*LOL* In hindsight, I should have invested more in commodities during Feb-Mar of 2009. The commodity market shot up so fast! This is the equation I follow: CRUDE OIL PRICE (UP) = US DOLLARS (DOWN) CRUDE OIL PRICE (UP) = CA DOLLARS (UP) EMERGING MARKET GROWTH (UP) = CA DOLLARS (UP)
Get right to the source. Bingo! I tend not to trust news articles. They are often written to provoke emotions (such as anger, worriesome etc).
The stats in California insofar as mortgage payments and delinquiencies were perfectly fine...until the bubble popped!
http://ca.news.finance.yahoo.com/s/...ofit-doubles-745-million-loss-provisions.html Q2 profit more than doubles to $745 million Credit loss provisions reduced to $249 million Revenue up - $3 billion vs. $2.65 billion EPS $1.26
Some ~30% of Canadian GDP is dependent on American and Chinese consumption. Canada is another willing dupe to the globalization slave trade. We tied our fate to America, a long time ago. Instead of encouraging a more vertically integrated, manufacturing-intensive economy that employs the middle class, we offshored the jobs, exported our resources, and boosted FIRE. Same as the US, but on a smaller scale. I've seen a bunch of debt figures thrown around. Not sure what to believe. Looks like we're around 85% debt-to-GDP. Harper took a page out of the Neocon playbook - deficit spend to keep ahead in the polls. We are no shining star. The Public Sector is enormous. The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan submitted a bid for BCE (parent of Bell Canada). Only 52 Billion. Can you believe that? Plus, there's a housing bubble. At least in Toronto. Home prices YOY are up like 10% for what? 5 years now? It's a joke. Single townhouses going for mid 400's. A cookie cutter 3000 sq ft house on a parcel of land in a new subdivision goes for half million to 600K. Give me a break. Totally overpriced. The only difference between us and America is our lower national debt. Healthcare consumes something like 70 cents of every tax dollar in the province of Ontario. Definitely a socialists paradise up here. One last gem - something like 87% of all land in Canada is "crown land". Basically, owned by the fucking Queen of England. And they say British Royals are only worth a paltry 350 Million. My ass. I did some browsing for properties in northern Ontario. Hardly anything available? A country of 30 million people inhabiting the worlds 3rd largest Country!! Found out later the Government holds it all on behalf of the "Queen" and isn't selling. What a joke.
The challenge with Canadian real estate is that there are only so few major metropolitan cities. Toronto, being the largest city of Canada, attracts residents left, right and over-seas! Housing price is somewhat a direct relationshp of supply and demand, as jobs are concentrated in the major cities, where people actually live! Vancouver, is a different story. A coastal city will always cost more to live as DEMAND outweights supply of land. This goes the same to Hong Kong, New York, San Fransisco, Sydney.. and many other international cities. While jobs don't pay nearly as well as the ones in Alberta, some folks would still rather to live in a warmer place surrounded by mountains and water. And that's not even including the effect of rich European and Asian immigrants buying multi-million dollar vacation "condos" in Vancouver.. LOL I agree. Housing cost has skyrocketed to a point where it will only make sense for the prices to correct in the near future (soon, I hope!). I used to live in Vancouver, but now I live in Edmonton. Housing cost is very reasonable in Alberta (thx to 3 years of housing price correction). But when prices in Vancouver correct enough for me to afford to live, I am very likely to move back. The geographic advantages that Vancouver have is just incomparable. The government HAS TO make mortgages tougher to get or else the housing price will sustain at an unsustainable level for most Canadians. And until then a real housing bubble will be catastrophic.
Currently dependent on USA and China but the trend is toward diversification. The Canadian economy is now less dependent on the USA than it has ever been before. The Conservative government is working hard to ensure diversification continues. See the recent news regarding the upcoming trade deal with the EU which is expected to bring billions of dollars into the Canadian economy. See above regarding your tieing our fate to America comment. Given the fact that we have the largest land border between two countries, we will always rely on trade with the USA. It's only logical. And in any event, why is having a large trade relationship with the world's largest economy a bad thing? Canada has abundant natural resources. It sells these resources to the world. Why is it bad to export resources? Harper handled the financial crises beautifully. You think it is by accident we are expected to emerge as the leading G7 country in economic growth for the next couple of years? The deficit is expected to be erased by 2015. The real problem are the Liberals. Case in point - implementation of the HST in Ontario by the provincial Liberal government. Many people such as yourself pretend to have a crystal ball and can easily see "bubbles" before they "pop". Something that seems overvalued to you, may seem undervalued by someone else. There is large demand for housing in Toronto and Vancouver. Price goes up. When demand wanes, price goes down. Some may call it a bubble, I call it microeconomics. I really find it hard to believe that you can't find property in northern Ontario because the big bad Queen of England is hoarding all of the land...some proof to backup this statement would help. As a Canadian I would expect you to know that the Queen is a symbolic figure-head for Canada, but in practice is irrelevant and has no authority or say in how the country is run. Crown land refers to land owned by the Canadian government. Crown corporations - same thing. The Queen of England is powerless in Canada, I'm not really sure why you even brought it up. As I've said before, Canada is not without its troubles in the future. Mainly, an ageing population and an enormous infrastructure deficit. These problems are a much bigger deal for the long-term economic health of Canada than the Queen of England hoarding land, or a perceived real estate bubble. That being said, relatively speaking, Canada is the safest place to put your money at this point in time. Name one better?
A friend of my families own a small island north of Winnipeg. Its been in the family for generations. They don't own the entire island because the Queen owns one third and evidently she owns one third of all the islands in the area. It was an interesting story. She never visits either.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100526/business/cities_quality_living Mercer report pointed out that Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa are ranked among the world's top 25 most livable city. I guess.. that somehow contrinbuted to housing cost? LOL