Furnaceface posted:

Could someone familiar with Ontario housing please explain to me why our current, and most likely soon to be reelected, mayor is saying that rapidly rising housing costs in Barrie is a good thing?

Lexicon posted:

Cute that we're still allowing a little island with half the population of greater Victoria to pretend it's a province.

It is insane that the Atlantics have still not yet amalgamated into a single province.

quote:

Last month, we wondered whether Canada’s anemic job growth, which was mostly being driven by the growth of the part-time labour force, was a cause for worry. While the latest data more than offset August’s remarkable drop in private-sector employment and ease some concerns about the rise of part-timers, they do not change the overall picture. Employment growth has been sluggish, particularly compared to the US.

A few highlights from the latest data:

Canada calculates its unemployment rate slightly differently than its southern neighbor. Thus the official figure of 6.8 per cent is equivalent to a rate of 5.9 per cent in the US — the same rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week. (For a more in-depth comparison of US and Canadian labour market statistics, this study from Statistics Canada is a good place to start.)

Despite the strong hiring by private firms in September, about 59 per cent of the net job growth over the past 12 months has come from the public sector, with most of those gains concentrated in “public administration”. Within the private sector, more than all of the net growth since last Septemeber can be attributed to hiring by the “accommodation and food services” sector — not a source of particularly well-paying jobs, even in Canada.

Part-time employment accounted for just over half of the net job growth in the year to September. Full-time employment among women aged 25 and older fell by 0.4 per cent over the past 12 months even as part-time employment rose by 2.1 per cent. Total employment has been basically flat over the year. Further south, employment among women aged 25 and older increased by about 1 per cent.

Canadian men have done better. Of the total job growth for men 25 and older, about 75 per cent came from the full-time hiring. Total employment has increased by 1.4 per cent over the year. Their American counterparts experienced employment gains of about 2.4 per cent over the same period.

Canada’s main advantage over the US is that its employment-population ratio fell much less during the recession and has continued to be significantly higher than the US equivalent since then, by about three percentage points. The interesting question is how much longer this outperformance can continue in the face of sluggish job growth and collapsing commodity prices.

Cultural Imperial posted:

would u liek fries with that

Tighclops posted:

This is the lamest dystopia ever

Tighclops posted:

This is the lamest dystopia ever

Antifreeze Head posted:

The average number of constituents per MP in PEI is 35,051 (including the MPs themselves).

If every Canadian was as well represented as the average person on PEI there would be 1014 Members.

Rime posted:

We could turn C-SPAN into a Pay-Per-View channel and eradicate the deficit overnight.

quote:

A record 7,132 condo apartments were rented across the GTA in July, August and September, but demand for all those granite-and-glass units now lighting up the city’s skyline appears to be easing, says condo research firm Urbanation.
While the number of condo leases signed was up 10 per cent in the third quarter over the same period a year ago, that’s about half the rate of growth seen during the first half of 2014.
In fact, that’s the slowest pace of growth in condo rental demand seen in the last two years, says Urbanation in a third-quarter assessment of what’s typically the busiest period of the year for signing new leases.
The slower pace of demand was blamed largely on a dip in listings from the record high of 8,961 in the second-quarter as fewer new projects registered, translating into a drop in the number of investor-owned units put up for rent.
But the slower pace of demand is also seen as a sign of what could lie ahead in this huge, and growing, sector of the rental housing market that’s seen fierce competition, and even rent bidding wars, driven largely by millennials keen to live close to the core in new, towering highrises.
“Rental activity is heading towards a more sustainable pace as demand levels out following extremely high rates of growth in previous quarters,” says Shaun Hildebrand, Urbanation’s senior vice-president.
“With the fundamentals such as immigration, population and employment growth in Toronto recently slowing while condo completions move higher, rents can be expected to stay flat over the next year, although remain supported (roughly at existing levels) by still low rates of vacancy.”
Condo rents averaged $1,870 during the third quarter of this year, essentially flat compared to a year ago, the research firm noted.
While condo developers have been building smaller and smaller units the last few years to cut costs and try to maintain affordability, the third quarter was noteworthy for one other reason: The average size of condos rented actually increased slightly, from 755 to 767 square feet, it says.

