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Kafka Esq. posted:haha, you're so full of poo poo. The president is going to alter a treaty by himself, is he? You couldn't tell from this? Hal_2005 posted:and the market moves back into normal backwardation, where supply takes care of itself, and normal cost producers are given their true, time value adjusted rate of return (100% of the profits and a full value capture; much to the bitter salty tears of traders and socialists everywhere). Hint: Traditional socialist logic is that we need wealth transfer because labor (normal cost producers) are being screwed by capitol (Traders, managers, and middlemen).
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Jan 14, 2015 20:38
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As for the Norway fund, there's only one problem I can think of for it. The Norway Sovereign fund is supposed to cover government deficits in emergencies, so if the general Norwegian economy collapses, the fund might get spent trying to prop it up. The actual asset allocation looks fairly good. Only 5% of the fund is real estate, and the rest of it appears to be well diversified across many markets and countries. If Hal actually has some info indicating otherwise, I'd be interested in hearing it. But the fund appears as safe as an investment fund could be.
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Jan 14, 2015 21:08
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Of course, dumb finance stuff in Canada is not limited to Europeans in Canada. From A History of Interest Rates By Sidney Homer, Richard Eugene Sylla about the Kwakiutl natives of Vancouver Island.
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Jan 7, 2020 02:47
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To bring it back to housing, you should sign up for the Housing Supply Challenge. It probably won't come to much, since it's run by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). But it doesn't take much effort to sign up, and it means that someone who's not a developer will give input to the CMHC.
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Mar 2, 2020 21:53
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Velocity of Money matters as much as the actual quantity of money for inflation. Until that cash starts flowing through the industries actually measured in the inflation index with some serious velocity, money printer can go burrrr all it wants but inflation will barely budge.
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Apr 10, 2020 19:28
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Not everyone sees unemployment every day. But no matter how privileged you are, anyone who has to every look at prices will personally observe inflation. And politically, that makes it hard to allow for higher inflation. The voters will throw a shitfit over it, even if it doesn't really hurt them much.
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Dec 14, 2021 05:10
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Subjunctive posted:If the bank has an infinite pool of money, why not make every loan that is requested? If their pool of available funding for loans isn’t finite then it doesn’t matter to them if there’s no repayment. (It is finite, in that there are maximum ratios of loan to reserves that need to be honoured. Given the ability to make infinite loans, though, it would be easier to just continually loan money to itself than try to conduct business and turn a profit.) Even the best bankers aren't perfect. Some of those loans will fail, people and businesses will default, and the bank will lose money on some of the loans. If enough loans default at the same time and the value of those losses is greater than the real assets in the bank, the whole bank goes down. That's the reason the actual stuff in the bank matters. A bank with more stuff can tolerate more bad bets, which allows them to make more loans than a bank with the same level of skill at choosing loans but less real assets. As much as bankers have tried to rig the game in their favor, it is still very very possible for a bank to lose money on loan.
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Mar 24, 2022 16:40
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linoleum floors posted:That comment made zero sense. Both markets are wildly inflated and both governments have done nothing. https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/region_rankings.jsp?title=2022®ion=021 Vancouver and Toronto are at the level of NYC, but the US has a lot of other cities that brings the US average down. Meanwhile even Guelph is at San Diego levels of unaffordability.
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May 26, 2022 05:03
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Finally managed to google up some numbers on how many Canadians are mortgage free homeowners, and it's way more than I expected. Over 30% of Canadian (boomer) households in 2016 have a fully paid primary home. That's a lot of people who don't care much about interest rates, but do have very strong opinions about ~neighborhood character~. https://showmethegreen.ca/home/mortgages/what-percentage-of-canadian-homeowners-are-mortgage-free/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/retirement/article-retirement-pay-off-mortgage/ https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article/00012-eng.htm
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Jul 25, 2023 01:40
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Baronjutter posted:The big boy developers who live like kings are basically all criminals too. You can't get fantastically rich being an honest builder who just buys land, puts up housing, and prays that when all things are said and done they maybe make 10-20% margins. The big boys all get fabulously wealthy via corruption, bribes, skirting or breaking the law. I know a lot of small local developers here in Victoria and it's a very tough business to do honestly. The big problem is how horrible our land use and permitting regulations are. It's a bit like looking at 1920's america and wondering why all the people getting rich off alcohol are criminals. When you make permitting take years and zoning 100% political you create an environment where only the big connected players can get ahead. A small local developer who just wants to put up some nice 20 unit infill buildings often can't even pencil projects once you take the uncertainty of zoning and permitting into the picture. But the huge mega-developers all know how to grease the wheels. You'll have situations where developers are given city land for pennies or are able to bank in incredibly risky rezonings because they know for a fact they'll get their way. The small developer doesn't have those connections or tools. So it's of course resulted in an environment where all the biggest developers are loving crooks, because we've designed a system where you have to be a crook to cut through the bad regulations. A lot of the big boys love our byzantine land use policies because it keeps anyone who doesn't have deep political connections and a bribery warchest out of the business. This here is exactly why most big developers are not YIMBY supporters. They know that their big competitive advantage is connections and corruption. They basically get a free government moat against competition from honest developers. No need to lower prices to match honest developers because none of the honest developers can survive the wall of red tape and fees.
