“Then one day the government woke up and realized that what was once the Veterans’ Housing Shoppe was now backing the mortgages of anyone, for nearly anything. Five per cent down? No problem. Forty-year mortgages, investment properties and highly leveraged $2-million mansions by the water? Yes, yes and yes. Bring ‘em on. The lax standards, combined with low interest rates, opened the way for easy money to flow. Average home prices in Canada have doubled over the past decade. A federal institution whose mission was to make houses more affordable has managed to do the opposite–make them unaffordable.”
- from ‘CMHC outlived its mandate – now it’s just meddling’, Derek DeCloet, G&M, 25 Oct 2012
Opinions previously held only by lunatic bears-on-blogs are being expressed mainstream.
All part of the swell of sentiment change washing over the RE markets nationwide.
- vreaa
Just think how civilization has become. We actually want houses to go up in value so it costs us more money. That’s like saying I want my food to go up..Its programmable insanity
Great comment. How about financial markets cheering every time Exxon or TD have made 5 -20 billion in profits PER quarter – where do people think that money comes from?
And at the bottom of this article was an alluring link, “Rob Carrick: Why Gen Y should tough it out in the rental market.” Bah! Foiled by lack of a subscription!
Hey @vreaa, who are you calling a lunatic bear-on-blog? You meant reasoned, experienced market watchers right?
Isn’t there an apropos quote along the lines of “when the times are crazy, only the crazy are sane”, or something like that?
“When the going get’s weird the weird turn pro.” – Hunter S. Thompson
Thanks.
Great! People are finally waking up!
CMHC, meet ceiling.
Ceiling, meet CMHC.
Good, now we can move on.
‘pretty’ segment with bonner for those so inclined … http://tinyurl.com/cehbfmz
Regardless of inclination, there is merit in listening to a diverse array of opinions.
For instance, in this Bonner clip:
“What happened in that transaction is that people have gotten poorer… they used resources for something that did not pan out.. The GDP measures activity, but what really counts is not activity, it’s sensible investment.. (it’s using resources well).”
..
Thanks, rj