.95%.
Sorry but money is still very cheap.
Do agree that anyone that rushed to get in prior to b20 is a full on moron. Flip side of that is the folks that have been waiting since 2010 must be crushed that homes are still selling at late 2016 prices, and condo’s are going nuts. 44 % increase in FV condo prices in the past 12 months. Those fools that bought in 12-24 months ago have done alright.
re# 74 NEO
Great post – illuminating indeed, 20 something’s buying $1.6 Million dollar homes pre-construction! I must be the dumbest, poorest man in Canada.
innumeracy and being on the wrong side of the intelligence bell curve has been a huge tailwind for Canadians. Even the language people use is amusing, love when people say “we bought” – you didn’t buy anything, you went to the bank showed you could fog a mirror, were asked to spell “the” and then you were given a mortgage you will never repay.
Garth is absolutely spot on, rising costs of capital will kill a huge percentage of smug Canadians who think they are RE geniuses. All it takes is a few hundred bucks a month, you start falling behind, more behind and start defaulting soon the unsecured debt first.
By the fall assuming the BOC has some integrity and actually raises – which probabilities tell us is the case – we will start to see the carnage.
Math
TD must like me for some reason. I currently have a unsecured LOC at prime + .25%
Used it lately? – Garth
“Meanwhile, have you been keeping tabs on stocks? That correction is history, it seems. Investors decided to stop being worried about soaring bond returns and accept that we’re shuffling into an era of higher-growth, higher-inflation, higher-yields and higher-rates.” GT
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No, it won’t be a straight fall into the abyss – it never is. Beware of lower-highs though, as people are lured back into complacency.
Here’s at least one fund manager who sees enough risk to warrant a high cash allocation:
“Today, Yacktman’s $8.5 billion fund (ticker: YACKX) has more than 25% of its assets in cash, and even after the market’s recent slide, he hasn’t been buying. “When you look at valuations today, to go back to a normal valuation the market would have to fall by more than half,” he says. ”
https://www.barrons.com/articles/cash-is-kingand-a-harbinger-of-doom-1518701307
TCC
What market-timing, equity-snorfelling hedge fund managers do has zero resonance for retail investors. Meaningless comment. – Garth
Real Estate Bubbles: The 8 Global Cities at Risk
http://investmentwatchblog.com/real-estate-bubbles-the-8-global-cities-at-risk/
@#69 crowdedelevatorfartz on 02.15.18 at 7:54 pm
@#63 Screwed Canuck Millenial
“Quota”
++++++
ha ha!
______________
LOL, you’re no better.
Interesting thing about the condo market going bonkers is all those young folks paying 600k for air will be prevented from moving up because they will owe more than the air is worth. Thus taking thousands off the property ladder leaving no bid for the average SFH. Only thing keeping the condo house of cards from falling is CMHC and bank of mom and dad.
If we got rid of the CMHC, so will go the condo market – if I were a betting man the majority of condo purchases under $1 Million in the GTA are high ratio.
Math
#70 AK on 02.15.18 at 7:55 pm
CIBC Kills Foreign Income Program , Makes Buying Canadian Real Estate Harder
That is big game changer….
Re: #34 A Yank in BC on 02.15.18 at 6:22 pm
Some guy wrote the same thing as a comment on Zero Hedge. Higher powers read all the comments so my guess is we won’t retest the lows.
we have privately owned central banks,
fiat currency,
debt monetisation
and people, proud of their financial ‘literacy’ come here to cheer higher interest rates
conclusion – there is no hope
The Bank of Canada is public. – Garth
My unsecured LOC with CIBC is as follows:
Interest Rate: Limit 43K CIBC Prime¹ @ 3.45% + 4.15% = 7.6%
we have no debt, my credit score is 834 and never missed a payment. It is high but I don’t use it, so I don’t really care.
I have an unsecured LOC with Scotia as well, 50K @ 6.95%
I normally just sit back and read the comments without getting involved but today I must speak out…
What is the issue with SCM having his/her own view? why can’t you people just accept it and move on?
SCM clearly has a different societal ideology that many of you whiners but you have no right to try and muzzle him/her.
and I am referring specifically to the fella that cannot control his flatulence in confined spaces.. and also to the pole smoking man..
SCM Ally
Leider hosers debate results:
Gracie Allen- maybe in 10 yrs, but lose the cross
Christine – maybe 20 yrs ago
Ford – not a cough cough!
Caroline – she can learn on the job
Steve – nailed it
TD must like me for some reason. I currently have a unsecured LOC at prime + .25%
Used it lately? – Garth
—
Don’t use it frequently, a small amount on there at the moment to top up RRSP contribution…
#7 Immune to Reason – you’re right! It has been going on a long time in the wild wild west. I played the pink sheets and VSE in the 90’s into mid-2000’s. Remember that?) Did very very well on stocks that were nothing but speculation and pumping…but then you lose some too. Corrupt, money-grabbing government needs to be routed, legislation put in place to control laundering and blind trusts. That’s the answer.
Oh and # 5 – I’m with you. Had enough of SCM!
“If the job market is expected to be weaker, how can we realistically expect higher rates moving forward?”
Higher actual rates charged to consumers. Similar or lower policy rates. The spreads are expanding as the perception amongst lenders is that consumer credit is of very poor quality. House prices, after years of stagnation in the post-2013 peak era, are finally starting to fall in an undeniable way.
Does anyone really think it was “normal” for Joe Sixpack homeowners to be able to borrow, backed by cardboard and plaster, at rates similar to some of the largest corporations in Canada? Net of mortgage broker origination fees? That was a highly abnormal situation. Banks will proceed to lay off a good chunk of their new loan origination employees and simply invest their money in buybacks and large (ie: billion dollar loans) to large corporations that are significantly under-leveraged in Canada relative to historic debt levels.
Mortgage and consumer credit expansion is toast. Put a fork in it, its toast. Its now all about the bankers maximizing the return on their existing assets, and lots more of those letters from TD and other lenders will feature prominently in the future.
“#94 SCM Ally on 02.15.18 at 9:27 pm “
Can I have an IP Address Check in Aisle 4. IP Address Check in Aisle 4. Thanks!
#4 -=jwk=- on 02.15.18 at 5:04 pm
——————
Agree, TD is known to bite the hand that feeds them.
#93 MPAC on 02.15.18 at 9:25 pm
——————
You need to talk to RBC. You should be able to get an unsecured LoC lower than what you currently have.
Neither you nor I know if Brown is guilty of a crime. But he cannot be faulted for standing up for himself. – Garth
———————
I agree he should stand up for himself if he feels he did no wrong. However, it is possible he is severely lacking in judgement skills.
Age imbalance.
Power imbalance.
Sobriety imbalance.
Yes he is innocent until proven guilty, but it sure seems like there is a predatory element here. And at the very least, poor judgement that does not make him fit to lead a province.
We have heard but one side of the story. Hold your moralizing. – Garth
#31 Screwed Canadian Millenial on 02.15.18 at 6:15 pm
———-
Here come the excuses…
So back in the dark ages I had trouble with my line of credit. Oh it was fine, paid up. But suddenly the bank (the pretty blue one from Montreal) wanted a lot more info on me, and even demanded my company books, I refused to turn over the books of a privately owned corporation to support a personal line of credit secured by my home. They gave me ten days to start major repayments.
Turns out everyone in our industry (forestry) at that time had problems with their banks. Didn’t matter what bank. All of the banks decided all of our industry was at risk and they were going to get their money before anyone else got paid.
I’d be interested to know if there’s any bankers lurking in the sidelines, and hear their side to the story. Do the banks share information that way, and do they go in hard, before there’s any problems, just to make sure they get paid?
Side note, the bank did apologize – a year later. Guess it took them a while to determine there was no risk. Several of my co-workers were not so lucky. The banks threw them under the bus.
#94 SCM Ally on 02.15.18 at 9:27 pm
…but you have no right to try and muzzle him/her.
————
Sure we do. She should not be dishing it out if she can’t take it.
BTW, I voted to let her keep posting as long as she was not muzzled too much. As a society, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on whack jobs like her.
Working at one of the big banks here with lots of inside info is great. The sad thing is a lot of people don’t realize that the B20 changes won’t start fully impacting the market until March…. As noted before, the outer suburbs have cracked (East Gwillimbury, Whitby, Milton etc) and the lights will literally go out rather quickly thereafter.
#72 Nonplused on 02.15.18 at 7:59 pm
—————
So do you think if house prices go down 20-30%, government will do something to get it rolling again?
Garth, I recently inherited a bundle and can’t decide whether to invest in the stock market now, or use it to train for the Skeleton. What would you advise?
Neither you nor I know if Brown is guilty of a crime. But he cannot be faulted for standing up for himself. – Garth
By extension of your logic then, Premier Kathleen Wynn, as incompetent and morally bankrupt as she is, cannot be faulted for standing up for herself against a hypocritical, libeling mouthpiece like Patrick Brown who told reporters “Ontario had a sitting premier sitting in trial” and that “Wynne stands trial” in Sudbury.
