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I received a message from a reader recently telling me “Check this out! The housing crash has officially started!”
They linked me to a news article about the plight of condo investors in Toronto. I know, I know, cry me a river, right? Well, take a read…
Ujjwal Jain never thought when he bought his pre-construction condo in April 2020 that it would cost him his life savings.
As the date for him to take possession of the condo nears, the bank appraisal, which is done to ensure the current market value of a property is in line with the size of the mortgage loan, determined the unit is worth $150,000 less than what he agreed to pay for it two years ago, before shovels were in the ground.
“How am I supposed to close the transaction? Appraisals are coming in so low, people don’t have $100,000 to $200,000. I have had friends who have had to declare bankruptcy, and I am in the same boat,” Jain said.
Developers are hitting the brakes. Pandemic buyers are panicked as appraisals come up short. Is this the end of Toronto’s condo mania?, TheStar.com
In every bubble that pops, whether it’s real estate, Dutch tulip bulbs, or Beanie Babies, there’s always the last few idiots who buy into the frenzy with the absolute worst timing, right at the top of the market convinced that the insane, unsustainable run-up that they’ve sat on the sidelines watching will continue forever. Finally convinced that they’d be missing out on the easy money seemingly everyone else was making by sitting out, they go all-in. These are the people who make their moves right as the bubble pops, and are wiped out the hardest. That’s this guy, unfortunately.
The fact that higher interest rates is crashing the housing market is no longer a debate. It’s already started. While the crash won’t be even across the country, we can expect that the areas that will crash the hardest are the ones that ran up in price the most, which is what we’re seeing. Here in Toronto, the average price has already gone down about 15% YTD and economists are predicting the total damage will be more than 30% by next year.
So that begs the question: Is it finally Canada’s turn to experience our own version of 2008-style housing meltdown like what happened the US?
There’s a saying that history rarely repeats, but it often rhymes. The factors that lead up to each economic downturn are different each time, but when compared to previous similar economic downturns, we can often see some of these factors lining up. The more we see, the more likely the outcome will be the same. So how many factors do we see lining up in Canada right now that were present in the US at the beginning of their market meltdown?
Well, let’s see.
Overvalued Housing Market
Does Canada have an overvalued housing market? Ha! More like “When has Canada’s housing market not been overvalued?”
It was overvalued 10 years ago, when Kristy and I went housing shopping for the first time. We couldn’t believe how overpriced housing was back then, and disgust at the real estate market was one of the reasons why we decided to go down the FIRE path to begin with.
And that was 2012. Back then, the “crazily overpriced” houses that sent us running for the hills were $500k. Now? I don’t even know how to describe how overvalued our real estate market is now.
Fortunately, the OECD did it for us, naming Canada as the most overvalued housing market in the G7 in 2022, and the 2nd most overvalued amongst all advanced economies, behind only The Netherlands.
Nearly all advanced economies have seen home prices soar, but not like Canada. Only one other country has a faster growing disconnect, and it’s a tiny economy. Almost 3 dozen other developed economies are lagging, which is good news for them.
Canada Has The Second Most Overvalued Real Estate of Any Advanced Economy, BetterDwelling.com
So do we have this condition of the 2008 crisis here in Canada right now? The answer is a resounding yes.
Rising Borrowing Costs
Every bubble popping requires a trigger. In 2008, the trigger in the US was the low teaser rates on adjustable rate mortgages expiring. This caused a sudden rise in borrowing costs, which meant people’s mortgage payments suddenly increased, which caused them to go go into default, which set off the entire foreclosure crisis.
Do we have suddenly rising borrowing costs here in Canada? Absolutely.
Canada’s central bank, like pretty much every other advanced economy, has been spiking their interest rates up in an effort to combat inflation. This has caused mortgage rates that had been sitting at 2-3% for a fixed 5-year term pre-pandemic to double to 5-6%.
However, this hasn’t affected the pocketbooks of most home owners. Yet.
In the US, when they call a mortgage fixed, the interest rate is actually fixed, in that they don’t change at all for the entire amortization. In Canada, however, a “fixed” mortgage’s interest rates is fixed for only a portion of the entire mortgage amortization, typically in 5 year terms. This means that in a rising interest rate environment, fixed mortgages are protected from ballooning payments but only until that term is up. After that, the mortgage renews for a new term at whatever the prevailing interest rates are.
