Lexicon posted:

Sounds like someone needs to loving grow up.

Baronjutter posted:

My lovely friend had to move there and isn't enjoying it. She showed us her drivers license and she's actually crying in it, they had to take a few pictures for one to be accepted because you can't be obviously crying in your license picture. That's how bad Alberta is, made a grown woman cry when it finally hit her she's there to stay for the next few years.

M.McFly posted:

As someone who grew up in Edmonton but now lives in Victoria, hooooooooooo boy is she in for a shock, especially if she's used to the 'outdoor lifestyle'. There's gently caress all around Edmonton unless you drive 3 hours to Jasper.

Mederlock posted:

You're so wrong. Edmonton has several great lake and wetland areas that are perfect for day hikes, and shitloads of kayaking/canoeing opportunities. The River Valley is huge and awesome, Elk Island National Park is super close, and a 3 hour drive to the Rockies isn't a hardship. I mean, Victoria is pretty drat close to mountains and stuff, but of all the places to move to East of the Rockies, Edmonton is a pretty decent choice for outdoorsy stuff.

Killin_Like_Bronson posted:

Selling vehicles in Alberta is fun. Riggers love to trade out every year, after burying them in 96 month terms three years in a row that $55,000 half ton becomes an $80,000 loan. I've tried to tell people to wait or take longer terms, but they keep needing that new truck for whatever the gently caress reason. Albertans are really dumb. Really really dumb.

quote:

QE feeding Europe house price bubble, says study

The European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme risks fuelling house price bubbles in several countries, according to new research, as investors pour cash into real estate.

Germany, Norway and the UK are judged most at risk because ultra-low interest rates and bond yields have fuelled rapid house price growth, said the report by Moody’s Analytics.

Anna Zabrodzka, the author, said rising prices and the ECB’s €60bn-a-month asset-buying programme have caused “the risk of house price bubbles” to “resurface”.
“While bond markets have experienced a correction and yields on German sovereign debt climbed recently, they are still extraordinarily low,” she said. “This has encouraged investment in the property market, which yields a higher return.”

Since 2010 average house prices in Norway have risen more than 30 per cent, in Germany by nearly 25 per cent and in the UK by nearly 15 per cent, Moody’s Analytics found.

The rises are buoyed by rapid growth in big cities such as London, Oslo and Munich, where properties are “becoming increasingly overvalued”, it added.
Lucian Cook, director of residential research at Savills, property advisers, said that “cash has become a much greater driver of house prices” across Europe in recent years due to low interest rates and weak returns on other asset classes.

The search for yield has also pushed a surge of money into the commercial property market over the past couple of years, sparking fears of a separate bubble. In 2014 global commercial property prices and yields hit levels last seen before the financial crisis, research published This year showed.

The Bundesbank warned in late 2013 that average German house prices could be overvalued by as much as 10 per cent, and by 20 per cent in some big cities. Moody’s Analytics said this was “also evident in London and Oslo”.

The greatest risk of a bubble lies in Norway, the researchers said. Concern has been mounting there for some time. In 2012, the IMF lowered the country’s growth forecast, blaming rapid house price growth.

Norway’s Financial Supervisory Authority said this year that falling interest rates were pushing the housing market into an upward spiral. Despite this the Norwegian central bank has continued to cut interest rates in an effort to prop up the economy in the face of low oil prices.

Germany’s housing market has long had a reputation for being stable, with little if any price growth. Unlike most other big European economies it avoided a housing market slump after the global financial crisis.

But since 2009 prices there have been rising steadily due to Germany’s reputation as an economic haven.

“Growing demand for German properties is leading to overvaluation, especially given the insufficient supply,” Moody’s Analytics reported. Construction has now begun to pick up but “it will take a few years before supply catches up to demand”.

Although the Bank of England has halted its own quantitative easing programme, British house prices are still growing strongly. They rose by 5.7 per cent in the year to May.

This growth rate has slowed somewhat — in the same period the previous year prices rose by 10.4 per cent.

Last year the Bank of England introduced tougher mortgage lending rules, and warned that a resurgence in the country’s pre-credit crunch house price boom risked derailing Britain’s economic recovery.

But Moody’s Analytics said that loan standards in Britain are “still relatively loose”, primarily because of the government’s Help to Buy scheme, which subsidises purchases. In particular, the number of mortgages with high loan-to-value ratios has risen sharply since the programme was introduced in 2013.

THC posted:

I probably wouldn't cry if i had to move to Munich or Oslo.