People who live in glass houses should re-think throwing stones.
Surely Ontario PC’s can do better than Trump wannabe’s like Doug Ford or Patrick Brown.
This is a justice matter, not a political one. – Garth
DELETED
LOCs have been creeping upwards. RBC has raised my unsecured LOC interest rate to 7.44% (no balance, good credit score- mortgage rate 2.49%).
The screws are tightening on debt and the banks want their pound of flesh.
#67 crossbordershopper on 02.15.18 at 7:50 pm
my dad never had a credit card, never will, well he is 81 now.
never travelled so never has to rent a car or hotel room. or even have a computer let alone by chinese junk from amazon.
so…. simple, pay cash, you never has to worry about interest rates again. your pawns in the big goverment, big corporate infrastructure.
dont want what you cant afford, it will just lead to hardship in the end. be free, sure you might not have it, but trust me, you lived without it all your life, you can live without out.
why cant people just settle for a little house, thats paid and go to work every day. I find people want way too much out of life.
My daughter will never have to worry about mortgage rates, I only have one and she can pick and choose which house she lives in from 3, so she might not be motivated, but she is not stressed out. I would rather be in that position than completely stressed out over rates, work, taxes and life
————
Excellent.
I’m not an anxiety statistic myself, and I’ve got the financial horsepower to keep my kids off the Xanax too if need be. There are options for living a content existence in Canada, some of it is making good decisions, some of it is as simple as minding your own business even while everyone you know joins the lemmings.
“Make yourselves sheep and the wolves will eat you.”
-Benjamin Franklin
The link contains a link to Ontario sex ed program. Can someone please tell me what is so ‘radical’ or ‘disturbing’ about it? Please, identify the improper concept and age that it is being taught at. I’m all ears.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/05/04/fact-checking-10-claims-made-by-parents-against-the-ontario-sex-ed-curriculum.html
#111 Freezing in the Prairies on 02.15.18 at 10:31 pm
————-
Mine’s 5.6%….but I’m a good customer
#99 Mark on 02.15.18 at 9:54 pm
“#94 SCM Ally on 02.15.18 at 9:27 pm “
Can I have an IP Address Check in Aisle 4. IP Address Check in Aisle 4. Thanks!
———-
Hahahaha!
#49 Investx on 02.15.18 at 6:57 pm
What are the odds of Canadian rates rising in March?
==================================
In my opinion – zilch…
All the commentary out of the BoC is about the risks of Canadian consumer debt. The latest jobs report gives them the excuse.
My view – BoC will only raise rates 2x in 2018 (although US Fed will do a minimum of 3 – I know that some analysts think 4, but I believe The Trump wants to run the economy there a bit hot).
Just checked, my TD LOC at 6.2%. Never used it [they just added to my accounts years ago…don’t know why]. My credit score is 845.
Agree with another commenter about Pete’s 9.24% LOC rate, that something else is afoot in his financial situation.
Now that the Senate has decided that “enough is enough” and will swat BCs American backed pipe protest, will the Rockefellers and Farrallon Capital continue to fight be Trudeaus reelection campaign? A change in general by will do Canada a world of good.
And yes, my US stock picks are soaring…..a big position in TRP did well overnight.
#76 Cottingham a bargain on 02.15.18 at 8:11 pm
Never mind the chart. You only need to compare Jan Y/Y and Jan/18 vs Spring/17.
Average prices and sales are down significantly while DOM has shot up.
It’s a bloodbath in Richmond Hill. Respectfully.
Flop, here’s a loser for you! You can tell because they are selling a lot (old time with a development plan.)
2556 W16th
Listed for $2.980
Assessed at $2.878
Paid $3.1 April 2016
Prior to that Sold $2.1 Aug 2015
http://www.realtylink.org/prop_search/Detail.cfm?areatitle=&ARPK=&ComID=&agentid=&MLS=R2237267&rowc=4&rowp=1&BCD=GV&imdp=9&RSPP=5&AIDL=27&SRTB=P_Price&ERTA=False&MNAGE=0&MXAGE=200&MNBT=0&MNBD=0&PTYTID=5&MNPRC=700000&MXPRC=200000000&SCTP=RS
https://www.bcassessment.ca/Property/Info/QTAwMDAwMExaVg==
Anecdotal on the min wage front (sample size of one store).
My son (student) has worked at Tim Hortons for a year. At his location, they never had any of the “perks” that was mentioned in the media – so nothing to take away. Mgmt told them that no one would be let go, but apparently those who were making $2-3 above min wage before are not getting bumped up (at least right away).
Since January, my son (and every student he talks to) has had less hours. So he makes $2 more per hour, but with less hours, is making less per week than in 2017. There are some students that barely get a shift a week now. Lots of stories about not having enough staff on at peak times, and in the evenings it is often just two.
I have noticed many of the local eateries have raised their prices, and in a few cases have put up notices on their websites that the price increase is due to the min wage hike.
Most on this blog would just call that a coincidence…
Good to read rebuttals, using facts and not fiction, from seasoned commenters to the whimsical posts here by RE fanatics & pumpers refusing to accept that history merely repeats despite what the YVR MSM pumps on behalf of their RE advertisers.
If what is being posted by Garth & other reliable commenters here is even half true, well YVR, all those shiny new condo towers under construction will suffer the same fate of the early 80s Calgary RE construction boom…mothballing.
You would be shocked as to how quick things unwind let alone when the banks forecast or see their RE asset values shrinking.
As predicted by me and in Pete’s case today, banks will begin hosing creditors for cash flow…how they will balance shrinking RE asset values on their Balance Sheet.
Really a no-brainer, well, except for the whimsical RE pumpers that post here regularly and the IQ of less than a gnat MSM.
My LOC is currently not used,
but all this talk made me check, Scotia has raised the rate to 6.05%
Mortgage free and earning a cool 1.65% in Scotia’s Momentum PLUS Saving account
Your dumber than we thought comes to mind !
Again, I have to agree with Garth on the -88,000 job losses in January.
True, it is a single data point.
Unusual though as part-time XMas job losses were to be expected, instead this is what happened:
-FIRE GDP sector jobs fell by 18,000 (incl. Realtors).
-Construction employment fell by 15,000.
-Health care and social assistance fell by 11,000.
-Natural resources fell by 5,900.
-The number of employees declined by 71,000 in the private sector and by 41,000 in the public sector.
-“Powerhouse” BC, down 5,100 (I say powerhouse based on what the whimsical YVR RE pumpers post here about how everyone comes from around the World to BC looking for easy to find jobs, even the aliens).
-Ontario, down a bone crushing 50,900.
Statistics Canada tried to “sugar coat” it all by posting the yearly numbers after each of the above. Strip the sugar coating away and the numbers are grim.
Garth is correct to rehash the job numbers. They are unusual and worrying to say the least.
_____________________
SCM.
I like your lefty posts most of the time; however, you need to scroll down to the bottom of the Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey, January 2018 – where it says:
Note to Readers
And speaks extensively about seasonal job number variations and the statistics behind them, sampling variability etc. Click on a few of the links to answer your questions.
And, it is not fine print either. It is highlighted in light yellow.
#57 DON on 02.15.18 at 7:25
A good analogy. Thanks DON.
MF
SCM.
I’m feeling charitable.
Here is the link to answer your seasonal job number variations etc. [hope you did not eat the book covers during “Stats” class]:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/71-543-g/71-543-g2017001-eng.htm
Rigorous is an understatement. Sections 4 to 8 mandatory.
They have other explanatory links you can pursue.
#52 And that is why… on 02.15.18 at 7:09 pm
I dramatically dropped TSX exposure last year .
Canada will continue to inderperform — ytd just over 5% vs us markets. I was dumbfounded taht folks were increasing Canadian exposure
———————————–
Exactly.
Key topic in my posts are just how small and irrelevant our economy is on world stage and how nobody has any intend on investing here, including housing.
So the TSX under-performing. Of course it will.
All I see here and everywhere around are people who have buried their heads in the sand with ‘best place on earth’, ‘hockey’, ‘housing’, ‘strong economy’ stuff.
Truth is we are (still) a relatively well developed but declining rapidly small, cold country that straggles to attract quality immigrants due to competition (they already live better there), with population unable to reproduce due to debt, with oligopolies everywhere with insatiable appetite for profit who suffocate the population, with few incompetent serfs, the likes of T2, wild bill and the putz who are just big business appointed administration to keep the sheeple quiet and working their butt off through ‘progressive agendas’.
Times have changed.
The Bank of Canada is public. – Garth
Managed by a boss who serves private banks interests and most likely will find a nice private banking/wealth management job after this one?
He might have a better luck than Jim who could not capitalize on his services in the private sector.
Karma is a bitch.