That means that while people who already have a fixed mortgage aren’t going to see their payments increase yet, they will. In the next few years, more and more of Canada’s mortgages will renew at double the rate they’re paying now. The trigger is coming, but unlike in the US where it happened at all once, the pain will be spread over a 5 year period as households gradually renew.
Lax Lending Standards
Another major contributing factor to the 2008 crisis was the presence of NINJA loans, which stood for no income, no job, no assets and refers to the then-common US practice of giving out loans to people without verifying they had the means to, you know, pay the damned loan.
Fortunately, this is something we never imported to Canada. Even as the real estate industry here demanded that the financial regulators drop their lending standards during the pandemic, our government ignored them, instead implementing a stress test requiring borrowers to qualify at a rate higher than what the bank posted to make sure they could withstand a rise in borrowing costs without defaulting.
I was initially alarmed when I read this article, because it initially seemed like banks had been too easy in writing loans to investors. But upon closer reading, it turns out the issue is that the banks were actually refusing to go through with the loan after initially pre-approving him. The banks were actually acting responsibly and not writing the bad loans. That meant throwing the investor under the bus and leaving him facing bankruptcy, but quite frankly, who cares if he loses money? He took the risk, the risk didn’t pay off, so he has to pay the price. That’s how investing works.
As long as our banks don’t succumb to the siren song of deregulation like in the US and remain committed to not handing idiots rope to hang themselves with, we might be OK.
Contracting Job Market
While rising rates were the trigger of 2008, a contracting job market was the catalyst that turned that spark into a forest fire. When your mortgage payment suddenly doubles, you’d better not lose your job or bad things are going to happen.
This is where we have some good timing on our side. The job market here in Canada is still expanding. By quite a lot.
The Canadian economy added 108,000 jobs in October, reversing much of the losses observed in recent months and surprising forecasters who were expecting a very modest bump in employment.
Canadian economy added 108K positions in October in ‘blowout’ jobs report, GlobalNews.com
This is a really important difference. Housing crashes have happened all throughout history, but what made 2008 such a cataclysmic event is that the damage from falling housing prices infected the banks as a wave of foreclosures overwhelmed their balance sheets what red ink. That made job losses even worse, which perpetuated the cycle of doom.
But if the job market remains healthy, that cycle of doom never stats. Even if houses plummet in value here, everybody’s underwater on their mortgages, and mortgage payments increase, as long as people keep their jobs, then the drop of housing values remains only a real estate market problem and doesn’t infect the broader economy.
And while it’s falling home prices and job losses usually go hand-in-hand, this time it’s the opposite. House prices are going down as the economy is stilling recovering from the after effects of the pandemic. That combination is actually pretty unusual, and could be a big reason why Canada avoids a fully-blown 2008-style meltdown.
Conclusion
So while I still think housing prices in Canada will continue to fall, and that many home owners (especially those that bought in the past year) are going to be in for a protracted period of losing money, the conditions for a wider 2008-style conflagration that burns down the rest of the economy with it aren’t there. Yet.
The bank of Canada has an incredibly delicate balancing act that I don’t envy at all. If they hike interest rates too slowly, inflation won’t be contained. But hike too fast and they might trigger the job losses that make a meltdown happen. And either way, they get yelled at by half the country no matter what they do.
What do you think? Is Canada headed for a 2008-style housing crash, or do you think the housing slump will be a more milder version? Let’s hear it in the comments below!
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A good overview of the situation, but I need to disagree with “Even if houses plummet in value here, everybody’s underwater on their mortgages, and mortgage payments increase, as long as people keep their jobs, then the drop of housing values remains only a real estate market problem and doesn’t infect the broader economy.”
When people are paying hundreds of dollars per month more for their mortgages, that is hundreds of dollars not spent in the rest of the economy. The longer this goes on, the bigger the drag on the broader economy will be.
Great analysis. Probably some of these folks will need to bite the bullet and let their deposit go and default. It’s a tough call and depends on each person’s financial situation.
How’s renting working out for ya… Broke the bank yet?
These two have serious fomo and are super bitter because they couldn’t afford a home 10 years ago and missed the boat entirely. I own 2 properties, zero mortgages luckily. One is a rental for passive income, one to live in (no rent) fired at 40. I still hold a portfolio of around 1.3 cdn in low cost etfs. I’ve only paid rent for one year of my life. Owning a home is a great way to build wealth. Buy young and pay it down!
