Or is it just me?

you guys are disagreeing about nothing, basically what dave is saying is that at some point the fed would re-inflate the economy.

It is not about nothing. Did you not read Dave's earlier comments:

“I think the Fed will start the printing presses and inflate the debt away. Hard assets do well in times of high inflation because they hold their relative value.”

If the inflation is a result of fighting deflation, RE will have been destroyed during the deflationary phase. A paraphrase of Dave's argument:

I have good news. You have heart disease. This is good news, because you will get a quadruple bypass, and this will improve your fitness level. Only Dave would spin bad news to be good news.

you guys are disagreeing about nothing, basically what dave is saying is that at some point the fed would re-inflate the economy. first deflation (now), and then inflation. i suppose it is a government vs. market argument; no doubt it would take extreme measures to re-inflate. i wouldn't be too confident in either force; i tend to think the government will go to extremes to fight deflation. the bond market could be toast anyway.

Dave, don't humour me. From the same speech: "A particularly important protective factor in the current environment is the strength of our financial system: Despite the adverse shocks of the past year, our banking system remains healthy and well-regulated, and firm and household balance sheets are for the most part in good shape" This didn't all happen on his watch, but the man was OBLIVIOUS until the sh*t hit the fan. Anyhow, you are up to your usual tricks conveniently misapplying concepts and using selective logic. This started with you saying: "I think the Fed will start the printing presses and inflate the debt away. Hard assets do well in times of high inflation because they hold their relative value." In other words, you try to spin the financial crises into a positive for RE. Basically you reason that: 1.… Read more »

"Houses are the only things people buy for which financing costs ever exceed the rental value."

"You are obviously not married."

i don't know what's more disturbing. the idea that you bought your wife or that you rented her.

“Great idea, I suggest you take it further though and also propose that they only provide car loans based on how much you can rent you car out to other people far.”

But chowderhead, cars are highly cash flow positive for rentals, because car rental firms, unlike specuvestors, understand that investing is about yield.

Houses are the only things people buy for which financing costs ever exceed the rental value.

I don't agree with Patriotz as he presented it. If some fool wants to lend on shaky criteria, that is his predicament (well, except for this recent madness of course).

But as I have stated before, I really would like CHMC use a formula that increases required downpayments and/or insurance premiums when rent/price ratios cross a certain threshold. That would have done the trick.

Freako, there is a saying about fighting the Fed. Don’t do it. I’ll side with Bernanke on this discussion considering that he has access to a printing press and you don’t.

Give me a break, Dave. That is hyperbolic pile of crap. Those printing presses do not control long rates. There is no way the Fed jack up the money supply and keep 10 year rates stable.

Common sense. Who in their right mind would hold a 10 year bond yielding a fraction of inflation. Nobody.

And who the heck would lend long term in such a scenario? Nobody. You want to REALLY kill the debt markets? Drive bonds up to artificially low yields.

Does anyone here have estimates on the number of businesses affected by shrinking credit markets? More evidence that Wall Street's problems aren't yet affecting the real economy… http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&a… Industrial Companies Can Thank Banks for Lower Rates (Update4) By Pierre Paulden Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) — The same credit crunch gripping banks, brokers and insurers is providing industrial companies with the lowest short-term borrowing costs in almost four years. Yields on commercial paper due in 30 days sold by manufacturers and retailers fell to an average 2.14 percent last week, while those for financial borrowers rose to 3.15 percent…. Money-market funds that gorged on the debt of financial companies are now pouring cash into Treasury bills and corporations which avoided the troubled mortgage bonds that contributed to the failures of New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Washington Mutual Inc. of Seattle.… Read more »

patriotz, it will be interesting to see lender behaviour after prices drop about 18% from peak. At that point even some non-CMHC loans are now in the red. If it looks like another 20%+ down is a real possibility, as I think it is, you can bet they'll be re-thinking the moral hazard thing, even with a "conservative" 20% down.

"Great idea, I suggest you take it further though and also propose that they only provide car loans based on how much you can rent you car out to other people far."