And yes Garth, your writing style is based on wit, humor and words of yarn [or yore].
I prefer sardonic.
Great posts the last few days but alas, as 1 commenter stated in as many words, you gave it your best shot but few will listen thinking they are smarter than you [of course, you are just some former Revenue Minister and successful investment firm owner, I mean, what would you know?].
Sings that 2018 will be a very bad year economically…well, except in YVR [a.k.a., Camelot where Merlin resides with his magic wand which he waves to make reality or realty all go away].
School shooter Cruz. Not ANTIFA after all. Turns out he’s one of yours – white nationalist. Just like most of the other wackos.
While I feel sympathy for the families of the victims, I find it hard to do so for America as a whole. As Obama said, “thoughts and prayers” just don’t cut it when it comes to preventing future massacres. Only gun control does, as the rest of the civilized world has figured out years ago. No one needs AK47s or AR15s to defend themselves or their families. They only need them to mow down innocents such as school children.
Or is this just “staged” like Sandy Hook?
I have asked before, have yet to get answer who and that”s what needs to be known who benefits from higher
interest rates.
Seems to me only the leaders not the savers.
“it’s a slam dunk most people will be facing higher monthlies as a result.”
I wonder what priority legal weed will have in monthly expenses? Above Netflix? Car Loan? Mortgage?
Politicians shouldn’t pretend that they care about the poor
But they do. Because that’s how they get votes
Poor people vote for the best salesperson
All politicians serve the rich
As they should
Because who backs them with $? The poor? Don’t think so
MF, you are obviously too young to remember the 1993-96 period – four years when the US boomed while Canada was down on the mat. Interest rates were forced up dramatically in 1994 and 1995 due to strong US growth, despite an unemployment rate of 10% in Canada, and despite the fact that inflation was nonexistent (0.78% in 1994).
The spike in interest rates strangled the nascent recovery we had started to enjoy in 1994 (GDP growth over 4% that year, with unemployment briefly dipping under 10% by year end), pushing unemployment back up over 10% in 1995 and keeping it there for the next two years. Oh,and guess what housing prices did over that period. They fell. Not as dramatically as they did from 1990-92, but they continued their inexorable downward grind pretty much everywhere.
I learned three valuable lessons from that period:
1) A booming US economy does not always translate well north of the border.
2) Interest rates can go up even with high unemployment and low inflation.
3) Unemployment can remain stubbornly high even during a strong “growth” year (1994).
The Banks R Us. They are human constructs where the promises of more are made. Kinda like the temples of the gods in past civilizations. They are not separate from “us”, nor imposed to us by “they”. We all want to maximize energy return on energy invested, and promises are the most efficient way of doing that. Of course, the temples of the gods were the first to be sacked when the gods delivered no more.
#113 Raging Ranter on 02.16.18 at 2:30 am
You are right. I was too young to be paying attention to the economy in 1994/1995. I was more into sports, and the “new” world of computer games at the time!
Valuable history lesson.
If I am not mistaken the federal Liberals were in power during that period too. It’s interesting how everyone has fond memories of the 90’s (me included), but when you examine the decade closely you still see some hiccups.
I’d still go back though!
MF
WATCH: Trudeau Asked Why Cannabis Company Founded By Former Liberal CFO Is Getting Hundreds Of Millions In Secret Cayman Islands ‘Investment’
https://www.spencerfernando.com/2018/02/15/watch-trudeau-asked-cannabis-company-founded-former-liberal-cfo-getting-hundreds-millions-secret-cayman-islands-investment/
#131 Smoking Man on 02.15.18 at 1:10 am
On final truthfully hounest JD induced post.
Panama papers.
Never have anything of value in your name.
Catch me if can bitches I’m sure James forward my real name to CRA. Ha they audit me every year.. I play 10 dementional chess.
My death bed confession would be epic but no confession coming. Leaving it to my kids.
But to collect. They will need to leave Canada.
*******************************************
I have to say could care less about your tax issues Smoking Man and its not my place to contact the CRA regarding your delinquency to taxes. SO if you get turned in its not on me buddy! I do know how the tax system works visa vie the USA having lived and worked there before.
You are deemed a non-resident for tax purposes if you meet ALL these criteria :
1. You do not own any fixed tangible assets in Canada, which includes property, a house or commercial building
2. You do not have ANY bank accounts in Canada.
3. You do not have a mailbox or any form of mail address in Canada
So my advice is don’t ever come back here and don’t try to get a new Canadian passport.
————————————————–
these are the real criteria for being considered an non-resident for tax purposes.
Residency status
Non-residents
You are a non-resident for tax purposes if you:
normally, customarily, or routinely live in another country and are not considered a resident of Canada; or
do not have significant residential ties in Canada; and
you live outside Canada throughout the tax year; or
you stay in Canada for less than 183 days in the tax year.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/international-non-residents/individuals-leaving-entering-canada-non-residents/non-residents-canada.html
Long time reader, zero time poster. Just had to say, this was the BEST dog picture you’ve ever had on your blog!
#130 hey Smokie on 02.16.18 at 1:09 am
———————–
18 school shootings in 45 days this year in the USA. Works out to about 1 every two to three days.
If the deaths of 20 white children aged 6-7 can’t change USA mentality on guns nothing will.
The interest rate on my TD Unsuccored Line of Credit is TD Prime + 2%, which works out to 5.45%, but I also never use it.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Criminal Charges Against U.S. Bancorp For Violations Of The Bank Secrecy Act
Charges to Be Deferred For Two Years Under an Agreement Requiring U.S. Bancorp to Admit Its Conduct and Pay Penalty of $528 Million
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-criminal-charges-against-us-bancorp-violations-bank
Scott Tucker And Timothy Muir Convicted At Trial For $3.5 Billion Unlawful Internet Payday Lending Enterprise
Defendants Exploited Over 4.5 Million Financially Struggling Americans Through Unlawful Scheme to Evade State Usury Laws
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/scott-tucker-and-timothy-muir-convicted-trial-35-billion-unlawful-internet-payday
O (my God) Canada: We’re raiding RRSPs. Housing’s down. Small firms are dour. (But there’s risqué fun in Vancouver)
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/o-my-god-canada-were-raiding-our-rrsps-housings-down-small-firms-are-dour-but-at-least-theres-risque-fun-invancouver/article38004552/
#113 Bottoms_Up on 02.15.18 at 10:42 pm
TVO ‘s hosted PC leadership candidates
regarding the question of sex education
The responses were dismal! Maybe they should have fact checked before they spoke
https://tvo.org/video/programs/the-agenda-with-steve-paikin/the-ontario-pc-leadership-debate
#77 Jack on 02.15.18 at 8:18 pm
Any predictions for the London, Ontario market? Just moved here from the GTA for a new job. I was tracking the GTA market in detail for the past year and am trying to determine how long I should wait to buy here. There are limited historical stats available but when housing tanked in Toronto in 89 London just flatlined. The price to rent ratio here is about 25 which indicates it’s about 35 percent overvalued. There are ALOT of new developme ts with inventory and lots available. Opinions?
***********
Not an expert opinion, but I helped a TO area relative find a place here 2 years ago when prices were just inflated, and am now trying to prevent my daughter from losing her shirt. Realtor friend said huge increase in TO speculators last year. Anything within puking distance of college or Univ. will be sticky on the way down.
Still a city where you can afford to live near where you work. Important because city planning here is an oxymoron, and London drivers are among the worst. IMHO, something in the core, or in an established hood like Oakridge or Stoneybrook/creek will always hold value. The new crap is just that, but there are nice communities N and E of town. The commute will take far less time than a cross-town crawl. I haven’t seen a lot of price movement, but I think/hope the real sales will start in the Fall and continue next year. Welcome to London.
@#94 SCM Ally
“SCM clearly has a different societal ideology that many of you whiners but you have no right to try and muzzle him/her”
++++++
You do realize SCM stands for “Screwed Canadian Millenial” yes?
The biggest whine on this blog.
A Millenial and a Canadian is hardly “screwed”
As for constantly hammering his inane, one dimensional, anti boomer arguements.
I enjoy it.
Have you been a reader here long?
You believe SCM is “picked upon”.
SCM has been banned and allowed back ( on a very short leash) for constantly insulting all the other Boomers for ridiculous generalizations( apparently the “chosen ones”) for , well, being boomers.
A sad, disturbed 20 something , angry at the real world because they cant have everything they were promised without actually working hard, struggling and patiently waiting……you know, like most boomers had to.
As long as SCM continues to post.
I’ll be here flatulating in the elevator.
Breathe deeeeeeeeeep
@#88 KLNR
“LOL, you’re no better.”
++++++
Ha ha
#119 Victor V on 02.15.18 at 11:18 pm
#76 Cottingham a bargain on 02.15.18 at 8:11 pm
Never mind the chart. You only need to compare Jan Y/Y and Jan/18 vs Spring/17.
