Friday Free-for-all!
It’s the end of another work week and that means it’s time for the weekend round up and open topic economic discussion thread! Here are a few recent links to kick off the chat:
-Social housing deal for the Olympic Village
-Lack of guarantee stalls OV sales
-Rennie on Campbells HST handling: “shittiest salesman”
-Condo market heating up
-Home without equity is a rental with debt
-Toronto and US best bets for investors
-Nanaimo prices continue descent
-For Realtors, business as usual
-Vancouvers gravity defying stats
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So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!
November 8th, 2010 at 2:29 am
@capital punishment:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com…..le1789172/
from the same article:
"The Canadian residential mortgage market crossed the $1-trillion threshold for the first time this year as higher prices forced many to borrow heavily to finance their new homes and low interest rates encouraged many more to refinance"
………
Hmm, makes me curious. How were borowers 'forced' to to buy? I must have been sick that day.
November 8th, 2010 at 1:01 am
@paradox, "The last guy who thought like that was Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe."
Are you claiming that I'm advocating that white people should disappear, rather than making the observation that it's already happening?
The reason it's happening has nothing to do with Robert Mugabe and the likes of him.
Rather, imho, we're doing it to ourselves. I believe that affluence and reproductive fitness in human populations are inversely correlated. Look around at your friends, your family. My guess is they're not having kids like people used to. I'm not passing judgment on whether it's a good thing, or a bad thing. But it seems to me that it is happening.
November 7th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business…
at the end of the article:
“There is a sizable minority, about 350,000 out of 5.65 million, or about 6 per cent, who would be challenged by rate rises of less than 1 per cent, and a further 225,000 (5 per cent) have thresholds in the range of 1.00 per cent to 1.49 per cent. However, most of these have fixed-rate mortgages: by the time their mortgages are due for renewal, time will have increased their financial capacity and reduced the amount of mortgage debt being financed. There are about 100,000 borrowers who are susceptible to short-term moves of interest rates, which is a quite small share (less than 2 per cent) of the 5.65 million mortgage holders in Canada.”
except up above it said:
Canadians have not been shy about using their mortgages to free up extra money – 18 per cent of mortgage holders took equity out of their homes, almost half of them citing a need for “debt consolidation or repayment.” The average amount borrowed against home equity was $46,000.
It doesn't look there is all that much reduction going on. And 11 percent of mortgage holders in Canada would struggle if the rates rose just 1.5%. I think the long term average is around 6% for interest rates.
End badly it will. ~ Master Yoda
November 7th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Here's another:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBBBRdyYidk
I don't see what could possibly be said in favour of Bernanke's actions.
November 7th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Remove Bernanke. Help Americans remove Bernanke.
Bernanke must be stopped.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK4dxacv7jY
Interested to know your reactions to this thought, friends.
November 7th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Say what you will about our school system, it's still miles ahead of this country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-37qUrgFXQ
And these are the smarter people.
November 7th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
207 paradox Says:
November 7th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
@ Dan in calgary
“I especially enjoyed the bit about “all white people in the world could disappear”
The last guy who thought like that was Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
He forcefully took the land from the white farmers and gave it to the blacks in 2000. We know how that ended for the country. But of course life goes on.
\\\\\\\\\\\////////////////////////////////
Shite….if Mssr. Mugabe(esq.) buys up in British Properties, this may affect our entitlement of high RE prices.
November 7th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
@ Dan in calgary
"I especially enjoyed the bit about “all white people in the world could disappear"
The last guy who thought like that was Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
He forcefully took the land from the white farmers and gave it to the blacks in 2000. We know how that ended for the country. But of course life goes on.
November 7th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
@Dan in Calgary:
Lol, thanks for the tip.
November 7th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
190 Best place on meth Says:
November 7th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
@Keeping An Eye on The Pimps:
>>>For every Asian I see driving higher end BMW’s, I see tens of hundreds cleaning bathroom at malls, and working as security guards at Shoppers.<<<
I see thousands of them fighting over chicken legs when they go on sale at Superstore.
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Yeah, and the rest of the chicken ain't to happy about that neither.
November 7th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
@Confucious #193,
If you don't want to have your post voted down in the future, just include a few key phrases such as "real estate pimps", "mindless bulls", "hopelessly over-priced market" and you'll get at least enough "up" votes to compensate for the "down" votes.
November 7th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Confucious #193, I enjoyed your post. Glad I got to read it before it was voted into oblivion (for reasons that escape me). I especially enjoyed the bit about "all white people in the world could disappear", for the simple reason that it's actually happening! Well, not literally, but as a % of the world population, we're in decline, and in terms of influence, we're in decline. Oh well, we brought it on ourselves.
November 7th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
199 Best place on meth Says:
November 7th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Should a renter choose an apartment based on the fact that it’s close to “classy restaurants”?
And the hospital?
Maybe those restaurants aren’t so classy after all.
http://vancouver.en.craigslist…..99622.html
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Listen…as long as its reasonably close to the No.5 Orange, I don't give a sh*t.
November 7th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
198 realpaul Says:
November 7th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Aussie pimps are cookie replicants of the CXanadian variety
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I can say " G'day mate " with as little hint of a fudgepacking lisp as possible.