Real-estate market 'almost at a crisis situation'

[JBen]

Oh and heres a kicker.
Maybe if the GTA and those at QP had paid a little attention to other places in the province, spread the wealth and jobs around. Everyone in the world wouldn't be flooding to the GTA like Mexicans do to the US.

[last5oh_302]

I'm unfortunately in this boat. I'm going through a separation so we just sold our house in Ancaster for 80 grand over list. Most of the offers were from Toronto people. The only problem is now I haven't found a place for myself. The wife found a place on the west mountain and offered 50 over list and got it. I wonder if she paid more than she should have. Either way I'm still looking. Not fun.

[last5oh_302]

Oh and heres a kicker.
Maybe if the GTA and those at QP had paid a little attention to other places in the province, spread the wealth and jobs around. Everyone in the world wouldn't be flooding to the GTA like Mexicans do to the US.

The other morning on 1010 they were saying Toronto people are now going across the Skyway bridge as far as St Kitts, so the prices are starting to climb there now.

[JBen]

yep......

I bought this place in the early spring. When it hit the fan at work, I made a decision to finally get out of dodge and the insanity ( and its not just this insanity Im referring to) within 24hours. knew I had to beat the spring market. A lot of my colleagues were kind of shocked, "why are you selling? We might get packages, depends on the Germans and the bankruptcy". My answer was "because". I had the house ready to sell within about 1 week. Cya and while I miss my girls like hell and some friends and the job search is/has been a bear...Best decision I've ever made in my life.

And the insanity has just continued.
I won't get into numbers, but the place we found.. When I look back I can't help but realize I won the lottery. A few board members have been here.I have no doubt if I was even remotely considering selling, its now a couple hundred more and Im close to Lindsay.

But its "relative".
if a crash happens ( I think thats defined as 20% or more)...Wooohoooo?
No, yeah Im further away and the ripples won't be as bad (just as the increase isn't as bad)....But guess what. Now theres hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people in deep trouble. Who is buying my place??? Supply>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Demand.
And if I thought it was a good time to sell, crystallize some profit and buy something else dirt cheap.
Everyone else lucky enough to escape the Nuke is doing that to.
So Id have to really drop the price of my place to get it to sell, no-ones looking that far out anymore.
/madness

Really sorry to hear that Last5oh ( like 70% of the population been there done that. Will just say I got kneecapped, will work to the grave as a result but oddly Im really ok with that, its all in how we look at it. For me, Im out of the insanity. It will be on my terms from now on). Thats also part of it....Couples in 1 home now looking for 2 houses....

Really sorry.

None of its good.
If I can give you 1 piece of advice find a good FA, statistically it takes 7 years to "land on your feet" financially and other.

[trimmer21]

I don't like to sound like a doom and gloomer,but,we only need to look south of the border to see what lies ahead for Canadians who are rapidly approaching the edge of the cliff. In 2008,we largely dodged the huge bullet of an complete economic meltdown because of conservative fiscal policies,not so in the US where millions found themselves over-mortgaged and drowning in consumer debt. Canada is usually ten years behind the US in most things. Granted,the causes are slightly different,but,with mortgage rate manipulation being held artificially low and liberal financial policies that seem no where near reality,eventually it will come back to haunt us.

[JBen]

In the other thread, in response to Mosquito linking "the wealthy barber" I linked "When Genius Fails". I was there (not at Long Term capital) but "there". Its um, a good read...and largely factual.

Back then we talked about a lot of things at work, same stuff thats talked about here and more. Will just say Trimmer
All the stimulus spending, all the "quantitative easing" in the states, the bailouts in the EU, or Greece.

bandaids on a hemorrhage hoping to delay the "inevitable"

Don't know, no-one can see into the future...

[skypilot]

On the separation/divorce...if you gave her everything AND all your money, but could be happy, it would be a bargain any way you looked at it and the best investment you'd ever make.

I watched this same foolishness in the States except some of the cause was different in that financial orgs. were offering 125% of appraised value of owned home just to get the lien for future speculative appreciation, coupled with the Gov. mandating a large percentage of mortgage capital, by law, had to go to purchasers that in no way could buy a loan/home at that cost.

So we had Gov. mandated bad/default-sure loans coupled with mortgage loan company greed(readiness to get your lien for future home sale if one defaulted or to "sell" the loan paper at profit to another greedy mortgage company, low interest rates and consumer greed.

I was making crazy money relative to the population, yet I'd see high school kids driving 5.0 GT Mustang to a country school while dad made 36k and mom made 25k and living in a 200K home with a 26 ft Mako with twin 250HP Merc hung on it. Dad was a cop, mom was a bank teller/officer.

I used to drive by their house on the way to the golf course and wonder aloud how the heck a patrol cop and a bank teller could afford any of that.

Then the piper submitted his bill and demanded payment. The economy and especially housing tanked, and the rest is history.

I never have seen so many quality vehicles, boats, airplanes and homes at bargain basement prices.

Greed always overruns the factors that restrain it.
I personally can't wait for the market stupidity to meet the real world reality.

[Snowwalker]

In the first six to seven years Karen and I lived in the house in london only one place on the street sold. Only three for a couple blocks around us. Now there are four new familys just in our street, and at least one if not BOTH parents work some where in the GTA. That is at least a 200 mile round trip each day to go to work and back. We are getting three or four business cards from agents stuck to our door a week.

[JBen]

R I know you like this stuff, and follow investments, financing beyond the surface layer.

Pick up a copy of it, (when genius failed) if you want an idea f just how close things came to collapsing. while it occurred long before sub prime and mortgage backed securities had even really been created, its the same kind of stuff but "different". We were heavily involved in asset back securities 2000-2006. We were always very careful about what "assets" backed the vehicles, so were never in any real danger ourselves. If I had to guess in the years leading up to 2008 I might have had at any given time 2billion or 4 billion ( not even enough to scratch the surface of the amounts/ball o twine globally) in possible exposure on my book alone. We reduced that months before it hit the fan, and may have only had a couple hundred million left on my book when it collapsed.

same stuff, over and over and over.

[skypilot]

Thank JB, I ran across that today however it didn't register@ the moment. I will check it out.

The difference(stupidity of US) was that Fannie and Freddie WERE MANDATED by the US Presidents to buy a minimum of 55% of LMI(low-moderate -Income) mortgages AND 38% from inner cities AND be "flexible" with loan requirements.

Obviously a poor/ minority/low income, high risk loan. Nobody in their right mind(banks) would write a sure loss bad loan but we did in order to buy minority votes and it caused what the world witnessed.

Then the idiot Obama made financial institutes(banks) hold enormous amounts of assets/reserve capital and tthe government fought to keep/reduce interest rates.

Well gee golly whiz, lets see, as Skypilot bank, I just take all the low interest money and build my Capital and never have to make a single loan or loan a single cent. A veritable non failable company. On the other hand small businesses were dying on the vine with no way to get capital for recovery. What a bunch of idiots the Obama Admin WAS.

I see some similar problems in Ontario as less regulated companies get into mortgages. Carbon tax is a death nell for Ontario along with Cap and Trade. Canada will make us less competitve with the World by adding a carbon tax, driving industry away. Then they get us on the other end by capping emissions and allowing us to trade emission credits with other companies, that allow imports to be way lower to consumers in Canada relatively to ours made in Canada.

People, WAKE up, the liberals are literally destroying your country before your eyes, just as they were in the US until Nov 8th.