I wonder how any reputable economist can bring out the soft landing theory, when in the history of mankind, there has never been a soft landing after a boom, ever? Wikipedia tells me so. It just boggles my mind that anybody can put this forth as a realistic scenario when apparently, it has never happened! Oh, but I guess Canada is different.

Perhaps this soft landing is akin to Wylie Coyote going over a cliff. The bumps are him bumping against the rock face as he goes down, painful by not too bad. This of cause says nothing about what happens when he reaches the ground.

I think that this is going to be the hardest landing, biggest bubble pop in history. It seems that the economist are so scared and they have so much pressure ATM. Big bubble, huge price drop on RE coming.

“Ms. Gulati noted that national prices would have climbed 3.2 per cent over the year if Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal were factored out.”

Now they need to factor out Montreal too.

Hmmmm, whenever a bubble pop, the first few steps look like a soft landing. Then it goes on and on and everyone figures out that when you keep losing altitude after you’re below sea level, the landing feels more like a crash.

But in markets where Price/Rents are still between 12 and 18 (it’s the case where I live), we’ll see P/R decrease to 8-10 and call that landing kinda soft.

“Vancouver, where sales plunged almost 29 per cent in November alone and MLS-measured prices have slipped 4.5 per cent…”

Can anyone tell me how they measure these “sales”? Is it the number of units or a dollar amount? Is the real volume drop 29% or 33.5% ? Either way it’s a lot less commish to go around for realtors, but what’s the real number here?

@N
If they could just factor out all those goals Luongo allowed 2 years ago, the Canucks would have won the Cup! Hey, you can use this factoring out thing for anything. Awesome!!

Ian looked a bit sheepish in that clip. I think even he knows that what he is saying is bull shit.

Hey wait a minute. They told me Real Estate never goes down. That means NO landing. Hard, soft or otherwise.

We all know Vancouver prices have been out of whack compared with the rest of the country. But what about the level of activity? Is there any reported measure or comparison of the number of transactions per capita in different markets? Does the 30% drop in activity mean we are suddenly slower than other cities or are we perhaps approaching a normal compared to the rest of Canada?

Regarding the story posted earlier: “Realtors blame Flaherty as slump deepens”

Flaherty should be credited by the RE industry for the volume of sales over the past few years. Smart agents have probably been storing away their nest eggs.

Might have to get used to it because It’s not just happening here either

Singapore tightens home loan rules

This is priceless. A soft landing, just like… erm… The States! Where they had (in mid-2006):

– the majority of economists expecting prices to glide to a soft landing
– falling volumes
– decelerating prices
– cooling of the overheated markets

http://www.forbes.com/2006/08/23/home-prices-sales-cx_jh_0823homes.html

I think I’ve seen this movie before.

“…..Smart agents ….”

Oxymoron.

My definition of soft landing is when prices decrease less than 10%/year (absolute). So, 5 years of 9.99% decrease (and let’s say 2.5% inflation) and you get a soft landing into which every specuvestor has been slaughtered.

Re. #21

“”…..Smart agents ….” Oxymoron.”

PaulB?

Anonymous, desperately seeking thumbs up, but unwittingly insulting some of the VIPs of this community.

Don’t you have to land first to call it a soft landing? We are at 25,000 ft heading into Las Vegas in the summer.

Re #21

Well actually rarely any agents are dumb. The dummies are the people who believe them and basing their buying/selling decisions from their words.