Cultural Imperial posted:

I got no problem with that. Just tying off another potential riot.

quote:

Medium Ground Social Housing

Diverted from the landfill and saved from oblivion, precious fragments of the Little Mountain Housing Project are now available for purchase.

Each PILLOW PACK contains 1oz/29g of ground social housing and entitles the bearer to a THANK YOU CREDIT in the film. Want to gift it to a friend? Enter their info in the shipping address.

CONTEST to will be launched TBA to see who has the BEST CREATIVE IDEAS on how to use it! More details at littlemountainfilm.com Note: Add $10 ship outside Canada.

quote:

“In my opinion, I think it’s good for the economy,” Ms. Hong says, noting that the number of Chinese residents on her street has soared in recent years and that the local businessman she bought her house from made a cool $1.5-million more than he originally paid. “In Vancouver,” Ms. Hong says, “the house prices are perfect.”

Kafka Esq. posted:

Heh, imagine if he said "exterminate all black people". Imagine the torrent of abuse poor CI would have to endure from the evil SJWs.

Cultural Imperial posted:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/vancouvers-real-estate-boom-the-rising-price-of-heaven/article21071391/


exterminate all mainland chinese

Isentropy posted:

I believe we should be trying to help immigrants settle in Canada CI, not chasing them away. These fine guys are doing a hell of a job.



they're changing their name

Guest2553 posted:

quote:

Kevin is a 27-year-old Vancouver resident who makes about $50,000 a year as a graphics designer and has $520,000 worth of debt — an amount he feels quite at peace with.

This amount is made up of a $200,000 mortgage on his home, $200,000 in agriculture loans for a farm that he rents out, $70,000 on his line of credit and $50,000 in margin loans or money borrowed from a brokerage to invest.

“If I don’t accumulate enough debt I won’t be able to buy all the things that I want, leverage my investments for growth, and enjoy a meaningful life,” he says. “It allows me to take advantage of cheap credit to fund my hobbies and lifestyle choices. But at the same time it gives me an adequate margin of safety so that I can manage my debts in a safe and controlled manner.”

Canadians have increasingly become more comfortable with debt. Despite the Bank of Canada repeatedly sounding the alarm about household debt levels, calling it the biggest domestic risk facing the Canadian economy, we continue to take on more. But how much debt is too much?

“It depends,” says certified financial planner Jason Heath. “You may have a young lawyer who just graduated from law school with student debt who is suddenly making $300,000 a year and has a big mortgage that he can blow out of the water in 10 years. It might not be a good comparison relative to someone who is self-employed in a volatile industry and who doesn’t know how much money he’s going to make next year.”

But there are rules of thumb, or guidelines, that can help determine how healthy your situation is or where you stand. You can start by comparing your debt with the average Canadian’s.

Statistics Canada says that the average level of household credit market debt to disposable income was 163.6% between April and June. That means we owe almost $1.64 for every $1 that we make. Kevin, who asked that his last name not be disclosed, has a debt-to-income ratio of about 1,000%. Economists have said that a more stable ratio would be between 110% and 120%. The ratio was closer to those figures in the early 2000s when the economy was on firmer ground, says Cris deRitis, senior director at Moody’s Analytics.

But consider these two scenarios. A woman who makes $100,000 a year and has a $164,000 outstanding mortgage on her huge Vancouver home versus a man who earns $25,000 a year and owes $41,000 on his line of credit and on credit cards. Both have debt-to-income ratios of 164%; but who is better off?

Obviously, not all debt is equal; the composition of your debt is key to understanding where you stand.

“From an investment perspective, I consider good debt to be real estate or education. Bad debt would be any other consumer debt. Car debt is an inevitable debt that is neither good nor bad,” Mr. Heath says. “From a tax perspective, bad debt would be money borrowed for a non-invested purpose: your house, student loan. Good debt would be money borrowed for an investment purpose: to buy a rental property or invest in a business or stocks and bonds because the interest is tax-deductible.”

