It’s Saturday night! The weekend is here!
…and clearly that means our usually Friday free-for-all open topic weekend thread is a bit late this week.
So…
What are you seeing out there?
Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and keep on having an excellent weekend!
[…] Patriotz pointed out this article over at the Globe and Mail: […]
@22 Diadora “Vancouver will be a city of China.”
Your sentence is correct, but the tense is incorrect. It has been so for many years. As the hand-over was not official, hard to assign exact date. After the 1980’s, no turning back possible.
WHICH ONE U GUYS PREFER
1) Bedford, New York the 3,843-square-foot house sits on nearly two acres of woodlands FOR $1.5 MILLION
http://curbed.com/archives/2015/08/13/muppets-jim-henson-house.php
2) crack shack in DTES FOR $1.4 MILLION OR MORE
http://thethirtiesgrind.com/2013/08/29/absurd-vancouver-property-august-29-2013/
New Listings 271
Price Changes 91
Sold Listings 150
TI:12299
Economists caution against Harper’s focus on rising home-ownership rate
Just in case anyone had any doubts, it’s pedal to the metal for housing:
“Nearly 70 per cent of Canadian households own their homes and friends, in this campaign, we are pledging to build on this record to do even more to provide the personal and financial security that a home represents,” Mr. Harper told supporters at an Ottawa rally Sunday.
Canada’s home-ownership rate is not often cited by Mr. Harper. It is a statistical achievement that did not turn out well for the U.S. when it reached a similar level more than a decade ago.
But it’s different here, right?
Post #121 in previous thread said, “Some realtors say 10% sales are for them to be “dual-agents”.”
My understanding is that used house salespeople are allowed to be “dual-agents” so long as their client(s) sign official paperwork acknowledging that the client(s) fully understand and agree with him/her acting for both the buyer and the seller, etc.
Unless, has this policy changed and I haven’t heard?
Renters driving the economy… every landlords wet dream… but wait!
FLOW THRU WELFARE ….
#25: Probably very true.
Then it would make sense to move where they are paid better and more “pay yourself first money”. 🙂
@24: ” If the people owning huge mortgages are house poor, it is the renters that are driving the economy as they are the ones that have the money to spin around in the economy? ”
Homeowners still have a lot more disposable income per capita then renters. First reason – it’s still true that most homeowners got into the market before the bubble, and have seen the benefit of falling interest rates, or have paid off mortgages. Second, owners on average have higher incomes (this has always been true).
# 23 : “Politician aren’t going to touch this so long as the vast majority of the population doesn’t want it touched. As we are talking about the single most valuable asset most people have and we are looking at a record high number of Canadians participating in the real estate market, I’d say active changes at the level of government are unlikely.” That is probably the cold hard truth of the matter. If the people owning huge mortgages are house poor, it is the renters that are driving the economy as they are the ones that have the money to spin around in the economy? That is why I as a renter am super frugal, I am not going to support an economy that is run in this lousy manner. Also, when time for me to get out of… Read more »
@22: Blame your neighbors, not the politicians. Well, blame them both. Don’t let your neighbors off the hook is what I’m saying.
Politician aren’t going to touch this so long as the vast majority of the population doesn’t want it touched. As we are talking about the single most valuable asset most people have and we are looking at a record high number of Canadians participating in the real estate market, I’d say active changes at the level of government are unlikely. Heck, the pandering to this segment is ongoing during the current federal election campaign.
Changes are unlikely to come from the inside or policy changes in the near-term.
There are billions of dollar laundered through the Canadian Real Estate. Until the politicians acknowledge it, nothing will be done and the prices will shoot for the stars. Vancouver will be a city of China.