Average prices and sales are down significantly while DOM has shot up.
It’s a bloodbath in Richmond Hill. Respectfully.
——-
It’s this kind of hyperbole that takes credibility away from the main message that I think this blog is trying to promote , which is less RE more financial assets and balance.
I am sure that those in RH who have owned more than
two years feel really bloodied lol . Really ??
But yes , anyone who bought at market top last year , anywhere in the GTA probably doesn’t feel to good about it. No hyperbole here .
Let’s see what things look like 3, 5 and 10 years out for these buyers .
I will still maintain that any RE owned along the yonge corridor, delineated by bayview to the east and Bathurst to the west, emphasizing west side, is a no brainer to at least maintain inflation rate appreciation ,as well as a most probable real appreciation ,REGARDLESS of interest rates , lending policies and the like over the longer term.
Place your bets accordingly and good luck to all
#18 The Technical Analyst, CSTA, CPD on 02.15.18 at 5:24 pm
Markets were up again today and pushed passed the 2727 S&P500 resistance level which became support at the higher close.
——————-
#35 Penny Henny on 02.15.18 at 6:25 pm
Please let me know when you see a sell signal again.
I think I have to transfer another 200k tomorrow.
————-
Thanks for asking.
Do you mean a buy signal (to buy into the market) or sell signal (to short the market)?
The markets haven’t opened yet in North America, but international markets are positive right now. For today, I’m watching that 2727 level for a break to the downside and a break at the 200DMA (2714). If these don’t hold at close, then we will see more downside. That would be 2694 from Friday’s low. If it breaks from there, then there is lots of support in the 2650’s zone.
If you traded on Wednesday’s confirmation buy signal you just beat $8.2 Billion into the US Equity market yesterday.
Go walk your dog. More productive. – Garth
Actual Minimum Wage in Ontario effects from what I have seen personally.
The 2 Tim Hortons near where I work since Jan 1…. Slow As Molasses. Staff still polite but they cut back on the staff by 40%-50%. Wait times are higher and the staff are getting slammed.
Grocery Store where I shop. Shelves not filled a lot of the times and checkout times are longer. Less Staff.
My son works at a Big Chain Grocery store and sorry SCM he IS NOT HAPPIER… And according to him neither are the staff.
They cut everyone’s hours and now have 1/2 or 1/3 the staff in areas. So he’s getting $3.XX more an hour and they are making him work for it.
You know.. the Working Poor… Well now they are working SLAVES. Same Job… $3.XX more an hour and work 2X or 3X harder. Good Job Wynne.
All the staff are complaining for 2 reasons..
1. Less Hours.
2. More Work when you do have hours.
My son said he can keep the $3.XX an hour raise if he can get 4 hours more a week and not work like a slave by himself…
#132 Go Kart Mozart on 02.16.18 at 1:50 am
“it’s a slam dunk most people will be facing higher monthlies as a result.”
I wonder what priority legal weed will have in monthly expenses? Above Netflix? Car Loan? Mortgage?
*************
It’s all about prioritizing.Three months of Netflux or eternal bliss:
https://bobhq.com/en/plants-psychedelia/1507-grow-yer-own-stone-by-alexander-sumach-out-of-stock.html
#18 The Technical Analyst, CSTA, CPD on 02.15.18 at 5:24 pm
For those following market timing advice, yesterday did confirm 3 days up and I did purchase into the markets based on my own advice and the advice I gave the banks I advise. Seeing a technical bounce is one thing, acting on it is where you profit.
Markets were up again today and pushed passed the 2727 S&P500 resistance level which became support at the higher close.
Another good buying opportunity for tomorrow if you want to time the market.
Techincal’s may be fun and useless to some who do not understand them, but for others, it is called profit.
Trade positively.
—————————————————————–
Would you share your CAGR, Sharpe and max drawdown over the past 10 years? I’ve heard lots of people talk about how they make money using TA, but have never seen one who can actually back up the talk.
Most of the time they seem to be selling a course or a newsletter. Which, if they have a magic money making machine, they wouldn’t need to do.
#75 Where’s The Money Guido? on 02.15.18 at 8:10 pm
“…Next step, another complaint to go along with my original complaint with the Competition Bureau that wasn’t completed because of the turnover to Optimum from PC Plus. How convenient, eh? Time for a revolution.”
Well, we do know what “loyalty programs” (PC, SD, CT, AirMiles) and “membership fees” (Costco, Amazon Prime) mean for retailers, don’t we? A cheap and easy way of tracking our data.
We are being bribed with our own money. Savings and deals are illusory, but Canada’s peculiar history makes us unable to resist.
How about dropping out of these schemes? That would be revolutionary.
#61 I’m stupid on 02.15.18 at 7:30 pm
I just checked my Loc, unsecured 50k. I’ve never used it, 6.2%, don’t know what my credit score is, I never had debt. If CIBC increases my current by 1.70 I’d be inline with the above case. It might be that the big banks are trying to rain in unsecure debt.
—————————————————————-
The CIBC app has a section where you can see your credit score, if you’re curious.
#113 Bottoms_Up on 02.15.18 at 10:42 pm
The link contains a link to Ontario sex ed program. Can someone please tell me what is so ‘radical’ or ‘disturbing’ about it? Please, identify the improper concept and age that it is being taught at. I’m all ears.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/05/04/fact-checking-10-claims-made-by-parents-against-the-ontario-sex-ed-curriculum.html
____________________________
Maybe those folks shown in the pic, and the authors of the letters “written in Arabic” just don’t want the government teaching their kids about “sex”?
Wynne essentially rammed her personal ideologies into a giant crowd of folks from a demographic that could not be more diametrically opposed to them. Then she called them all homophobes when they got pissed off.
If you don’t like these folks being oppositional, why don’t you send Wynne a letter and ask her to send them all back to where they came from?
#150 The Technical Analyst, CSTA, CPD on 02.16.18 at 8:56 am
Do you mean a buy signal (to buy into the market) or sell signal (to short the market)?
////////////
I am not a sophisticated enough to short. I will however move some money to a safer place at times.
I got the exact same letter. Luckily the balance is zero, and I’m going to tell TD to stuff it.
@#136 MF, Count me as one who does NOT have fond memories of the 1990s. I consider that decade as having robbed me of my 20s. Some of my failure to launch is my own damned fault no doubt. (Choosing to pursue a stupid BA instead of going to trade school was a colossal blunder for which only I am responsible.) But the majority of the decade itself – from 1990 right up until 1998 – was a wasteland as far as opportunities go. I would purge the 90s from my memory if I could. I’m not alone. A lot of GenXers have bad memories of the misery of 1990s Canada.
The Con candidates are worried about sex-ed in the classroom while Grandma’s getting her lessons from the Bank:
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/business/ella-beck-bmo-life-insurance-1.4532351
#109 Samson Nights on 02.15.18 at 10:23 pm
Surely Ontario PC’s can do better than Trump wannabe’s like Doug Ford or Patrick Brown.
—————————————–
All nominally right of centre politicians are the same, Samson? Lazy left-wing thought (?) process.
What is T2 like? Castro? Maduro? that would be a more valid comparison, frankly.
Brown’s platform could have been conceived by a New Democrat and the current crop of leadership contenders likely won’t change much of it, so what exactly are you complaining about?
60 million jobs.
https://www.marketwatch.com/video/how-sewing-robots-may-put-human-hands-out-of-work-moving-upstream/8A0329DB-06F0-4737-A105-8FFC1C06EC92.html
#132 Ray on 02.15.18 at 1:13 am
NEVER GIVE UP
———————————————————
My issue with your argument is there are people who made conservative financial decisions throughout their lives, who lived within their means and who obtained financial comfort. I ask, why should these people have to bail out the financially illiterate? Is an “A” student required to share grade points with the partiers so that everyone gets a C minus? Apparently, the Liberals would answer “Yes”
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, it’s inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery”. Sir Winston Churchill.
So I say, Put your “Big Boy Pants “on, and Suck it up!!
==================================
And conversely I say Who is wearing the BIG BOY PANTS? Is it the person who can take care of himself only?,or perhaps the one who cares for himself and others around him?
You were lucky to have the help you had to get where you are today, If you think it was all your doing and none of it was luck then what if you were born in Lesotho? Would you have the same opportunity you have now?
Again I say getting back to the original argument. Many young lives are ruined in the Lower Mainland through excessive debt or high rents sucking up most of their income. Offshore and Onshore speculators are mostly to blame enabled by Government apathy and encouragement.
Minimum wage effects in Albert and Brasil………
Brasil – The communist governments under Lula and Dilma DOUBLED the minimum wage over the last 10 years. The country now has the worst unemployment ever, a direct combination of this policy and suppressed commodity prices. There are next to no minimum wage jobs in Brasil right now, and companies have been cutting back on staffing levels really bad in the last 5 years.
