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I want a completely-underground dwelling with sunlight lamps (on timers, of course, to adjust to whenever I need to go to sleep and wake up) and the ability to choose whichever "view" I want at any given time through 4k "windows". It especially appeals to me because I notice my parkade is the only part of the building that remains cool in the summer, and I'm sweating my bag off in my apartment.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:01
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/high-end-home-sales-booming-across-canada-1.2698908quote:
More now than ever, between this article, yesterday's article on the mortgage backed securities and the fact that the IIP is gone, I am convinced this bubble is solely the result of ease of access to mortgages. Rich foreigners probably have very little impact on Canada's market.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:01
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God, I wish they would just tell us when they're going to raise interest rates. For gently caress's sake.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:07
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Not until after the next federal election. They would not want a crisis on their hands just before going to the polls.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:18
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Baronjutter posted:In their place the city erected 3 tree-sized public-art silhouettes the exact same shape as the trees were. This is fantastic. What a brilliant solution.
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Jul 8, 2014 18:33
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http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/08/real_estate/home-sales-to-chinese/quote:
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Jul 8, 2014 20:27
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Baronjutter posted:I think it was somewhere in seattle, but some rich poo poo head kept asking a neighbour below him (on a hill) to cut down trees to improve his view. The neighbour didn't want to and the trees were technically on city land. The dude demanded the city cut them down because his PROPERTY VALUES could go up with better views, they of course didn't. Then "someone" poisoned the trees and they had to be cut down. In their place the city erected 3 tree-sized public-art silhouettes the exact same shape as the trees were. this is incredible, Seattle is sounding like a very nice city
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Jul 8, 2014 20:35
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Kafka Esq. posted:Good for her. Yeah, for sure. None of this has ever gotten past the "complain about the neighbors" thing though, the dude with the giant mansion is fighting it out himself with the district, and the other neighbors seem to just be happy to whine at her to cut down her trees.
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Jul 8, 2014 22:10
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https://twitter.com/AlexBurnsVRE/status/485158812723453952quote:BUY A HOME WITH ZERO DOWN IN GREATER VICTORIA What a good idea E: https://twitter.com/RayRochefort/status/486220280629456897 https://twitter.com/REALTOR_Jacqui/status/486241581981499392 namaste friends fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 06:28
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https://twitter.com/BrettEHouse/status/486687615161499648quote:
Prices and sales are still going up in Montreal despite the ridiculous inventory. Again, this is all about the availability of mortgages. There's no way this would be happening in Montreal if people who couldn't afford houses were shut out of the market by banks who knew better than to lend to them. Oh wait the government will guarantee the loan so no problem. namaste friends fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 06:37
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Cultural Imperial - how the hell are you finding these tweets? Hopefully not by manually trawling through all the realtors in Twitter?  edit, sorry, REALTOR™
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Jul 9, 2014 15:02
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Lexicon posted:Cultural Imperial - how the hell are you finding these tweets? Hopefully not by manually trawling through all the realtors in Twitter? There's 4 economics/finance related guys I follow on Twitter and they retweet this stuff. Check out a guy named @ac_eco. He's my favourite.
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Jul 9, 2014 15:04
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http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report...?service=mobilequote:Canada’s housing market is again proving to be hotter than economists expected.
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Jul 9, 2014 17:31
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It's a pretty tough gig, being a Canadian housing bear. If I actually wanted to own property, my resolve might have crumbled by this point, given that it's now mid-2014 with no correction in sight, and I've thought things were nuts since well before 2010.
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Jul 9, 2014 18:23
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Lexicon posted:It's a pretty tough gig, being a Canadian housing bear. If I actually wanted to own property, my resolve might have crumbled by this point, given that it's now mid-2014 with no correction in sight, and I've thought things were nuts since well before 2010. It's confounding that no one considers relative value when it comes to purchasing a home. You know that vancouverites understand at least something about value for money if you count all the people that will drive 2 hours south to buy a coach handbag at a discount. On the other hand the part of the brain that performs this calculation completely shuts down when it comes to a dwelling that costs a couple orders of magnitude more.
