Weekly Update Jul. 30/21

Here's a great article from this week that references how insane the Alberta housing market is becoming. The entire country is now paying attention:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/article-big-real-estate-boom-hits-canadas-small-cities-and-big-towns/?fbclid=IwAR0fPG39pZxPfuM-LnvujfLJ3H4b1bSIlQ2bINO634p7kBTe69VhxSrGpqM

Ouch. Chart does not look good.

As Canada reopens after Covid-19 it will be interesting to see what happens with Trudeau's immigration policy because most of the people who would have came to Canada have already been priced completely out of the rental market. No minimum wage job can support the rents. They all seem to flood through Montreal but rents have gone skyward and especially in Ottawa.

Tom,

No mention of Edmonton or Calgary in that article.

Tom,

Weekly sales 365 a week, might be one of the worse in the country, depressing #, Only reason why prices aren't getting hit, lucky less sellers. Eventually those sellers will be selling, negative gains in a decade, than big trouble.

Well John, the negative gains might not be too bad if people are able to pay down their mortgages quickly. The interest rates of just over 1% will help with this. Time will tell I suppose.

GM: Agreed. These 1% mortgage rates will likely never increase much IMO. If you exclude immigration, we're not growing our GDP at all once you strip out inflation. I suspect we'll continue to see houses do well, especially with oil as high as it is.

Tony: Immigration is going to explode if Trudeau gets his majority in September. That should mean another leg up for housing prices.

Tom,

I agree about the explosion of immigration coming.
But will that necessarily affect Alberta housing prices? Most immigrants will end up in Toronto and Vancouver.

GM: Agreed. Though at some point, you have to think that those without family money to spending $1 million+ for a house will look elsewhere.

How much longer should I wait to sell my house before Trudeau confiscates it?
Our move towards communism is happening much faster than I ever imagined.
Once he has a majority things are going to move very quickly in that direction.

Do I really want to make rich people richer by voting for the Conservatives? Millenials are now a larger voting block than boomers, so I can't see the CPC ever winning again. O'Toole has around 15% support from millenials, so it'll be all the Liberals and NDP for the foreseeable future IMO. Notley is now also in majority territory based on the poll from yesterday, so she's also on trend.

I'm not saying that we should be fully communist, but it's not fair that some people are rich, and others are struggling to even afford housing. I'm a millennial, and everyone I know is planning on voting for Trudeau in next month's election. Trudeau is apparently also likely to make big inroads in Alberta, and is favored to win more seats in Calgary. Kenney is so awful, that O'Toole is going to struggle badly here next month according to the polls. UBI is definitely coming soon, as will the $170 carbon tax/clean fuel standard ($2+ a litre fuel coming for everyone), universal pharmacare and dental, a rise in the GST, and income taxes and corporate taxes are way too low relative. We can't keep running a $400 billion deficit, so I suspect a wealth tax is coming of around 2% annually for assets over $X amount. JMHO.

Tom,
That worked really well for Venezuela. Should work really well for Canada too. Well, you go ahead and vote for Trudeau. See how your life improves.

Like I said, see how your life improves. He's built up more debt in two years than any government in the past 150 years. If you don't think this will have consequences I don't know what to tell you.

I should say "than all governments combined in the last 150 years".

Sorry Sara, I’ll try and keep it RE focussed.

The trend towards anti-wealth and anti-landlord legislation and policy has affected my RE decisions, however. I dumped my rental holdings because I didn’t want to deal with any future eviction restrictions and policies that elevate risk to the landlord in favor of tenant “rights”. Let the big pension funds own the rental stock and property management companies run them for them; I’ll never invest in rental property again under the current political climate. Which if you think about it, of people like me bail out that’s less competition in the system on the supplier side, which will inevitably lead to either higher rent or less supply, which isn’t good for renters. It’s not politically expedient to admit, but it’s the same md result of those policies.

T-Rev: That's a good decision. I know a friend who also recently sold his holdings, as she realized how unethical it is to profit from a basic human necessity. How is it fair that some people have houses, and others rent? All future real estate should be rentals IMO. There's just so much greed/capitalism in our society today, which I think is why millennials are quickly shifting to a better approach, politically. Basically a 180 degree difference compared to the continuously shrinking Boomer cohort ideology.

Tom,

With COVID almost over, I think you should go travel through some communist countries, or at least some heavily socialist, quasi democratic ones. Please report back to us on the excellent opportunities and superior standard of living that comes when government tries to control everything, seizes personal wealth and assets, and hard work is punished or at least de-incentivized. Heck, you could just sit on your couch and use the google machine as a preliminary research tool. Go ahead- find us a place or a time with a more egalitarian system that provides a higher overall standard of living and provide us with the example.

Look forward to the results of your research.

Hey Guys,
This discussion is really off-topic. Can we leave the political discussion out of it and stick to real estate?
Thanks
Sara.

"All future real estate should be rentals IMO"

Wow. I don't know where to go from here.

“All future real estate should be rentals IMO”

Tom,
You and your crazy friends should move to another country, maybe Russia would take you.