Alberta – Monday has become the new Sunday in the restaurant business. The wife and I drove around trying to find a place for dinner. We went to our regular locations and found many of them are now closed for business on Mondays !! So we drove down the 17th avenue strip and guess what, about 25% of the bars and restaurants were also closed.
Service in these establishments and other retail locations has utterly gone to shit since January 1st. With fewer front end staff to look after clientele, shelves in stores are going unstocked, customers in restaurants wait longer for service, and lines to check out at businesses are longer and slower than ever.
#77 Jack
I bought a new townhouse in July 2016 in London. I have 3 daughters in College there and I wanted an investment property long term. London’s housing market did not experience huge increases until last year. My unit was selling last year 20% more than I paid. London is building like crazy, hold tight and there will be good opportunity to buy at discount. I am planning to tapper in and buy 2 more units. Just to clarify my position, I fully expect a large real estate correction in Ontario. I expect that the first condo I bought would drop in value 30%. This doesnt matter to me It’s already provided my Family with much needed stability as my Daughter’s were victims of predatory landlords paying high rent for terrible living conditions. London is and will continue to be a good place to buy at a good price point and collect decent rental return in my opinion.
Listings down because people have reduced ability to move. If you sell, chances are you want to buy another house.
Can’t qualify for that McMansion, can’t sell, can’t move.
Refinancing will be down because people have been limited to refinance with the new rules again. Even if you refinance, you may be subject to stiffer rates for the remainder of your mortgage, so not a good idea to begin with.
If you can’t qualify to transfer your mortgage to another lender, then you might get higher rates from your current lender.
Being a landlord and renting out a property at a loss in a depreciating market is just dumb. Try finding a cashflow positive property that beats the market.
Let’s put the average household income in Toronto to 80K in 2017, using 2010 numbers and increasing with inflation. This would give the average mortgage approval at 5X income of 400k or 500K purchase price with 100K down payment.
The market requires a 20%-30% slide to get things more in balance IMO.
However, prices are sticky, so Canadians might just bunker down and pay their minimums on their lines of credit to keep the party going. Not building wealth or saving for retirement, but just existing.
#140 Bottoms_Up on 02.16.18 at 7:42 am
If the deaths of 20 white children aged 6-7 can’t change USA mentality on guns nothing will.
_________________________
Yeah, let’s make all guns illegal, then they will just as difficult to obtain as alcohol was during prohibition.
You’re full of great ideas that have all been tried before and don’t work.
#146 crowdedelevatorfartz on 02.16.18 at 8:34 am
A sad, disturbed 20 something , angry at the real world because they cant have everything they were promised without actually working hard, struggling and patiently waiting……you know, like most boomers had to.
—————————————-
Ha!
Thanks for the day’s knee-slapper, CEF.
That summer they all worked at the gas station to pay cash for their $5000 house in 1973 sure was brutal.
I’d like to order the fish and gyps…
M43BC
“Visualizing Why Banks Hate Cryptocurrencies
Banks have largely been against cryptos, often citing the volatility and the ability to be used for money laundering. This is a bit of an ironic criticism coming from banks that are seemingly paying massive sums of money on a regular basis to settle allegations of money laundering or other financial crimes. The real answer to why the banks’ dislike cryptocurrencies is most likely that they feel threatened. The rise of cryptocurrencies has exceeded all expectations and, while the concept is still very young, it does have potential to shake up the aging fiat system. In order to understand the race between the banks and cryptocurrencies, we developed a visual to see just how “David” is comparing to “Goliath.”
Using data from Yahoo Finance and CoinMarketCap.com, our data team developed a visual that compares the market caps between some of the world’s largest banks and cryptocurrencies. On the left blue column, we have four banks listed from largest-to-smallest market caps: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of China, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Conversely, the right red column features the total cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, NEO, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Cardano, and Stellar. Using circles, we made the shape size correspond to market cap size. This means larger circles have bigger market caps than small circles.
Total Crypto Market Exceeds Size Of JPMorgan, Banks Fight Back In Attempt To Slow Growth
After an extremely volatile start to 2018, cryptocurrencies are once again on the rally track. As of February 16, 2018, the total crypto market had a market cap of $470 billion (as of February 16th, 2018), which exceeds the size of the United States’ largest bank, JPMorgan Chase.
Bitcoin’s market cap alone is comparable to Bank of China’s. The second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum, is comparable in size to Morgan Stanley. It is stats like these that have the global banking sector worried that cryptocurrencies are on track to make a serious impact on their operations.
One of the most recent efforts to help slow the pace of crypto growth were announcements from several banks saying that customers could no longer purchase digital currency with their credit cards. Charlie Munger, the 94-year-old Berkshire Hathaway Vice President has called Bitcoin “totally asinine” and says “it’s disgusting” that people buy cryptocurrency.
Overall, cryptocurrencies are seeing their size and value top even some of the largest financial institutions in the world. This has caused banks to fight back and attempt to slow their growth. However, even banks clearly don’t know what they really want. After JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon famously called Bitcoin a “fraud” in late 2017, it is interesting to now see a report published by the investment bank that calls Bitcoin-based ETFs the “holy grail for owners and investors.” Clearly, we have a bit of a Jekyll & Hyde situation going with the banks, which can’t decide if cryptocurrencies are friend or foe.
So what do you think: Are Banks Afraid of Cryptocurrencies?”
https://howmuch.net/articles/banks-vs-cryptocurrencies
I would like to comment on my real life observations after renting 11 homes in 7 States over the past Decade. During and following the United States great Housing Correction, Rents went UP not down. People that were owners became renters. Home prices went down and Investment Leasing Companies with Real Money entered the Market and became landlords.
#164 Keith in Rio on 02.16.18 at 10:38 am
Minimum wage effects in Albert and Brasil………
Brasil – The communist governments under Lula and Dilma DOUBLED the minimum wage over the last 10 years. The country now has the worst unemployment ever, a direct combination of this policy and suppressed commodity prices. There are next to no minimum wage jobs in Brasil right now, and companies have been cutting back on staffing levels really bad in the last 5 years.
_____________________________________
Supremely predictable. Why can’t Socialists and Communists crack a history book open and check up on their ideas to see if they’ve ever worked before?
With time, Ontario will also see massive min wage job losses as the now freshly accelerated automation implementation starts chopping humans off the roster – this time for good.
These folks will join the full time well paid ex- private sector workers who found their employment zapped by the Liberals.
I have to expect anyone left with decent prospects in the private sector 10 years from now will be looking at getting the hell out of this Province asap. Immigration will likely also suffer as “getting started” service jobs will be near extinct by then.
Everything points to a beat-down of revenues, and a landslide of new taxes and fees.
Govern yourselves accordingly.
#160 Analyst on 02.16.18 at 10:00 am
Everything went to Hell once the banks were allowed to sell life insurance. Near the same time the Fed Cons brought in “existing client” and “Do not Call” legislation.
This legislation was helped with a 200 million dollar “make things happen” payment from the banks.
Banks now have captive clients and they will sell you crapola life insurance.
Nothing short of “intended consequences,” or the Fed Cons really were stupid. Take your pick.
Having worked for said bank, I can tell you that regardless of this guys credit score, this is an unsecured LOC and he has been carrying a high balance on it for a long period of time. This letter is not market driven, or credit driven. It is risky customer driven. Happens all the time based on algorithms, nothing more than that. Pay it to zero for a year or so and they’ll drop the rate way down to try and get you to use it again.
#120 LS in Arbutus on 02.15.18 at 11:18 pm
Flop, here’s a loser for you! You can tell because they are selling a lot (old time with a development plan.)
2556 W16th
Listed for $2.980
Assessed at $2.878
Paid $3.1 April 2016
Prior to that Sold $2.1 Aug 2015
http://www.realtylink.org/prop_search/Detail.cfm?areatitle=&ARPK=&ComID=&agentid=&MLS=R2237267&rowc=4&rowp=1&BCD=GV&imdp=9&RSPP=5&AIDL=27&SRTB=P_Price&ERTA=False&MNAGE=0&MXAGE=200&MNBT=0&MNBD=0&PTYTID=5&MNPRC=700000&MXPRC=200000000&SCTP=RS
https://www.bcassessment.ca/Property/Info/QTAwMDAwMExaVg==
//////////////////////
Hey LS, thanks for the help.
I just wrote a post about a house in a similar scenario in Arbutus yesterday.
These guys have a bit more meat on the bone ,but to go through all the planning and permitting and then to walk away when most Vancouverites think the sun is still shining is telling.
Have a good day…
M43BC
https://www.zolo.ca/vancouver-real-estate/2867-w-19th-avenue
Yeah, I got the same TD letter…bummer! Will take out some TFSA to payback my LOC at that date.