Sorry, I’m not buying they are “bitter”. They more than had enough to purchase a home “10 years ago” and would have easily paid it off, BUT THEY WOULD HAVE HAD TO KEEP WORKING. Note, they haven’t “worked” since they were 31 and they travel (now that they can again) the world. You just chose a different path to wealth. They appear to enjoy their freedom as much as you enjoy being rent free (of course, you are not property tax free or maintenance free) and a landlord. To each their own.
They are not bitter but like to travel for now … they may settle down soon imo ? …and they have the option to rent or buy in (GTA) Toronto where they have family … the Wanderer liked working in Toronto and could resume work anytime he chooses if they finally settle down there … what you have done is a good option too … it is just more mainstream … I am interested in your financial story and how you have done things – you live in the GTA? If one is interested in buying a place the next 6 to 12 months, it may be a good time to contemplate it … or buy TESLA to the moon? Grin 🙂 it is cheaper too ….
If there’s large numbers of homeboners faithfully servicing upside-down mortgages, it seems like that alone can be a risk. Being upside-down on a mortgage, especially if it drags on and on, can be a god-awful and sickening experience that makes people do irrational things that they otherwise wouldn’t….
…even as I type this, I can’t help but wonder how many of these people are cashing out their IRA’s and dumping everything into Shiba-Inu in the hope of compensating for their upside-down mortgage.
Even if you’re upside down (as I was for a few years), you have to live somewhere… the market recovered eventually, and I now have a paid off home that is worth more than 4x what I paid for it. While that isn’t the best return, there is no way you can rent someplace equivalent for even 4x my current property tax and insurance rate.
housing market is following the stock market– down (with rising rates )
rent is rising . Not good for renters
Hey guys its been a while! We bought a really cheap house in the prairies in April and so far no signs of the market dropping here (even if it did we don’t have a mortgage so no issues with interest rates/appraisals/underwater mortgages and no plans of selling anytime soon). The Vancouver housing groups I follow have been sharing listings with major drops though (price drops for amounts that are 1x-3x larger than what we spent on our whole house). My inlaws sold their place in Greater Vancouver for a killing in May, closed in July – I was surprised the deal didn’t fall through at the last minute – talk about buying/selling at the top of the market.
I always find it so bizarro and weird, that there are some apparently successful home-owners, who were able to pay down their mortgage, who criticize these writers.
Have you not read their ideal lifestyle?
They want to travel around all the time.
They don’t want to be managing renters and plumbing/roofs etc, in Scarberia.
They don’t want to get WIPED OUT like the people in the article.
So if a multiple mortgage holder is able to make it work, and wants to be stuck near their house, and work on the house, then go for it.
But for others who want freedom, and choose to do other things, then that is great.
Thinking about it, its the JEALOUSY of seeing other people live without that stress, and still build wealth. Just do what you want to do.
Well said…,
We really don’t have anything against home-owners/property investors either as we started very much on similar path just like them BUT we collectively all want a completely 100% passive income. That’s the difference. At the end of the day, we still very much prefer their “lifestyle” as a couple even though we are a family of three with a teen!
Occupying both the FI and world-schooling space is such a blessing. As a family of three, we know we have the capabilities and resources to make things happen so in the case of real-estate, we can always acquire them again as an exit-strategy if and when opportunity permits.
ImmigrantOnFIRE
So great, yes and some are doing a version of it with kids. Its a different way of living. Also some criticize the rent payments, but in the case of these guys, as a couple they were paying around $1600 month last year? That’s fine.
Also as self-employed we can write-off a portion of rent when working from home.
Personally I enjoy working, but now I can pick my own work, and and making more than ever! I think this couple has been quite honest and upfront, and have provided a lot of details, I’ve read most of it.
Perfect Fice. I couldn’t have said better myself…I don’t like landlords…just the word itself sounds entitled and condescending. Oh I have a cra*ppy condo, oh I’m a lord !
Land Lord, that is where it comes from, the property owner. So that’s great, but you better be good at it, otherwise it can ruin you.
only a fool would buy real estate at insane levels .reap what u sow
i find it the other way around -renters are jealous of owners. …..and get angry at rent increases and turn to the media for help gogin to get a lot worse for renters, i see more anger in the future
This recent CBC Marketplace sure looks similar to the NINJA loans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_wlnv5ns4I
“Here in Toronto, the average price has already gone down about 15% YTD and economists are predicting the total damage will be more than 30% by next year.”
Sounds like there will be a good time to buy!
(I still think Firecracker and Wanderer will eventually buy at least one house. Maybe they already have … who knows.)
This is what I find odd. I know a guy who owned a few houses, worked full-time, etc, then retired at a certain decent age, and has been travelling the world non-stop.
