Competition Bureau attacks CREA
Several readers pointed out the news that the Competition Bureau has launched an aggressive attack on the Canadian Real Estate Association, challenging their monopoly over the MLS and calling for major changes in the way homes are sold.
“Our concern is that [CREA] are improperly and unlawfully leveraging [their control over MLS] in order to impose these restrictions and to deny competitive forces and to deny good old-fashioned market competition,” said Competition Commissioner Melanie Aitken. “This case is focused pure and simple: Let consumers have the choice, let agents have the opportunity to satisfy and serve those choices.”
The Globe and Mail had an online question an answer session with Dale Ripplinger of the CREA and the transcript of that chat is available here.
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February 12th, 2010 at 2:30 am
Gems of “folly” from this Vancouver Sun article
No policy change is needed to prevent the housing bubble: There isn’t one
Reading this article makes you wonder if it didn’t come out directly from Goebbels’ Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, it’s that phoney.
Vancouver’s multiple was 9.3, the most unaffordable of the 272 markets covered. Perhaps the problem to be solved then is not high house prices but low incomes.
That’s it! The person who wrote this piece should run for President! Not sure why but reading “expert” thoughts like this one reminds me always of Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”. Well, at least they used the word “Perhaps” in the sentence, which gives me hope that all is not yet lost, and that people are not stuck in some sort of a “permanent plateau of delusion”.
Between 2004 and 2008, Canada’s new housing price index, according to Statistics Canada, rose by 28 per cent, or 5.6 per cent a year. That’s a steady market, not a frothy one.
Such a spin will make a sane person dizzy, fast. Here I go [insert vomiting sound]
Last, but not least.
More than two-thirds of Canadians own their homes and half of them are mortgage-free. For most, their homes provide a store of wealth, security in retirement. Their home equity maintains their independence. Why would government want to undermine them with policies that lower property values.
Bwahaha! Don’t these people know that markets are designed to screw the majority? Guess not! Did the guy who wrote this ever thought who is going to buy these houses, when the majority already have one? Ah, ok, rich Martians will be descending upon us from the sky ready to snap our properties! But,… isn’t that sort of loosing our indipendence? Duh!
[end sarcasm]
February 11th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
@patriotzed:
I mostly agree except for maybe the exploitation part. Most hispanics in the US arrived well after slavery and racial segregation. I think the causes are deep rooted generational socio-economic in nature. Like you, I don’t believe in genetic explanations. White people who come from a similar background have similar outcomes.
There actually aren’t any ‘races’. We are all part of the same race, but have slightly different phenotypes (e.g. skin colour).
February 11th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
@vrengd:
The reason blacks and Hispanics in the US have high crime rates is that they have been marginalized and exploited by the majority white society. It’s the same reason why Aboriginals in Canada have a high crime rate. It’s not because there’s anything genetically wrong with them.
You see the same thing all over the world, even when the minority is of the same racial background as the majority. Such as Sicilians in Italy.
February 11th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
@VHB:
In other words the province would become a junk second mortgage lender? I’d like to see what the bond rating agencies have to say about that one.
The tax deferral scheme for seniors was implemented as a senior lien precisely to avert this issue.
February 11th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
@Drachen: I knew it would only be a matter of time before the ‘racist’ label would be thrown out! If, as you say it’s an American problem, and not a race problem, then how do you explain the fact that US cities with low black and hispanic populations have comparable violent crime rates to Canadian cities? Don’t believe me, compare Vancouver and Seattle.
Also, explain why in one of the whitest cities in the US, Minneapolis, 9 out of 10 most wanted are not white:
Link.
I think YOU are the one that needs to put down the Michael Moore DVD and pull your head out of the sand!
February 11th, 2010 at 11:11 am
“to ensure that the property is not encumbered by tax liens, or any other lien superior to the mortgage.”
Right. There would be no tax lien, since the taxes were paid by the provincial government. There would be a lien by the provincial government.
The question is whether this lien would apply before or after the mortgage. My understanding would be that the mortgage would have first dibs, then the province would get whatever is left.
THAT’s why I think this is a crazy bad deal for the province. If there were a wave of foreclosures in the next 3 years, the province would be left with a bunch of useless liens and would be left holding the bag.
February 11th, 2010 at 11:00 am
@patriotz:
Maybe you’re right, this is from a CMHC insurance contract.
“The Approved Lender is responsible for the collection of property taxes, if applicable, with the
mortgage payment on a monthly basis, once the take-out financing is in place.”
February 11th, 2010 at 10:44 am
@Drachen:
I’m pretty sure that all mortgage insurance and securitization agreements include an obligation by the mortgage servicer to ensure that the property is not encumbered by tax liens, or any other lien superior to the mortgage.
But that’s just a common sense assumption. I’m not in the business.
February 11th, 2010 at 10:35 am
@patriotz:
“Dead wrong, mortgage lenders will not allow unpaid taxes to accumulate on a property, regardless of what the provincial government allows.”
I’ve been thinking about that and I’m not so sure. As long as the CMHC is still backing the mortgage (ie the unpaid taxes + the mortgage balance due < 95% of the assessed value) why would the banks care? The CMHC is still taking all the risk. Why should they turn down anything that keeps the payments coming in for longer?
February 11th, 2010 at 10:31 am
@Chilled:
“Put the same percentage of blacks and hispanics in the DTES as in those American cities and see what happens.”
Wow, that is such a deeply racist statement.
Those American statistics, about how Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to commit crimes are just that, American statistics. It is not a racial issue, it’s an American issue. Other countries do not experience anywhere near the same disparity of crime ratios based on ethnicity.
Get your facts straight and your head out of your rectum.