The correction of 2008 continues to hammer those that could not afford to hold on to their Wealth or Debt. Many lost everything, their investments, savings and houses. Job losses forced many to relocate, rent in cities where job migration climbed. Moving company’s, leasing agencies, landlords, and employers have been predatory to this group for the past Decade. Also, with much Government manipulation and money printing and loan forgiveness and Bankruptcy, house values are back up to peak in many desirable major markets. A large segment of the middle class are now in an endless loop of not being able to build Wealth. We know this pattern of Boom Bust all to well and are working it to our advantage. I think Canada will have its unique differences, but many of the results will be the same. It’s not too much different this time around. I’m sorry to report that renting is not a Delight, but I will not be a Victim. There are many practical ways to deal with all of these problems. I’ve dealt with the snubbing of the neighbors, the predatory reluctant landlord, the greedy leasing agency and the moving companies are just plain criminals. I use all of this knowledge for my own welfare as well as to advise my children. I highly recommend that you Blog Dogs do the same.
#168 Howard on 02.16.18 at 11:21 am
#146 crowdedelevatorfartz on 02.16.18 at 8:34 am
A sad, disturbed 20 something , angry at the real world because they cant have everything they were promised without actually working hard, struggling and patiently waiting……you know, like most boomers had to.
—————————————-
Ha!
Thanks for the day’s knee-slapper, CEF.
That summer they all worked at the gas station to pay cash for their $5000 house in 1973 sure was brutal.
___________________________
https://dialdominic.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/cost-of-living-1973s-oil-crisis-vs-2008-it-aint-that-bad/
In 1973 a house cost $32,500 average
Average family income was $12,900
An average house in 1973 cost approximately 2.5 times the yearly family income.
The IHCTD9 compound cost me 123K in 2001. That represented about 1.37X our income at the time (late 20’s)
If I bought it right today, it would be 2.36X current income.
Millennials got it easy today if they want to make it easy. Everything other than metro RE, energy, and government is way cheaper than the boomers had. 2/3 of those expenses are easily handled. The third can be mitigated down to reasonable levels.
If millennials decide to go broke living in a metropolis, that’s their own fault IMHO.
#140 Bottoms_Up on 02.16.18 at 7:42 am
#130 hey Smokie on 02.16.18 at 1:09 am
———————–
18 school shootings in 45 days this year in the USA. Works out to about 1 every two to three days.
If the deaths of 20 white children aged 6-7 can’t change USA mentality on guns nothing will.
……………………………………………………………….
I can hear Smokie now chanting USA,USA,USA as the bullets wiz by his head while he is downing his bottle of JD. If anyone believes that the USA is the best place in the world to live then I say go. The easy access to guns in most states is appalling and quite scary. Can you just imagine a drunken conspiracy theorist Democratic / Liberal hating Smoking Man as a gun owner? Dam I’m glad he is in Cali. 4050 KM of distance never felt so good.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/patrick-brown-pc-caucus-1.4538874
Not liking how the PC’s are handling this one bit.
Interesting how this is changing my views on the party. I don’t normally vote Lib or NDP, but I was already planning to vote Wynne for full on epic maximum economic and financial destruction in the shortest period of time well before the PB sex allegations. That has not changed (yet).
Now I think if I was originally planning on voting PC, I might be changing my mind. I want a party with some southern brass, but it looks like the PC’s are currently all a spineless collection of idiots.
Ontario politics are just a joke. A JOKE.
“If the deaths of 20 white children aged 6-7 can’t change USA mentality on guns nothing will.”
—————————————
“There’s a sucker born every minute”
David Hannum.
Speak for yourself, bud. I have incredible memories of the 90s. It wasn’t perfect, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything, especially when I see the sad, dead-eyed millennials who are so risk-averse they now clamour for “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” to spare their fragile, entitled egos.
The Ontario Conservatives should learn from Gordon Campbell in BC. He finally got rid of the NDP by this plan..
Release no platform, give no interviews, don’t go to the debate.
He won with 72 out of 75 seats.
Keith in Rio at 164 sez:
“Alberta –
Service in these establishments and other retail locations has utterly gone to shit since January 1st. With fewer front end staff to look after clientele, shelves in stores are going unstocked, customers in restaurants wait longer for service, and lines to check out at businesses are longer and slower than ever.”
These businesses are being short sighted. If they think customers will continue to put up with shoddy service like this they won’t be in business for long. Customers could care less about a businesses “costs”, or profit margin. They want service and value for their money or they’ll get it elsewhere.
Time to buy good blue chip Canadian dividend growth stocks is fleeting.
We’re heading up again.
Local speculators are the ones who are going to be creamed. One out of five locals in Victoria own secondary homes. Do you really think that it is a different percentage in Vancouver or the lower mainland. It is undoubtedly higher and the biggest driver of these ridiculous prices.
https://househuntvictoria.ca/2018/02/15/domestic-speculators-good-or-bad/
Everyone, especially in Vancouver, tries desperately to sell the “Chinese” investor meme and, of course, they are an undeniable influence in the real estate market but local specuvestors are by far the worst.
Take a look at the U.S.A where there is a lot of foreign investment, as well. I’m currently in Arizona and Canadians have been the largest foreign buyers of real estate for years here but prices are a dream compared to B.C. even after an uptick in prices.
This isn’t a comparison of lifestyles (Vancouver vs Scottsdale) so much as a sobering wake up call to locals. You can scream foreign investor all you want but it isn’t driving the USA market parabolic. Their market went nuts when their locals became specuvestors prior to the huge crash.
https://qz.com/1064061/house-flippers-triggered-the-us-housing-market-crash-not-poor-subprime-borrowers-a-new-study-shows/
I wonder how many US blogs blamed Canadians for their housing crash. lol.
http://phoenixpropertymanagementcompany.com/foreign-buyers-increasingly-attracted-arizona-real-estate/
“Out of the 68 foreign countries that purchased homes in the USA, there are five the make the majority of purchased real estate. They are Canada, China, Mexico, India, and the United Kingdom. These countries make over half of all purchased real estate, with Canada and China leading the way.
Not all people from different countries like to make purchases in Arizona. Chinese buyers do not rank very high in the purchase of Arizona homes. Chinese buyers make the bulk of their purchases in California. They also like to make purchases in Washington State, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and New Jersey.
In the state of Arizona, Canadians make up 46 percent of the foreign home buying market. They are likely to purchase a home for a vacation use or as a rental property. ”
https://www.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/2017-Profile-of-International-Activity-in-US-Residential-Real-Estate.pdf
“The average price of properties purchased by foreign buyers was $536,852, more than the
average price of $277,733 of all U.S. existing home sales.3 The median price of properties
purchased by foreign buyers was $302,290, also more than the median price of $235,792 of all
U.S. existing home sales.4
China remained as the top origin of foreign buyers ($31.7B), followed by Canada ($19.0B), the
United Kingdom ($9.5B), Mexico ($9.3B), and India ($7.8B). The bulk of buyers from China,
India, and Mexico were resident buyers, while most buyers from Canada and the United
Kingdom were non-resident buyers.”
#43 Lost…but not leased on 02.15.18 at 6:35 pm
Credit Unions are insured by a provincial organization so the amounts insured vary from province to province. Ontario credit unions are insured by DICO and I am pretty sure they have the same deposit guarantees as banks. AB credit unions are insured by CUDGC I believe and are 100% insured regardless of the amounts on deposit. Not sure about the other provinces.
#167 IHCTD9 on 02.16.18 at 11:08 am
#140 Bottoms_Up on 02.16.18 at 7:42 am
If the deaths of 20 white children aged 6-7 can’t change USA mentality on guns nothing will.
_________________________
Yeah, let’s make all guns illegal, then they will just as difficult to obtain as alcohol was during prohibition.
You’re full of great ideas that have all been tried before and don’t work
*************
Prohibition in the USA was ineffectual because booze was easy to distill or smuggle in from Canada and the Caribbean, where automatic weapons are still relatively scarce. You can’t build an Uzi with a 3D-printer so why not give it shot?
http://werehistory.org/why-prohibition-failed/
The sky about to fall on those stupid millenials
Not a moment too soon…
#186 Guy in Calgary on 02.16.18 at 1:03 pm
#43 Lost…but not leased on 02.15.18 at 6:35 pm
Credit Unions are insured by a provincial organization so the amounts insured vary from province to province. Ontario credit unions are insured by DICO and I am pretty sure they have the same deposit guarantees as banks. AB credit unions are insured by CUDGC I believe and are 100% insured regardless of the amounts on deposit. Not sure about the other provinces.
—
hope that never comes to that claim on deposits, at that point its game over, regardless who is insures I doubet that will be $ for $, it will be more likely cents on a dollar.
guru: the B20 changes won’t start fully impacting the market until March…. As noted before, the outer suburbs have cracked (East Gwillimbury, Whitby, Milton etc) and the lights will literally go out rather quickly thereafter.
which sounds like Debtslavecreator: Since late December, mortgage applications are being turned down
Mortgage applications approved in November-December will close by the end of March. Once they do, the data will fall off a cliff unlike anything we’ve ever seen. There’s a massive credit contraction in its first inning in Canada”
#183 Bytor the Snow Dog
These businesses are being short sighted. If they think customers will continue to put up with shoddy service like this they won’t be in business for long.