He sold his houses to do this.
He bought a small condo for a bit, but also just leases places to live, etc.
So these guys are doing what he did, just 30 years earlier.
You can’t have a bunch of renters if you want to travel the world!
So why not just do what you want to do?
I am getting rid of everything I don’t need, its almost all gone. Have enough cheese in reserve to last basically for life. But still work all the time as I enjoy my work in the Arts. Some of us don’t want to be tied down to a bunch of stuff, but want freedom. For me its freedom to do the work I want, not so much just travelling as its boring for my taste.
So just take the info that might help you, and that’s it.
I don’t want a house either right now, prefer liquid capital, and being flexible. (some people I know have been pressuring me to dump the coin into a property, as that is what THEY would like to do. Don’t want a commitment, as they say.)
To each his own. If you want a house, find a way to buy a house. If you don’t want a house, then don’t buy a house. There are up sides and down sides to each. You do you boo, etc.
On a side note, please for the love of Bogle, get rid of the stinking Ad boxes that OVERLAY the text so you can’t read the freaking post. They are SUPER annoying. I have to sometimes reload the page to get them to go away and then read super fast before it pops back up again.
Adblock…
Never going to happen.
No one will have to sell their house for inability to service debt. (At least, not too many people)
Canadian governments will intervene and make sure homeowners do not lose their houses.
It can be increasing amortization to 30 years.
It can be allowing to deduct mortgage payments from income for tax purposes.
It can be a “mortgage payment tax credit”.
It can be a “human right” issue where evictions are not allowed and debt restructuring is forced upon both sides, legally binding.
No matter what, homeowners will be helped in paying the higher mortgages.
Remember that if they don’t, and the bank takes the house, the public (via CMHC) will end up paying the banks for their loses.
This is another big difference from the US. In Canada, the taxpayer guarantees the mortgages. Which means, even if banks start repossessing homes, they do no lose money, so no financial contagion.
2008-style collapse, where a downturn in the housing market creates mass homelessness and drags down the financial market can never happen in Canada.
What will happen here is that homeowners will just have to continue paying on underwater mortgages and take a cut in their net worth, with restructuring and help from the government, and if/when they do not, CMHC makes sure there is no lose for the banks and no wide financial contagion.
Home prices will go down for lack of buyers and higher interest rates, but nothing else.
Sounds like cry babies that missed the gravy train. Bought multiple properties in 2nd tier cities 10 years ago… laughing my behind off while accelerated my retirement target by at least 20 years.
This is what I am talking about above. Actually, you are the one who sounds jealous as you are trapped in place and mortgaged to the gills.
So what are you going to do when the houses are paid-off? Sell it all, and then travel off the proceeds of a portfolio? That is what they are doing now.
So do what you want, and try not to be so jealous of others who are doing what they want to do by using their applied intelligence.
I know enough people who retired on rental properties and are travelling on the rental income.
Not sure why you think one can not own properties and travel.
The owner takes a local contact to take care of things. It becomes a business, so you can argue that you are not “retired”, but rather transitioned to becoming a small-business owner. But it is the same end result. You have passive income from rental properties. You don’t really have to sell if you don’t want to.
So go and do it. Buy a pre-market condo, then have the costs double or lose the deposit.
There are also people living in their car, because their tenants won’t pay.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/landlord-tenant-eviction-delays-1.6638367
It ain’t f-ing passive when you have hired a property management company, who are not going to work cheap. Its a real estate business.
So knock yourself out. You also have to be a bit of a sociopath to be a landlord, as you have to EVICT vulnerable people sometimes. Some people like the power of being a sociopath, so they are in the right business.
My question is why they attack this couple? My view is they are deeply deeply JEALOUS that these folks are smart cookies who figured out how to make it happen.
Totally agree with you on everything other than the attitude.
🙂
Well, not on the need to be a sociopath…
I’m a long-term renter, had at least 4 landlord in the last 14years, all were amazing and we had excellent relationships.
Yes, you are correct, there are plenty of decent people on both sides. Most, for sure. But there is the downside as well. For example, I still rent, and my bldg has been sold 2x recently, and for sure next move is to demolish the building, so evict everyone. Then build a condo tower for 500 million. There is new legislation from Ford coming to allow this. I am fine, I can just move anytime I want. But there are those in the bldg who are screwed. This landlord corp is a sociopath. People are just a number on a spreadsheet.
when balanced portfolios crash ,fire blog writers like to write about other issues. These 2 are following The Greater Fool blog–all he does is talk about real estate crashing, haha. he hasnt given an update on ‘balanced portfolios’ for a while, LOL !
with bonds not acting as a buffer its really ugly in the investing world , i get it!!
need distractions i suppose
The current market turmoil is not “really ugly”; it’s normal!
