Gordon C. Says:

And on July 31, you can tell us all how much more profitable the HST has made you.

Any expense dollars spent by a company that are HST eligible are now 7% cheaper, as they get the HST back.

Yes, if you only charge GST and now have to charge HST your customers are going to have to pay about 6.25% more than they did previously, but if this doesn't decrease your business, you're going to end up being better off with the HST recovered on the expenses you pay out.

[…] number of price reductions we’re currently seeing. Yesterday Paulb shared numbers that showed 232 new listings and 56 sales, but nearly 3 times that number of price changes at […]

WaPo gets it wrong. It's amazing how a reputable paper could print such garbage.

http://tinyurl.com/39asoax

Well, not much of a name; You contradict yourself so many times through out this HST thread, its difficult to discuss this with you. I'm guessing (because I have to as you are unclear through out) that you sell retail products. Where the HST has a new affect is on service industries. The accountant, the barber, the plumber, the real estate agent. They now will charge an additional 7 percent on their services in addition to the current 5%. But somehow, in your world, they make more profit? Well, then by extension why not raise the HST to 50% and we will all be rich. Your retail business already pays PST and GST of 12 percent, and on July 1, you will pay 12% HST. So how has this made you more profitable? Afterall, clients will not want you not… Read more »

Take a look at the weekly new home sales (US) graph at the link I provide below. A few weeks back, some of you bulls ridiculed the concept of "moving demand forward." Check out the last six months of the aforementioned graph and you'll see a textbook example. Why did sales spike in the first few months of the year? Government policies that were temporary in nature. What did this do? Well, the increase in sales were not the result of extra demand; they were the result of individuals who were always wanting to buy, finding it economically rational–following the announcement of the policy–to purchase before, rather than after, the policy deadline.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/06/worst-home…

@VHB: Oh I missed the context of move up buyers. Since the topic today is about HST I have to say I've been getting a kick out of some of the developer advertising. I saw one ad along the lines of "hurry beat the HST" only to look at the prices and find that they were condos in the $300k range, in which case the implementation of HST has no impact. For a nanosecond my thought was "stupid developer" but then I realized the genius of it. Since a smart buyer would realize that the advertising was B.S. the developer was essentially targeting the dumb gullible potential buyers. These types of buyers are easier to sell to. Although I guess the HST would apply to any broker fees, legal and closing costs but I can't imagine this would add up… Read more »

@VHB As I’ve said earlier, if anything, the more despair the US housing market, as evidenced by today’s headline that new sales in the US dropped 33%, the more desperate the US administration will be. That’s why it came back to what the following author had to say. http://tinyurl.com/343lg8t Again, no one said this is the right approach but it’s logical to assume that desperate governments commit serious mistake that will haunt everyone for the foreseeable future. The housing market over the years is all about the ballooning of debt. In fact, the drop of the US housing market coincides with the collapse of the higher powered money like the M2 or M3. And, the reason that housing still sucks so much in the US is because the money that bailed out the banks are still sitting as extra reserves,… Read more »

Holy cow!

350 sales so far this week, will there be under 600 for the week (low 700s last 2 weeks)?

This would be a monthly rate of 2500 or MOI of 8!

@oneangryslav2:

It's easy for all bears to say. Yeah, it's also easy for me to say in 2010. However, when you want to buy a certain house or condo to move up to, you want to get the maximum price you can get from the current house.

Psychologically, it's not that simple for homeowners to just lower the asking price.

@VHB:

[quote]SO, what this means is that every single time one of these guys delists, there is a corresponding and commensurate decrease in the number of people looking to buy. The supply decrease is exactly offset by the demand decrease.[quote]

This argument does not hold for investors in multiple properties who are simply selling off properties and not looking to re-invest. Nor does it hold for sellers moving out of this market to another. There are probably a lot of listings out there from investors looking to unload. So there is no offset of supply and demand in these cases.

@VHB: [Quote]I enjoyed the back and forth with the anonymous 24 year old professional yesterday. Anyway. One bit he said deserved more scrutiny: Two errors here. 1) **CMHC will keep up its lending practices during a bust.** No. CMHC, like all insurers, give you umbrellas on sunny days and take them away when it rains. Once CMHC posts its first big losses, they will tighten their lending criteria. Goodbye 5% downpayments. Yes, the horse will already be out of the barn, but they will be under huge pressure to ‘do something’ to staunch the bleeding of their balance sheet. Credit **tightens** in a downturn; it doesn’t loosen. 2) **it can’t happen because it would be a catastrophe; I don’t want it to happen**. Sorry, kid. What you ‘want’ is irrelevant to what will happen. Also, yes, it would be a… Read more »