——————————-
You’re forgetting… we’re Canadians. We’ll put up with a quite lot of abuse before taking action. Then we go to the competition for more of the same.
Americans know that when all products are basically the same, the only differentiation is service.
Canadians use the same rationale to justify poor service.
#155 Tater
Thanks I’m going to check.
Credit score 848
#187 History Bulletin on 02.16.18 at 1:11 pm
Prohibition in the USA was ineffectual because booze was easy to distill or smuggle in from Canada and the Caribbean, where automatic weapons are still relatively scarce. You can’t build an Uzi with a 3D-printer so why not give it shot?
http://werehistory.org/why-prohibition-failed/
________________________________________
To actually make the difference the anti-gun crowd claims when it comes to mass shootings will require all full and semi-automatic weapons to be banned, along with all existing firearms of this type collected. Anything less is a waster of time.
I just don’t see this happening ever. Many semi-auto guns in Canada are easily converted to full auto because that is what they originally were. Both the US and Canada are LOADED with guns of all kinds and no one has an accurate idea of how many, and of what kind.
Then if the guns were gone, then you’d have to deal with pipe bombs and IED’s. Loons will find a way.
This is not a gun problem, it’s something in society.
#157 Penny Henney: A short sale cannot be done unless you establish a margin account which involves signing a document for your trading company to have the possession thereof. Forget it, as it takes time to sign your life away. Place your loot in the hands of a fee based investment advisor before you loose it all.
#178 Johnnyboy on 02.16.18 at 12:32 pm
I can hear Smokie now chanting USA,USA,USA as the bullets wiz by his head while he is downing his bottle of JD. If anyone believes that the USA is the best place in the world to live then I say go. The easy access to guns in most states is appalling and quite scary. Can you just imagine a drunken conspiracy theorist Democratic / Liberal hating Smoking Man as a gun owner? Dam I’m glad he is in Cali. 4050 KM of distance never felt so good.
__________________________________
If a guy is after a semi-auto long gun, my understanding is that getting your FAC in Canada is no big deal.
Obviously full autos are totally out, and all handguns are restricted but if you’d like to kill a bunch of school kids, a Canadian would have no issues getting all the ordinance to do so no problem at all. Totally legal.
As I said, it’s a societal problem, not a gun problem.
#178 Johnnyboy on 02.16.18 at 12:32 pm
#140 Bottoms_Up on 02.16.18 at 7:42 am
#130 hey Smokie on 02.16.18 at 1:09 am
———————–
18 school shootings in 45 days this year in the USA. Works out to about 1 every two to three days.
If the deaths of 20 white children aged 6-7 can’t change USA mentality on guns nothing will.
……………………………………………………………….
I can hear Smokie now chanting USA,USA,USA as the bullets wiz by his head while he is downing his bottle of JD. If anyone believes that the USA is the best place in the world to live then I say go. The easy access to guns in most states is appalling and quite scary. Can you just imagine a drunken conspiracy theorist Democratic / Liberal hating Smoking Man as a gun owner? Dam I’m glad he is in Cali. 4050 KM of distance never felt so good.
—-
funny this post of yours is, shows how self called all inclusive, accept, forgive, rehabilitate we will help everyone liberals, instead of helping and rehabilitating him you are casting him away.
It show how really double faced you are, how easy is for you hate someone who don’t fit your mold…
#194 IHCTD9 on 02.16.18 at 1:58 pm
#187 History Bulletin on 02.16.18 at 1:11 pm
Prohibition in the USA was ineffectual because booze was easy to distill or smuggle in from Canada and the Caribbean, where automatic weapons are still relatively scarce. You can’t build an Uzi with a 3D-printer so why not give it shot?
http://werehistory.org/why-prohibition-failed/
________________________________________
To actually make the difference the anti-gun crowd claims when it comes to mass shootings will require all full and semi-automatic weapons to be banned, along with all existing firearms of this type collected. Anything less is a waster of time.
I just don’t see this happening ever. Many semi-auto guns in Canada are easily converted to full auto because that is what they originally were. Both the US and Canada are LOADED with guns of all kinds and no one has an accurate idea of how many, and of what kind.
This is not a gun problem, it’s something in society.
************
I’m OK with banning both semi and fully automatic weapons.
We used to have an excellent idea of how many guns were in Canada until the Cons got rid of the gun registry.
The root of problem is too many guns, the societal problem is too many paranoid politicians who are more than willing to sacrifice innocent lives to keep their positions of power. And they call it Democracy.
“This is not a gun problem” – IHCTD9
Yet, removing /buying back/getting rid of/ the “problem guns” is the easiest solution.
Is the NRA going to pay for cradle to grave mental health services for every American citizen?
“crickets”
Push comes to shove, 2nd Amendment means flint lock and match lock arms.
#121 PastThePeak on 02.15.18 at 11:24 pm
Anecdotal on the min wage front (sample size of one store).
My son (student) has worked at Tim Hortons for a year. At his location, they never had any of the “perks” that was mentioned in the media – so nothing to take away. Mgmt told them that no one would be let go, but apparently those who were making $2-3 above min wage before are not getting bumped up (at least right away).
Since January, my son (and every student he talks to) has had less hours. So he makes $2 more per hour, but with less hours, is making less per week than in 2017. There are some students that barely get a shift a week now. Lots of stories about not having enough staff on at peak times, and in the evenings it is often just two.
I have noticed many of the local eateries have raised their prices, and in a few cases have put up notices on their websites that the price increase is due to the min wage hike.
Most on this blog would just call that a coincidence…
——-
Last week I noticed that there was a sign at the local Tim’s indicating that their hours were changing. Going from open 24 hrs/day to closing between 11pm and 5am after mid-February 2018.
I say this is just a way for these businesses to make needed changes they already had in mind of doing and using minimum wage hike as a reason for doing it to try to avoid the resulting backlash from patrons if they did it without the distraction of the minimum wage change.
A lot of these speckers are realtors themselves hoarding bunch of properties for flip. I saw similar here in GTA. Until caught in musical chair game. Lies and misconduct until they find a greater fool to unload.
Exclusive Listing is give away for every fool realtor who bought high and can’t find a fool. So to shave off on price is to save on commission. Otherwise there is absolutely no benefit to the “owner” to agree to exclusivity. Look around.
#170
What you forgot to mention is that we, the renters waiting patiently on the sidelines, will be buying and some of us turning into landlords, therefore leaving plenty of rentals for the unfortunate people about to lose their houses and turn into renters. I’m sure it will all even out.
#195 Selling Short on 02.16.18 at 2:05 pm
#157 Penny Henney: A short sale cannot be done unless you establish a margin account which involves signing a document for your trading company to have the possession thereof. Forget it, as it takes time to sign your life away. Place your loot in the hands of a fee based investment advisor before you loose it all.
/////////////////////
Hmmmm. Just wondering which part of my original message you have trouble comprehending?
The part where I said that I am not a sophisticated enough of an investor to short?
Or maybe you just didn’t read my comment.
And don’t worry I promise I will not loose a cent.
Buying funds that track the major indices don’t, involve timing. Opportunities present themselves periodically. Long term investors get this. Traders never will.
The recent pullback was a non event not worthy of a nibble. Boring.
Covering and adjusting position weighting in equity and fixed are more productive.
#197 NoName on 02.16.18 at 2:11 pm
#178 Johnnyboy on 02.16.18 at 12:32 pm
#140 Bottoms_Up on 02.16.18 at 7:42 am
#130 hey Smokie on 02.16.18 at 1:09 am
———————–
18 school shootings in 45 days this year in the USA. Works out to about 1 every two to three days.
If the deaths of 20 white children aged 6-7 can’t change USA mentality on guns nothing will.
……………………………………………………………….
I can hear Smokie now chanting USA,USA,USA as the bullets wiz by his head while he is downing his bottle of JD. If anyone believes that the USA is the best place in the world to live then I say go. The easy access to guns in most states is appalling and quite scary. Can you just imagine a drunken conspiracy theorist Democratic / Liberal hating Smoking Man as a gun owner? Dam I’m glad he is in Cali. 4050 KM of distance never felt so good.
————————
funny this post of yours is, shows how self called all inclusive, accept, forgive, rehabilitate we will help everyone liberals, instead of helping and rehabilitating him you are casting him away.
It show how really double faced you are, how easy is for you hate someone who don’t fit your mold…
_________________________________
Hey no name Ive got a name for you if you need one.
Hell no, I’m not double faced at all I call them the way I see them. If you read Smokies posts over the last few years and ever saw him on his famous Periscope rants you would change your tune Mr Uniformed. So go back and read them. Secondly I don’t have any mold, and I’m not a liberal, far from it, capice! You sir are just like
Smoking Man as soon as someone has a different opinion you automatically label them a Liberal, Libtard or some other term. a volte le persone stupide mi stupiscono!
