Tag Archives: growth

debt, economy, predictions, rates

BIS warns on interest rates

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74 Comments

From southseacompany: another warning about rates knocking back growth.

“The world has become so used to cheap credit that higher interest rates could derail the global economic recovery, the Bank for International Settlements has warned.”

“After cutting interest rates to all-time lows and pumping trillions of dollars into markets to boost growth in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, central banks are now preparing to tighten their monetary policies.”

“All this underlines how much asset prices appear to depend on the very low bond yields that have prevailed for so long.”

Read the full article here.

Open Topic

Friday Free-for-all! April 14th 2016

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113 Comments

It’s the end of another week and that means it’s time for another Friday Free-for-all!

This is our regular end of the week news round-up and open topic discussion for the weekend, here are a few recent links to kick off the chat:

–Eby on Real Estate Fraud
–Affordable Housing Program
–Nothing free-market about boom
–Concord Pacific buys Molson land
–Gentle jaw-boning for looney
–Southseacompany on YouTube
–Tricks of the trade
–Millennials scramble before priced out
–Downgraded growth for Canada
–Your parents made money, you won’t
–Poloz stuck in corner?
–Research Chair escapes from UBC
–Harsher penalties needed?
–

So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

economy, Open Topic, opinion, predictions, prices

The problem isn’t prices, it’s the buyers

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145 Comments

Over on Medium there’s an Op-Ed by Spencer Thompson on the high cost of Vancouver Real Estate.

Not just the literal high cost of property, but the risk of a greater price paid by the city .

The secret that no-one actually wants to talk about is that the quality of a city is mostly determined by a simple factor — the number of smart, ambitious people who live there. These people are the ones who want to drive that city forward by investing in opening businesses, donating their time to the arts & community, participating in city planning, etc… Without them, growth wouldn’t happen and you wouldn’t get all of the benefits that great cities enjoy.

The biggest contributor to the decline of a great city is simple — it’s the decline of those smart people. When they decide that the cost of living in a place outweighs the benefit, they move. They don’t just take their money with them, they take their intellectual and future capital with them. This is dangerous. When people aren’t willing to make an investment in a place to live any more, the city doesn’t just lose their taxes for the year, they lose a massive function of potential jobs created, culture added and future capital they can put to work.

Read the full article here.

Now clearly Mr. Thompson is a believer in foreign investors as a primary driver of prices in this city, but whatever the cause, HAM, Drugs or Credit, does he have a point? Do high real estate prices risk driving out ‘smart people’ who would contribute to a brighter future for the city?

hype, opinion, predictions, prices, USA

Foreign buyers in the USA

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40 Comments

Move over China, Canada has become the top foreign investor in US real estate.

A report from commercial brokerage Marcus & Millichap, as reported by the Tampa Bay Times, found that, “an influx of cash-laden foreign investors, especially from Canada and South America, are targeting assets in Tampa Bay for lower entry costs and higher initial yields.”

It’s all pointing to signs of limitless, massive growth opportunity.

While opportunities across the United States are, in fact, limitless for Canadian investors, the key to investing well is to identify hot spots others have not identified. Take Phoenix, Arizona, for example, where Talia Jevan Properties Inc.’s High Income Real Estate has been aggressively buying property.

“Phoenix became one of the most battered real estate regions in the country,” noted Harmel Rayat. “Nowadays, the region just finished securing $430 million in deals in 2013 alone thanks to higher occupancy rates, falling unemployment, and opportunities for strong population growth.”

Read the full article here.

BC, Canada, economy, opinion, USA

Vancouver a graveyard for job seekers?

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138 Comments

There’s been some discussion lately about the temporary foreign worker program (TFW) and whether Canada needs to import workers, skilled or unskilled.

This of course brings up the debate: companies say they can’t find people to fill positions, workers say thats just because you aren’t paying enough.

Is there something special about Vancouver that enables lower wages to be paid or are is it not true that Vancouverites tend to be underpaid?

Atomic Frog had this to say:

Here are some of the facts that I know of

Highly skilled and highly in demand workers do not stay in Vancouver. You get paid higher in another city and cost of living is likely lower than living in Vancouver. Local companies ALWAYS have problem hiring qualified applicants and if this snowball, they cannot stay in business for very long or be very competitive in their sector. What kind of industry is doing very well in Vancouver anyway these days? Movie industry? Mining? Tech? I work in the local IT industry for the last 20 yrs. I saw all kind of IT ppl who came to town, found a job and eventually left town after a couple of yrs because they had found a much better paying job in another city.

As a result, Vancouver is considered to be a graveyard for job seekers. Even for those who have a job, local salary has been stagnant for yrs. Without a steady stream of local workers who should see their annual salary go up steadily every yr, it is very difficult for this local property bubble to continue.

There are many cases in other parts of the world where property value goes up and stay there. Main reason being foreign investor, but the locals also keep making more money over the yrs. Prices that were higher five yrs ago may not seem to be that high for those cities. However, can we say the same thing for Vancouver?

Do you know skilled workers that have sought better career opportunities outside of Vancouver or are you and your coworkers properly compensated and happy to stay?