Lexicon posted:

It is my contention that an overwhelmingly vast percentage of people who purport to be into the "outdoor lifestyle", and proclaim so at every opportunity haven't seen a hiking trail or similar venue in well over a year

EvilJoven posted:

Zardoz, speaks to you, his chosen ones. You have been raised up from rental suites to sell to the renters that multiply and are legion. To this end, Zardoz, gave you the gift of the pride of ownership. The mortgage is good. The lease is evil. The lease is just throwing your money away paying someone else's mortgage, as once it was. But the mortgage shoots equity and purifies the earth of the filth of renters. Go forth and sell. Zardoz has spoken.

Cultural Imperial posted:

wow i bet you're that guy that sits in one of those cafes painted entirely in white paint reading the walrus

EvilJoven posted:

Cultural Imperial posted:

Oslo, Munich, London - the best places on earth

sitchensis posted:

I lived in Victoria for my entire life up until six years ago when I moved to Edmonton. Shortly after that I moved to Calgary. I also lived in both cities without a car. Didn't have a problem. I actually really liked Edmonton. Parts of it reminded me of Victoria and it was generally pretty easy to get around if you knew the system or had a bike.

Now I live in Toronto and I can't stand it.

So YMMV.

Tipps posted:

I grew up in a suburb of good ol Sudbury, Ontario. I now live in downtown Vancouver.

Even with the increasingly unaffordable housing, the decaying communities, the explosion of homelessness, the completely useless local governments - I will never, ever, go back to living in a place like Sudbury.

Granted, my sister who stayed in Greater Sudbury recently bought a home on a double-digit acre property for like 200k a few km from where we grew up. I'm jealous of that. But then I remember that I can just walk everywhere and not have to drive on ice roads to work every day.

ray_finkle posted:

I did almost the exact opposite move as you. Moved to Sudbury last year from Whistler. Sudbury is terrible. If this thread thinks lifted bro pickups are concentrated in Ft Mac come here and see the ridiculous number of jacked up trucks and ford raptors. In a city with declining employment I don't get how everyone here has a sled boat lifted truck and quad. Thank God for cheap credit or this place would be hosed!

Furnaceface posted:

Honestly I find it hilarious we all make fun of Alberta for the truck nuts crew when rural Ontario is literally just as bad. Anything from Barrie up fits the same mold.

Also 200k is kind of ridiculous for 2 acres in the middle nowhere (that also happens to be in the middle of the snow belt). I wonder if that article was right about hobby farms and cottage country being the first things to feel the effects of a bubble crash because right now the prices are hilarious, especially in Simcoe/Muskoka.

Furnaceface posted:

Honestly I find it hilarious we all make fun of Alberta for the truck nuts crew when rural Ontario is literally just as bad. Anything from Barrie up fits the same mold.

Furnaceface posted:

Also 200k is kind of ridiculous for 2 acres in the middle nowhere (that also happens to be in the middle of the snow belt). I wonder if that article was right about hobby farms and cottage country being the first things to feel the effects of a bubble crash because right now the prices are hilarious, especially in Simcoe/Muskoka.

quote:

Due to a slow down in the oil patch, food banks across Alberta are suddenly overrun with demand. Today, Alberta Food Banks is issuing a news release with an urgent call for donations, saying "the shelves are bare" at many locations.

"I've personally talked to a dozen food banks in the last two to three months and I can't think of one that has said their numbers haven't increased," executive director Stephanie Rigby said. "We know that there may be more to come, and I know the food banks are bracing."

Many newcomers, such as Pamela in Edmonton, are first-time users. "I never thought it would come to this," she said about seeking donated food.

Until she was laid off at Christmas, Pamela was earning $38 an hour working in the oil industry. We are withholding her last name because she worries publishing it will hurt her chances of landing another job.

Pamela says she and her husband, who's off work due to an injury, finally decided to turn to the food bank because they're running out of cash. They can barely keep up with their bills and are struggling to make the minimum payments on $17,000 in credit-card debt they've racked up to cover costs.

"We've fallen upon hard times," Pamela said, adding that it's "a common experience" in oil country.

Furnaceface posted:

Honestly I find it hilarious we all make fun of Alberta for the truck nuts crew when rural Ontario is literally just as bad. Anything from Barrie up fits the same mold.

Also 200k is kind of ridiculous for 2 acres in the middle nowhere (that also happens to be in the middle of the snow belt). I wonder if that article was right about hobby farms and cottage country being the first things to feel the effects of a bubble crash because right now the prices are hilarious, especially in Simcoe/Muskoka.

Rime posted:

With twice the debt of California, Ontario is now the world’s most indebted sub-sovereign borrower



Sorry for the double post, I'm drunk as sin.