#196 IHCTD9 on 02.16.18 at 2:06 pm
#178 Johnnyboy on 02.16.18 at 12:32 pm
I can hear Smokie now chanting USA,USA,USA as the bullets wiz by his head while he is downing his bottle of JD. If anyone believes that the USA is the best place in the world to live then I say go. The easy access to guns in most states is appalling and quite scary. Can you just imagine a drunken conspiracy theorist Democratic / Liberal hating Smoking Man as a gun owner? Dam I’m glad he is in Cali. 4050 KM of distance never felt so good.
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If a guy is after a semi-auto long gun, my understanding is that getting your FAC in Canada is no big deal.
Obviously full autos are totally out, and all handguns are restricted but if you’d like to kill a bunch of school kids, a Canadian would have no issues getting all the ordinance to do so no problem at all. Totally legal.
As I said, it’s a societal problem, not a gun problem.
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Yes it is a societal problem however in some states such as Florida you can waltz into a gun store and walk out with a gun with no ID. In addition it is easier to buy a gun at 18 that it is to buy beer.
I’m not again guns, just don’t let the unhinged get them so easily.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/16/americans-age-to-buy-ar15-assault-rifle-mass-shootings
friend works in the distressed mortgages business in YVR. They are all loaned out of course, but he said their internal research suggested prices down 10% in W Van and across lower mainland except Squamish. Forward look is 10% down in next 6 months and – he anticipates – another 10% down after that. Sound like a crash? Well, worth remembering RE went up 34% across GVRD in 2016 alone. So as long as you didn’t buy in the last 2 years… you’re golden.
#92
“we have privately owned central banks, fiat currency, debt monetisation
and people, proud of their financial ‘literacy’ come here to cheer higher interest rates conclusion – there is no hope”
“The Bank of Canada is public. – Garth”
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The Bank of Canada is a crown corporation whose shares are held by the Minister of Finance on behalf of the Queen. Try and tell the Monarch that her “crown assets” are public.
crown != public
#134 Raging Ranter on 02.16.18 at 2:30 am
MF, you are obviously too young to remember the 1993-96 period – four years when the US boomed while Canada was down on the mat. Interest rates were forced up dramatically in 1994 and 1995 due to strong US growth, despite an unemployment rate of 10% in Canada, and despite the fact that inflation was nonexistent (0.78% in 1994).
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I sure remember those days, because that was when I graduated from university. Had a good co-op job with the NS government that had every indication of turning into an offer for a permanent position, until the hiring freezes caused by the downloading onto the provinces by the fed gov hosed that. Then I had a term job with the fed gov, which again showed every chance of turning into a permanent job, until they brought in a hiring freeze.
Fortunately my degree was in computer science and the internet was just taking off, so in a few more years my prospects improved significantly. I was also fortunate (but not by accident) to have gotten an education in something that was in demand, and to have gotten my degree without accumulating a ton of debt – this was before provincial government, again probably in response in federal downloading, gutting university funding.
#196 IHCTD9 on 02.16.18 at 2:06 pm
#178 Johnnyboy on 02.16.18 at 12:32 pm
I can hear Smokie now chanting USA,USA,USA as the bullets wiz by his head while he is downing his bottle of JD. If anyone believes that the USA is the best place in the world to live then I say go. The easy access to guns in most states is appalling and quite scary. Can you just imagine a drunken conspiracy theorist Democratic / Liberal hating Smoking Man as a gun owner? Dam I’m glad he is in Cali. 4050 KM of distance never felt so good.
__________________________________
If a guy is after a semi-auto long gun, my understanding is that getting your FAC in Canada is no big deal.
Obviously full autos are totally out, and all handguns are restricted but if you’d like to kill a bunch of school kids, a Canadian would have no issues getting all the ordinance to do so no problem at all. Totally legal.
As I said, it’s a societal problem, not a gun problem.
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Big difference between a Canada legal AR-15 and what you can buy in the US is that the Candian gun is limited to a 5 round magazine. In the US, 30 is standard, but you can buy 50 and 100 as well. Makes mass shootings far harder when you need to reload every 5 shots.
2 Questions, 2 answers:
#153 Tater on 02.16.18 at 9:22 am
Would you share your CAGR, Sharpe and max drawdown over the past 10 years? I’ve heard lots of people talk about how they make money using TA, but have never seen one who can actually back up the talk.
Most of the time they seem to be selling a course or a newsletter. Which, if they have a magic money making machine, they wouldn’t need to do.
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Trying to headhunt me for a job? 10 years of data? Wow. The basics are I don’t sell anything, I don’t charge anything. No newsletter or website. I advise two of the biggest banks in Canada on TA. I share my TA here I do for the banks as I believe in paying it forward. I also mentor Univ students on economics and finance on my off-time. I am a big believer in financial literacy as well and will share my knowledge with anyone that cares to learn.
Shame there is no way on Garth’s blog to search past posts under my name, but if you do, you’ll find that I timed the market downs and ups of 2015, 2016 and 2017 here on this blog and traded each one. BREXIT, USD to 1.44, Trump bounce, all of them. Am I 100%, I don’t know, I just do it really well.
#157 Penny Henny on 02.16.18 at 9:49 am
I am not a sophisticated enough to short. I will however move some money to a safer place at times.
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I don’t short either, it is beyond my risk tolerance and trading mantra. I’m a long term investor as well. Have you done a risk tolerance test BTW? Very insightful.
#208 Bolshevik Artizan
That is for houses only, an increasingly small and irrelevant luxury product. Condos and townhouses are still on fire in YVR.
#206 Johnnyboy on 02.16.18 at 3:21 pm
Mr Uninformed… that was funny.
I don’t watch an any of the celebrities shows, on tee wee or on periscope, i got no time to do that, lots of my own $#!7 to deal with.
Call me stupid and uninformed that fine, but no amount of laws and regulations could prevent this but what is scary that students and teachers school knew/suspected this could happen but no one did anything in a fear of what, lateral move of information on social media, of being called snitch…
My gut feeling tell me that this shooting was preventable but people failed.
Big difference between a Canada legal AR-15 and what you can buy in the US is that the Candian gun is limited to a 5 round magazine. In the US, 30 is standard, but you can buy 50 and 100 as well. Makes mass shootings far harder when you need to reload every 5 shots
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Yes, I had heard that we have limits on rounds in a mag compared to the US. Realistically speaking though, it takes like 5 seconds to change a magazine. A garden variety hunting rifle could do massive damage, it’ll just take an extra 20 seconds or so.
I guess the point is, Canada is loaded up with fire arms nearly as much as the US is, but we so far, do not have a huge mass killing problem. Thus guns aren’t the issue, something else is going on.
getting rough out there in Lotus land
Realtor shot in Vancouver’s sixth homicide of 2018 https://buff.ly/2F7J4li
He is laughing at us.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/morneau-talks-tax-cuts-small-181913080.html
Still minister. Only in Canada.
BTW cooperation between BOC and government mean one thing only.
QE and zirp.
#189 NoName on 02.16.18 at 1:21 pm
#186 Guy in Calgary on 02.16.18 at 1:03 pm
#43 Lost…but not leased on 02.15.18 at 6:35 pm
Credit Unions are insured by a provincial organization so the amounts insured vary from province to province. Ontario credit unions are insured by DICO and I am pretty sure they have the same deposit guarantees as banks. AB credit unions are insured by CUDGC I believe and are 100% insured regardless of the amounts on deposit. Not sure about the other provinces.
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hope that never comes to that claim on deposits, at that point its game over, regardless who is insures I doubet that will be $ for $, it will be more likely cents on a dollar.
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Something tells me you are just completely speculating without doing any research with regards to the reserves.
Per my earlier comments, just saw this piece of news:
“Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO)(BMO) today announced that it has received approvals from the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada (OSFI) to amend its existing normal course issuer bid (NCIB) to increase the number of common shares that it may repurchase for cancellation from 15 million to 22 million common shares or approximately 3.4% of the Bank’s outstanding common shares as at April 17, 2017 .”
The capital isn’t needed for non-existent mortgage or personal loan growth, and hence, will be returned to shareholders through share buybacks at an accelerating pace.
If banks are shedding capital, they certainly won’t need to borrow a lot more with GICs, so look for spreads to be suppressed there as well.
#43 Lost…but not leased on 02.15.18 at 6:35 pm
Garth:
Who or what insures Credit Unions should they fail..
….are there limits on deposit insurance?
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http://www.cudicbc.ca/
BC has the CUDIC, which insures up to $1 million per certain accounts.
This is another reason why Coast Capital in BC wants to go federal because then they only have to cover $100,000, while they sell out their members when they do go federal. Check last couple rants…..
“business peoplekind”… that’s a good one.