There sure seems to be a lot of attitude in the comments. It reminds me of discussions around the topic is Cryto.
I really hope so. Real Estate investors and land lords need to suffer a lot. They have been ripping off rents like me who cannot afford a home, for hundreds of years !!! It feels like legalized slavery to me !
Even before the pandemic, three in five renters could not come up with $400 in an emergency. How are they supposed to get by now? This will end badly….so badly for landlords and governments will actually have to give away houses or pay rent for the future generations
The average borrower has lost $30,000 in equity. About $1.5 trillion in total so far. In 10% of major markets – including Las Vegas, Miami, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tampa and San Diego – homeowners have to spend twice the long-term average amount of median household income to make their monthly payments.
More than 500,000 borrowers are currently underwater on their mortgages-double what it was in May. Those who purchased their homes in the past year will be most at risk of going underwater since they bought at the peak of the market.
Who in hell still buys homes nowadays?
I don’t understand the big hate for landlords. They risk their money buying properties, hoping to take in more money in rent than their expenses. If other investors notice this is working, they too will buy properties to rent out. The result is more housing. Given our perpetual housing shortage, this is a very good thing. If being a landlord is such an easy and lucrative thing, then become one!
Nobody likes landlords unless you’re one. They are the Putin and Xi of the investing world !
Love the high interest rates and a big shout out and thankyou to all you mortgage payers scrapping up dollars every month to pay the increasing payments.
Thanks for paying for my ever increasing dividends on my Canadian banks RY, CM, TD and insurance companies IFC, SLF, MLF and US banks BAC, WF, JPM, KEY.
Ill be thinking of you guys when I’m saving it in 5% GIC’s and spending it.
Remember don’t work for the bank but own the bank
AM also benefitting from the increased Divs and 5% GIC etc. My monthly income stream is up quite a bit recently. I think one of the best things about the entire FI exercise, is not pissing your money away, and saving/investing like 80% of one’s income.
One piece of the equation that is left out here, is demand from more immigrants.
Ford mentioned up to 1Million immigrants within the next three years are slated to move into the GTA area
As much as the housing market wants to crash the other part of the equation are new comers needing and looking for housing.
As a result I can’t see the housing crashing in Toronto beyond 20% as it will be a temporary glim and will return back to abnormally overpriced market for years to come for the foreseeable future!
Isn’t there a housing glut predicted …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7iWoxDgMqU
Only fools would buy real estate at insane levels ! Same with the market. Cash is king again and it will always be despite the big mouth
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in the cloud, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal, as ye have 124 bit passwords and CDIC”.
Same same at the massively overpriced bottom of the world https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/42543
Great article, but don’t refer to this poor dude as an idiot, please. That’s unfair. He bought in 2020, not 3 months ago. He got burned, yes, and he is paying the price, yes, but everyone try not to be so cruel. We’ve all been there on the wrong side of a crash or correction.
Thank you Ellis. I was thinking the same. The excerpt of the article shared with us doesn’t give us the details of this person’s life. Maybe they were buying this condo to rent or flip it. But maybe they were buying it because they were getting married, or starting a family and needed a place of their own to begin a new chapter in their life. We just don’t know. Calling this person an idiot because they made a decision that is different from the author’s decision seems unnecessarily harsh. Personal finance is personal. We all make the decisions we make based on the information available to us and the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Oh man. Where to start?
2008 and 2022 are vastly different. If you wanted a closer comparison, take the 90s – even though it was a commercial catalyst. Saying that conditions aren’t met for a 2008 repeat would mean the bankruptcy of a behemoth the likes of Lehman Brothers. Aside from that, here are a few things you don’t consider:
– historical saving rates. 27% during COVID and 8% over the last few months.
– average credit score is up
– number of mortgage holders with poor credit score is down
– huge immigration backlog due to COVID. Population growth will catch up.
And more importantly than all that: rents in the GTA are insanely high. So what does that mean? Your mortgage is too high? Get a variable, put the place up for rent and downsize. That’s essentially why you see so many places getting delisted. Seriously, check it out.
One last tidbit: inventory is way, way down. Supply goes down, prices go up. Well, in this case, maybe not up but not as low as “crash dreamers” would hope for. Houses are still up yoy.