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Jul 9, 2014 18:40
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Cultural Imperial posted:It's confounding that no one considers relative value when it comes to purchasing a home. You know that vancouverites understand at least something about value for money if you count all the people that will drive 2 hours south to buy a coach handbag at a discount. On the other hand the part of the brain that performs this calculation completely shuts down when it comes to a dwelling that costs a couple orders of magnitude more. Well the house is going to go up up up in value, whereas that Coach bag could end up worth less!
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Jul 9, 2014 18:54
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Cultural Imperial posted:It's confounding that no one considers relative value when it comes to purchasing a home. You know that vancouverites understand at least something about value for money if you count all the people that will drive 2 hours south to buy a coach handbag at a discount. On the other hand the part of the brain that performs this calculation completely shuts down when it comes to a dwelling that costs a couple orders of magnitude more. 1) Lack of understanding of opportunity cost 2) Lack of understanding of time-value-of-money calculations 3) Lack of understanding of other investment options and prudent tax-shelter utilization 4) Lack of understanding of price:rent measures, etc In all these cases, it's a Rumsfeldian unknown-unknown - most people literally have no idea that they don't know these things.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:05
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Yeah, I think the value proposition gets blurry because a lot of messaging right now doesn't think of a house as an assest that fulfills a basic need but as an investment, and a good investment, if not the best investment one could possibly make.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:07
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peter banana posted:Yeah, I think the value proposition gets blurry because a lot of messaging right now doesn't think of a house as an assest that fulfills a basic need but as an investment, and a good investment, if not the best investment one could possibly make. Yeah. It helps that it's an asset for which a vast infrastructure (CMHC, etc) exists to allow people to leverage their small or even non-existent down payment, and if you've done that in the past 10-15 years, you've probably done well. Even if the rates of return are modest compared to balanced portfolios, no one's giving you 20x leverage backed by the taxpayer to buy equities.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:16
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I think I sort of explained or talked a friend out of wanting to buy. We're all too poor to even think about buying in Victoria, but her dad is super rich and a big reason is "smart" realestate buys. She was saying she grew up with parents who got rich being "smart" with their real-estate and now her dad is pushing her to "get in sooner than later" and "start building equity". I did my best to explain that no one buying in the 80's were smart or that our generation is dumb for not buying at their age, it's that houses were dirt cheap the and that housing usually just goes up more or less with inflation, but we saw a ridiculously insane and unsustainable bubble grow since then. I tried to explain that our parents generation got rich off their housing because they bought low and sold high, then bought high and sold higher, then bought higher and sold ridiculously high and that just isn't sustainable. She said she hates paying rent because it's "throwing your money away" and would rather pay "a little more" to own something. I did my best to explain rent vs buying and all the hidden costs in that calculation. Anyways, she was probably just being nice or nodding along to the crazy person with crazy ideas that directly conflict with how she was raised and all her peers and family, but she claimed to be much less interested in buying after we talked. It can be a hard thing to explain to people on the spot. Even just basic non-bubble related poo poo like "renting is throwing away money". That's so prevalent out there, even in my generation of early-30's. The only reason they don't own is because prices are too high. They complain it's yet another case of "being poor is expensive" in that they have to waste their money renting rather than building equity owning and that the government needs to "do something" to make it easier for them to get their starter condo so they can get in on the property ladder. It's really distressing to hear educated left-wing folk basically saying the government needs to do MORE to make debt more available.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:29
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Haha there were a bunch of tweets about how you can't borrow 500k at less than 3% to invest in equities in Canada. On the other hand, a house is not a problem.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:30
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Baronjutter posted:"renting is throwing away money" This canard is a perfect example of what I mean about not understanding TVM. Of course rent is a cost. The interest associated with a mortgage amortization is also a cost. I got my parents over the "rent is throwing money away" thing with this analogy: Me: "what you rather do, lease or buy a car?" Dad: "Obviously buy, only idiots lease" Me: "Sure, at current prices. What if you could lease a Honda Civic for $100 a month, but they cost $100k to buy?" Dad: "Hmm..." Me: "You'd obviously rent. If prices and rents get too far out of line - it's simply a better value to rent, even if the conventional wisdom favoured buying. That's where housing is."