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Sep 8, 2023 02:29
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PT6A posted:I'm willing to concede that Disruption(tm) a la Uber and AirBNB are a limited boon, since they have legitimately improved... some things in the marketplace, but it's largely by doing things that were against the rules -- sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for more questionable reasons. Sometimes they largely worked as a proof-of-concept owing to low overhead. For example, it would be difficult to get a hotel company to gamble on: larger rooms, but fewer services. AirBNB has taken the initiative and proved that there's a huge demand for that sort of thing, now we can push them out and apply sensible regulations to ensure that this thing, for which there is clearly ample demand, can be serviced by companies that follow regulations and don't wreck our housing market and inconvenience neighbours, etc. etc. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/new-york-tourism-airbnb-rentals-hotels/675860/ quote:But those hotel rooms may be in short supply as well. In 2010, New York City banned youth hostels, closing 55 establishments across town. In 2018, the city made it harder to build hotels in areas zoned for manufacturing use. Then, in December 2021, the city council made it harder to build hotels across the city. Prior to these changes, developers could put up hotels as long as they followed existing zoning and building regulations. Now hotels must also acquire a special permit. The city’s own projections warned that the regulatory changes would leave the city with insufficient hotel capacity. They were right to worry: In the 12 months following this change, not a single special-permit application was filed. This is just a NYC article, but the NIMBYs hate hotels almost as much as they hate apartments. A big part of AirBNB was providing new hotel rooms where it is nearly impossible to profitably build hotel rooms due to hospitality taxes or zoning. Of course, those places are also where's it nearly impossible to build profitably in general, so it also put more pressure on long term rentals and homebuyers. https://slate.com/business/2022/07/hotels-rental-market-housing-prices-shortage-solution.html quote:The campaign to eliminate hotel life was remarkably successful. In 1910, for example, San Francisco had a hotel room for every six residents. Today it has 1 for every 25. https://www.blakingerthomas.com/2018/11/13/zoning-matters-airbnb-and-the-short-term-rental-problem/ quote:In Reihner v. City of Scranton Zoning Hearing Board, homeowners listed bedrooms on the second and third floors of their single-family home for short-term rental on Airbnb. Guests were limited to four-night stays and had access to the kitchen throughout the day. The homeowners did not serve breakfast or any other meals to their guests. After neighbors complained about observing strangers and parking issues, a city zoning officer issued a violation notice to the homeowners for operating a “bed and breakfast,” which was not a permitted use in their residential zoning district. There's not enough houses for people in the places people want to live and not enough long term stable rental in those places either, but there's also not enough hotels in the hot tourist spots either. Under capitalism, the a shortage naturally sends prices rocketing to the ceiling. But even if it wasn't under capitalism, there still wouldn't be enough spots for everyone who wants one, which is why we need more of it all. More housing units, more long rental units, and more hotels/short rental units.
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Dec 13, 2023 01:59
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https://torontolife.com/deep-dives/torontos-worst-landlord/quote:An Ontario ombudsman’s report from May 2023 found that LTB delays have led to hardship for both landlords and tenants. Landlords often have to wait up to nine months for their hearings to be scheduled, and some tenant applications can take two years to be heard. As of January 2023, the backlog had grown to more than 38,000 files. The ongoing delays at the board have forced some tenants to endure prolonged harassment from their landlords, months of unsafe living conditions and illegal attempts to force them from their homes. A landlord found guilty of the latter can face a fine of up to $10,000, though the amount more often falls between $500 and $3,000. Tenants who have been illegally evicted can also apply to the LTB for remedies, including compensation.
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Dec 20, 2023 18:24
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Femtosecond posted:This had been sitting in a browser tab for a few weeks. Might as well post due to slow news doldrums. The secret is that keeping up with the Joneses is way stronger than you give it credit for. Some of the $300k/yr familes might be able to resist the pressure to get a nice home, but most of them won't. Most of them will succumb to the pressure to get new, modern amenities. As proof, some of them are currently willing to accept 1.5 hr daily commutes to get those nice homes. Think of how many more of those upper middle class folks would swap their home if it was only an extra $2k/mo instead of an extra $2k/mo + an extra 1/hr stuck on the road commuting every workday. And once those upper middle class folks move into the new luxury housing, the middle class people won't have to fight them in bidding wars for 40 year old living spaces.
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Jan 29, 2024 22:30
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More evidence that housing filtering is real. https://twitter.com/IDoTheThinking/status/1766504632451219824 https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2024/how-new-apartments-create-opportunities-for-all
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Mar 10, 2024 03:40
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Precambrian Video Games posted:GTA new home sales down to record low in Q1. Builders, especially of condos, are cutting back on construction due to sluggish pre-sales and rising construction costs (so they say). Also, this is the kind of poo poo some of them were building: Downtown Toronto has had zero problems with construction, but when you expand that to the GTA, there really is a supply problem. This is data from 2016 to 2021.  Sure, some parts of GTA have been building like crazy, but there are entire neighborhoods, even in Toronto proper, that have lost more housing than they have built, and those neighborhoods aren't hard to find.
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Apr 24, 2024 20:00
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https://x.com/moreneighbours/status/1783167915073651171
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Apr 27, 2024 03:12
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