4 ms·

100%. This guy has a couple good observations sprinkled in between paragraph after paragraph of hyperbolic ranting. Also lol at citing 40% annual real estate i

• JanisL 5y ago
  Canada has seen staggeringly high real estate inflation in many places lately. There have been places that have seen 100%+ increases in prices over just the last few years.
  • anm89 5y ago
    Sure, that doesn't mean that they are experiencing average 40% housing inflation because they arent
    • JanisL 5y ago
      You have to give a place and a time frame for these things, there are some places that did see 40% yearly inflation for multiple years in there (along with years of say "only" 10%). So while year on year inflation isn't consistently running at 40% it is still running very hot. Specifically some of the areas outside the major cities have seen spectacular inflation in house prices. A colleague of mine sold a house in Ontario for 200K CAD or so in 2016, same place now recently sold for a bit under 500K. While that's not quite 40% year on year it's close. Sure this is just an anecdote, the place could probably have sold for more the first time around especially if more renovations were done, but there's a lot of such anecdotes and I think that's why people throw around numbers like 40% because that's what they've seen lately and perhaps lack the numeracy or data to look at the bigger picture more accurately. In fairness the inflation in that broader geographical area of that anecdote is "only" 110% over the last 5 years. But the fact that 110% inflation can have happened in 5 years across a broad geographical region is just nuts. But yeah there's places like Barrie Ontario that are like +70% in 5 years, Hamilton 70%, Oakville 68%. All those three are around +30% in the last year. Then there's some places that were previously cheaper areas like Niagara falls that's +93% in the last 5 years. Toronto for comparison is around 70% over the last 5 years but 15% in the last year which shows that the Covid situation has meant that inflation of property prices in the major cities has slowed compared to areas surrounding. Given that wages haven't gone up much these numbers in the real estate markets are just nuts. I can't imagine this is good for the stability of the broader banking system over there.
• joshspankit 5y ago
  I live in a town of 10,000, and it’s the biggest “metro” area for 150KM. Yet still: - houses are being sold as soon as they go up - foreign investors are buying sight-unseen (I even know the direct story of a Caribbean buyer who purchased a run-down house sight-unseen only to have it immediately shuttered by the town. They had given up on getting money out of the previous owner, but it was not livable even at the time of purchase) - people from other parts of the country and other parts of the world are flying in then taking taxis to go see empty properties - people are successfully flipping houses they buy for >500k I can’t imagine that the story is any better in places where “the market is hot”. Source: Conversations with taxi drivers who don’t talk to each other, constant exploration on foot and in vehicles, conversations with neighbours of new owners, conversations with municipal employees, and watching town council meetings