As a general rule, your debt load (housing costs, car loans, credit card payments, etc.) should not exceed 40% of your pre-tax income.

“If you’ve got a student loan [and you're paying] $10,000 per year and you make $50,000, that’s consuming about 20% [of your income] already and if you take a mortgage on top of that, it shouldn’t [add up to] be more than than 40%,” says Michelle Snow, associate vice-president of retail products at TD Canada Trust.

To grant you a mortgage, financial institutions also want to see that your housing costs (mortgage payments, property taxes, condo fees, etc.) will be below 32% of your gross income. It’s getting tougher to come under this ratio as housing prices have ballooned. The typical family in Vancouver would need to spend 62% of income on mortgage payments to buy a bungalow, a report Friday from BMO suggests. This jumps to 75% if rates were 2 percentage points higher. In Toronto, it would take 42% of income currently, moving up to 50% if rates were to rise 2 percentage points.

“Thirty years ago, the average house cost three times the average family’s income and now it’s something like seven or eight times; so the cost to purchase a house relative to income, that ratio has gone up hugely,” Mr. Heath says.

While households in the U.S. have been shrinking their debt levels since the financial crisis, Canadians are borrowing more. “Macroeconomic shocks like rising interest rates, a labour market slump or falling house prices could pose a serious threat to the solvency of highly indebted households,” an Allianz Global Wealth Report warns.

Despite the warnings, our total lending volume rose by 4.4% in the course of the year, reaching historic per capital debt levels, the same report said. Also, years of low interest rates — five-year closed insured mortgages are now below 3% and variable rates fell under 2% this year — have lulled us into a sense of security.

“A lot of people forget that as recently as the summer of 2008, the prime rate was 6.25%,” Mr. Heath says. “People need to envision: Here’s what will happen if my mortgage is at 5%.”

Moody’s Analytics predicted this week that interest rates will remain the same until the end of this year and rise next year. The Bank of Canada’s overnight interest rate is forecast to rise to 1.5% by the end of next year from 1% now, where it has stood for four years, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Even a 2% increase in interest rates would spell disaster for many Canadians. A BMO survey released in March reported that, 20% of respondents felt a 2% increase “would hamper their ability to afford their home.”

Even a slight change in the interest rate will push thousands into bankruptcy, adds Frank Bennett, a bankruptcy insolvency lawyer and author of Bennett On Consumer Bankruptcy.

In 1984, there were 22,022 consumer insolvencies; in 2013, there were 118,678, he says.

“What we’re seeing is approximately 10,000 consumers going bankrupt a month in Canada,” he says. “They’re paying exorbitant interest rates on credit cards and household debt. They’re using one credit card to pay another and they’re out of money by Friday night. What you’re seeing is people treading water, they’re just hanging in there and if any one in a couple gets sick or has a problem and stays away from employment, the deck of cards collapses.”

He says to make sure that you have a contingency plan; consider what happens when one person in your household loses his or her job or gets injured and cannot work. Who will continue servicing your debts and paying your bills?

Kevin, with his 1,000% debt-to-income ratio, has done the math and stress-tested his personal finances. “I have emergency liquidity from moving my investments around and selling assets. If interest rates were to increase I will simply lower my debt-to-net-worth ratio,” he says. “The key is to be flexible and have a solid understanding of one’s unique financial situation.”

Coylter posted:

Kevin,

If the the interests go up, you will be wiped out.

etalian posted:

lol

If I don’t accumulate enough debt I won’t be able to buy all the things that I want, leverage my investments for growth, and enjoy a meaningful life,” he says. “It allows me to take advantage of cheap credit to fund my hobbies and lifestyle choices. But at the same time it gives me an adequate margin of safety so that I can manage my debts in a safe and controlled manner.”


I guess basic underwriting is really broken in Canada if they let someone with 50,000 yearly income take out 1000x in different loans.