Vacant Bathrooms “Too Small” So Parents Let Kid Poo in the Airplane Aisle
There were some stinky flights in China this weekend
https://thenanfang.com/chinese-airliners-recipients-kids-taking-dump/
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2015-08-16/china-hits-wall China Hits the Wall The Yuan Devaluation and the End of the Economic Miracle By Salvatore Babones For the first time since 2008, economic alarm bells are ringing in China. Hard on the heels of a two-month stock market rout, the Chinese yuan lost nearly five percent of its value in just two days. The stock market might have rebounded, but the economy is still in trouble. Three and a half decades of easy profits from one-way bets on China’s reintegration with the outside world have come to an end. China is now part and parcel of the global economy, and the normal laws of economic gravity apply in China, too. The first of those laws is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. There is a financial crisis brewing in China, but the usual bugbears of… Read more »
@15: “Retired baseball pitcher Jamie Moyer sold his seven-bedroom Tudor mansion in Seattle to a Chinese couple for $3.2 million in September.”
http://www.zillow.com/homes/2550-40th-Ave-W-Magnolia-Seattle-WA-98199_rb/
Zillow thinks it would rent for $6,293/mo. If it’s being rented piecemeal to Amazon employees, the owner is probably getting more.
In the US non-resident landlords must submit a withholding tax of 30% of rent.
@Tiger – I guess you didn’t like being replaced as the biggest asshole?
at least the Chinese are renting it out to locals, rather than just keeping it empty for 6 months+ a year like Canadians ahoels do in Arizona, Florida, Caribbean, while pushing locals out of their own housing market.
@patriotz – Right…so ok for US to use drones, special ops, hired mercenary, covert agents/assasins to achieve its objectives, regardless of whose jurisdiction the operation took place. But when other countries decides to bypass a length court process to extradite its criminals it’s sudden all no-no, it’s illegal, and such?
Sounds like a big hollow do as I say but not as I do. At least China is honest about what policies and tools it is willing to use, unlike US who’s acting like the biggest bully & hypocrit.
15
2)Chinese buyers topped Canadians to rank as the biggest foreign purchasers of U.S. homes by both sales and dollar volume, accounting for more than a quarter of all international spending.
Canadians WAS no. 1 Asshole before the chinese take over.
Chinese assholes again
1)Retired baseball pitcher Jamie Moyer sold his seven-bedroom Tudor mansion in Seattle to a Chinese couple for $3.2 million in September. The new owners promptly rented it out to a group of Amazon.com Inc. employees.Seattle has become the latest West Coast hot spot for homebuyers, from Chinese emigrees
2)Chinese buyers topped Canadians to rank as the biggest foreign purchasers of U.S. homes by both sales and dollar volume, accounting for more than a quarter of all international spending.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-17/chinese-top-list-of-foreign-buyers-of-u-s-homes
Obama Administration Warns Beijing About Covert Agents Operating in U.S.
It is a criminal offense, (USG spokesman) said, “for an individual, other than a diplomatic or consular officer or attaché, to act in the United States as an agent of a foreign power without prior notification to the attorney general.”…
Steve Tsang, a senior fellow at the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute, said the clandestine deployment of security agents in pursuit of Chinese abroad has a long pedigree under the Communist Party, which sees itself as wielding dominion over all Chinese people regardless of what passport they may hold. “The party believes if you’re of Chinese ancestry then you’re Chinese anyway, and if you don’t behave like one you’re a traitor,” he said.
votetogether.ca
Millionaire Basement Wars Documentary
Cheap mortgage rates don’t justify home ownership
He seems to be comparing the cost of renting a 2 bedroom apartment against buying the average house (or average property, not sure which), which is bogus. However the relative rankings of the cities are still informative.
Rio airport agents bribed in Chinese immigrant scandal
http://news.yahoo.com/rio-airport-agents-bribed-chinese-immigrant-scandal-214911127.html
“The rout in commodities has ravaged Canada’s oil patch and its mining sector. For example, home sales in Calgary, the epicenter of the oil patch, have plunged 25% year-to-date. Canada is in one of the most magnificent housing bubbles the world as ever seen, and when it pops in Toronto or Vancouver, there will be fireworks. But not yet”