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Jul 9, 2014 19:41
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Lexicon posted:This canard is a perfect example of what I mean about not understanding TVM. Of course rent is a cost. The interest associated with a mortgage amortization is also a cost. This is a great analogy. I'm adding it to the bucket 'o analogies I use that I shared upthread somewhere.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:48
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Baronjutter posted:The only reason they don't own is because prices are too high. They complain it's yet another case of "being poor is expensive" in that they have to waste their money renting rather than building equity owning and that the government needs to "do something" to make it easier for them to get their starter condo so they can get in on the property ladder. It's really distressing to hear educated left-wing folk basically saying the government needs to do MORE to make debt more available. Ironically if the government raised interest rates it would do wonders for the affordability of houses.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:49
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Rutibex posted:Ironically if the government raised interest rates it would do wonders for the affordability of houses. It would also probably trigger a new recession (or worse). Hence we're not gonna see that before the elections.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:57
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Rutibex posted:Ironically if the government raised interest rates it would do wonders for the affordability of houses. No way. Raising interest rates helps people who already have money. Social Justice (tm) says we need to help people without money, and they need houses! So what we need to do is make it easier for our savingsless and low-income generation to get into debt. Housing prices are going up forever at the same rate as the last 10 years, this is an obvious fact since it's all we've ever seen our adult lives. So clearly mortgages for the poor is a good investment because it will let them build equity. I'm not joking, I've had this argument recently with self-described leftists. Also renting is just making rent-seeking landlords rich. Owning means all the money you pay into your mortgage eventually makes you rich for when you finally sell, that's building equity. They actually said this. I said no, it's just making the banks rich, which are a far more horrible capitalist force of evil than a lovely landlord. They said "that's different" and "that's why the government needs to keep rates low so the banks can't make too much money off mortgages" I don't consider my self financially literate but hooooooly poo poo. Most people near the conversation seemed much more swayed or sided with his idea that we need to keep or even lower current interest rates to help the poor get a leg-up onto the property ladder.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:58
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If you want to help the poor by loving around with interest rates, it's the interest rates on payday loans and credit cards that you have to go after. The moment you buy a house, you shouldn't be in any kind of definition of "poor", but we live in hosed up times.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:00
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Baronjutter posted:and "that's why the government needs to keep rates low so the banks can't make too much money off mortgages" That's literally insane. edit: I mean you have to be blind quote:Once again Canada’s big five banks have delivered a record performance, with total profit in the last fiscal year of $29.4-billion, up a healthy 5% from last year despite the weak economy, slower consumer lending and other headwinds. Coylter fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 20:00
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Baronjutter posted:No way. Raising interest rates helps people who already have money. Social Justice (tm) says we need to help people without money, and they need houses! So what we need to do is make it easier for our savingsless and low-income generation to get into debt. Housing prices are going up forever at the same rate as the last 10 years, this is an obvious fact since it's all we've ever seen our adult lives. So clearly mortgages for the poor is a good investment because it will let them build equity. This is what we're up against: a status quo so powerful that even the natural opposition, leftist social justice types, argue in favour of it.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:01
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Coylter posted:That's literally insane. My god. So many incorrect premises
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Jul 9, 2014 20:02