It's not such a crazy concept for an asset that has obvious and predictable cash flows, with a slow depreciation schedule. Think of it as a loan officer not wanting to lend you the $ unless he sees a plausible business plan first, like they do for — gasp — any other business loan. If he decides that speculation is a business plan, he can live and die accordingly.

As patriotz has mentioned many times, the business plan link is broken because of CMHC guaranteed loans and now we have lenders practicing moral hazard.

Robert Shiller's newest comment on Canada's housing market:

http://tinyurl.com/3ufcef

So Cielo has filled up after 11 months, that's good.

It's always good to ask Urban Fare employees and concierges for information (followed by security guards and mentally imbalanced warehouse workers). Does this mean it'll take four years to fill the next four? And what about Harbour Green 2?

The developers for raffles, 1212 and laguna parkside have all held back or converted unsold units to rentals and there are hundreds more coming they just haven't all been dumped on the market at once.

In most cases excess supply and low demand translates into price drops unless it's different here and the renters are also world class, or something… Of course I'll refer back to our knowledgeable urban fare employee who clearly knows fact from fiction.

Great idea, I suggest you take it further though and also propose that they only provide car loans based on how much you can rent you car out to other people far. And credit cards only allow you to purchase a tv if you can prove you can make the payments by charging cover at your house to watch it. Eating at a restaurant you'll have to prove you could sell the manure for enough to pay for the meal. Great concept you've just solved the problem facing humankind. I nominate you for a Noble prize.

"How about looking at the classifieds or looking at data from Statscan?"

In many cases the rental pool for certain types of properties (higher quality finishes in owner-occupied neighbourhoods for example) is too low to make a reasonable estimate. With many properties it is indeed no problem to adequately estimate rents but for other properties I don't see how it could be done without a lot of guesswork.

For buy-to-let properties I am in more agreement but with some properties there may be an anticipation of future rent increases with gentrification, renovation or re-development so this would need to be taken into account.

"We need to get rid of deposit insurance so that depositors are paid a higher rate commensurate with the risk of bank failure."

I'd like to see you pull that one off. Unfortunately bank runs are much worse than the moral hazard, otherwise people will hoard cash in their mattresses. Let me ask you this: if you have $100K in a tin, what interest rate would you have required to put your $ into WaMu's venerable hands a month ago?

How could a bank estimate imputed rent on most properties?

How about looking at the classifieds or looking at data from Statscan? We're not talking pinpoint accuracy here, just ballpark.

It's easier to estimate market rent for a property than market price. No reason why the bank's appraiser couldn't do both.

If the economy gets worse, and we have a deep recession, I can definitely imagine over 3% drop each month. Buyers will evaporate from the market at a much faster rate.

Ironically, if the buyers disappear that much faster, more inventory will be spilled onto the market as sellers that thought they could hold, then change their mind and try to dump their units because of their job security.

You only have to look back to the 50’s to see that the Fed fixed long term interest rates. They will do it again if they have to.

Dave, in the 50's the US loaned money to the rest of the world (like Japan does), rather than borrowing $2bn/day like it does now.

The US current account deficit is a real deficit (importation of capital) and it has to pay whatever rates foreign lenders demand. These are the marginal lenders who determine all US rates past the short term. Not the Fed.

"Price fixing isn’t a solution. It’s an economic inefficiency that would express itself in a negative way somehow. "

That is exactly right. We need to abolish central banks that interfere in the free market by determining interest rates. We need to get government out of insuring morgages so that mortgage rates rise to reflect the real risk of default. We need to get rid of deposit insurance so that depositors are paid a higher rate commensurate with the risk of bank failure.

Lets end all government price interference. The day that happens, real estate would drop 60% in year. I would love that.

"I think the next intervention will be providing long term (5 to 10 year) low interest rate loans (near overnight rate) to borrowers deemed at risk."

An unemployed worker with no savings will still default even if the interest rate is almost zero. These bailouts don't work because they contribute nothing to the economy and delay allocating capital to places where it is more productive.