Anyway, this is a typical “I want to get into real estate so I hope it crashes but then I hope it doesn’t crash when I’m a landlord” type of article. I’ve seen reddit comments with more research put into it.
I think you have the wrong reading of the situation.
Although we are at the beginning a major financial crisis, I expect prices to go “up”, and not “down” !?
In a hyperinflation crisis, the price of everything is going up. Stocks, real estate, food, gas, etc. That is because the “crash” is occuring not on the numerator (ie. individual assets or goods), but instead on the denominator (ie. the currency itself in which all those items are priced in). If the denominator is crashing, the result is an increasing number, providing the numerators are staying the same.
So, my view is that real estate / stocks will stabilize and eventually start going up again!!
Here is an article in the Financial Times last week that talk about this :
https://www.ft.com/content/f3bb0f96-1816-4481-8318-4f7583326a4a
I think it also explains why you think real estate is overpriced since 2012. It may stay that way and get even worse.
It also explains why you have choosen the title of your blog : “millennial REVOLUTION”. Like it is explained in the article, hyperinflation will likely lead to “global societal collapse and civil or international strife”.
stopped when read Financial Times…it’s like The Sun tabloid of the leftist world..i wonder who reads that crap
Ok. Here is the original letter from Elliott Management, if you are interested in reading their analysis of the situation directly from them.
https://www.docdroid.net/1MgHFOK/elliott-letter-pdf
I am not a reader of the Financial Times. It’s just the paper that first reported this news.
I am almost 100% with their thesis, except for the fact that they see hyperinflation as a mere “possibility”. My view is that – at this point – this is almost a “certainty”.
How is this gonna play out exactly, I’m not 100% sure. But I think the cost of avoiding hyperinflation is now so high and would be so painful (ie. a “Great Depression” type environment where stocks and house lose 50% of their value with lots of bankrupcies and most of the banks freezing bank accounts combined with higher taxes and reduced government services) that voters will throw out any politician that choose this path. Hence, we will more likely end up in hyperinflation at some point or another …
So, if you are intelligent enough to read their letter until the end and form your own opinion about the subject, can I ask you how you think things are going play out and if Elliott Management made any major mistake in their analysis ?
Thank you !
Those using the 4% rule, 30 year T-bond paying 4.3% a year now !!! You won’t have to risk a dime to get that…just keep 10% in stocks to compensate for inflation and you’ll be riding off into the sunset!!
haha, yup..good old 30 yr paying 4.3%!!
suckers have ‘balanced portfolios ‘ !! LOL
the word “balanced” is way overrated. There’s nothing “balanced” about bond-stock or even real estate portfolios since the correlation among them are sky high lately !!!! so suckers indeed
It is true that housing price will go down in the current rate hike cycle. But it is going down differently in different areas and housing types. At any points of time in the past, you found articles saying real estate is over valued, but they are going up in price eventually. You must never have seen absurd higher price in India, China, Japan, South Korean, Vietnam real estates, so you could see that Canada real estate is still more affordable from Asian markets, in term of sqare feet. BTW, Better Dwelling is a “broken clock” and unverified news company, they have been forcasting doom and gloom garbaged news for years. GUESS they will eventually be correct lol
Crazy high prices indeed. Of course it has to crash eventually. I do not know how Canadians pay those kinds of mortgages and still live a rich life, for the most part. It does make me appreciate living in a low cost of living rural area here in the states where my 3,000 sq ft modern house with four bedrooms, four bathrooms and two acre yard might possibly sell for $200K USD. Probably wouldn’t bring quite that high. Houses are still very affordable here in the flyover states.
“Biden administration stops taking applications for student loan forgiveness”
Yeyyy!! Finally the communists lost ! Hard blue collar workers cannot pay for doctors, lawyers and engineer’s college.
Yeah it was all a plot to gain votes. Biden is 10x worse than Trump because he’s a wolf disguised as an old sheep
Hope it falls and keeps falling until it becomes affordable again and stays that way…Canada has to do that for the next generation. Homeless in Canada won’t survive much due to the terrible weather we have.
I am from the Netherlands. Prices are going down and this will effect the whole economy eventually.
The main thing is they can choose to buy/rent in Toronto? where they have family … and work? again while settling down in one place or continue to travel … it depends on what phase of life they are in and their own preferences etc …prices of real estate look shaky (and the stock market) for a year or two? with high inflation, interest rates and a recession … great reflection Wanderer