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It's really weird. There's a lot on the left and social-justice front that seem to think any sort of financial literacy is bad. "Finance" and "economics" are evil capitalist things not worth study and anyone who knows too much about them is probably part of the financial class. The financial class got us into this mess so why should we care about their dark science?? Marx was basically an early economist and so many contemporary capitalists even use his work or the foundations he laid. Being willfully financially ignorant is not a leftist merit badge. Also, social housing is bad because it's slums and the residents don't own so they aren't building equity, don't have pride of ownership, and will remain poor forever. It's like they have some 18th century understanding of class. The poor don't own land, but if you own land you aren't poor. All wealth flows from land ownership. Thus the ultimate goal is to help everyone own land and thus class problems will vanish! They honestly think that because housing will keep growing at current rates, eventually the divide between the home-owners and renters will be so high we'll go back to a system to peasants and land-owning nobles, and the only way to avoid it is to make sure everyone gets their foot in the door so this rising tide can lift all ships. It's this weird mixing of really lazy low-info leftism and Victoria-Vancouver ownership obsession.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:18
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^ Absolutely spot-on. A big part of my disillusionment with the left is the proclivity for magical thinking. edit: I've long speculated that the decline in unionization, and particularly the decline in union action is at least partly down to the widespread indebtedness through mortgages and other consumer debt. People with a $400k debt millstone around their neck tend not to be keen to strike. Lexicon fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 20:23
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You need to stop hanging around these people. I was gonna post this in the BFC canadian finance and investing thread but I think it's probably more topical here given all the interest rate chat. http://on.ft.com/1syc3Sf quote:
Can someone explain to me why anyone would buy a 50 year bond at record low interest rates? Especially considering everyone's loving long term outlook is that the US economy is in recovery?
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Jul 9, 2014 20:24
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It literally states it in your quote. Pension funds wants to match their assets with their liabilities. One way they do this is by matching the maturity of the assets they but with their liabilities. It's beyond the scope of this thread but a bond's maturity affects its response to interest rate changes.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:37
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This just popped up on twitter: http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1384913/securities-regulator-alleges-that-married-couple-acted-contrary-to-the-public-interest quote:Securities regulator alleges that married couple acted contrary to the public interest Don't REALTOR(TM)s engage in this kind of behaviour all the time with so-called sell outs of condos?
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Jul 9, 2014 20:37
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maybe all the REALTOR's cats just stepped all over all the REALTOR's keyboards
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Jul 9, 2014 20:42
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Cultural Imperial posted:Liu stated that her computer froze, and she inadvertently entered the orders by randomly clicking her mouse and pressing buttons on her keyboard. That's a fantastic 'dog ate my homework' sort of excuse
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Jul 9, 2014 20:49
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Lexicon posted:That's a fantastic 'dog ate my homework' sort of excuse More like "A dog ate my homework and then some how poo poo out readable homework that just happens to be plagiarized".
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Jul 9, 2014 20:50
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Hey, I have a friend who's a lazy low-info leftist, and obviously I know lots about finance and economics, but could you help me explain to him the obvious solution to the Canadian Housing Bubble that I'm missing? Also, if some of the experts in this thread could post their predictions for how the bubble will come apart I would appreciate it. I know with absolute certainty there won't be a soft landing, only and idiot would think that, but I'd like to compare notes on the inevitable future.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:28
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Persona non grata posted:Hey, I have a friend who's a lazy low-info leftist, and obviously I know lots about finance and economics, but could you help me explain to him the obvious solution to the Canadian Housing Bubble that I'm missing? Also, if some of the experts in this thread could post their predictions for how the bubble will come apart I would appreciate it. I know with absolute certainty there won't be a soft landing, only and idiot would think that, but I'd like to compare notes on the inevitable future. I don't know that there is an obvious solution - not obvious to me anyway. As for coming apart, it'll happen like all bubbles do - the most recent holders of the asset run out of even greater fools to sell on at higher prices to. edit: it's like the joke about asking the Irishman how to get to Dublin - he replies "well I wouldn't have started from here". It's easy to criticize the lunacy of certain government policy over the years. Rather more difficult to prescribe a clean way to unwind it, even if the political will existed (which it doesn't, because most of the country is all MUH PROPERTY VALUES).
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Jul 9, 2014 21:34
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