Canadian real estate related debt tapering? That would be ridiculous! Filings obtained from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) show, after a brief decline in January, the balance of loans secured by residential real estate hit a new high in February. More interesting is the segment of loans being used for personal consumption, is growing at the fastest pace in years…
Loans secured by real estate hit a new all-time high in February. The total balance of loans secured with real estate racked up to $283.65 billion, up 0.77% from the month before. This represents a 7.79% increase compared to the same month last year. It almost looked like Canadians were reeling that debt in January, with a tiny decline. Instead it made a monster move, more than making up the ground lost the month before…
The total of loans secured with residential real estate for non-business purposes spiked in February. The outstanding balance reached $251.64 billion, a 0.77% increase from the month before. This represented a 6.83% climb compared to the same month last year. This brings the total to an all-time high. … The annual rate of 6.83% is the fastest rate of growth since… well, since banks started reporting these numbers on their balance sheets. Apparently higher rates aren’t slowing borrowers down.
– chart and text from ‘Congrats! Canadians Just Set A New Record For Borrowing Against Their Homes’, Daniel Wong, Better Dwelling, 18 April 2018
When Canadian RE goes down, it will have weights around its ankles. -ed.
Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive 
everywhere i’ve been with big re% gains … community fabric gets shredded … residents, businesses become increasingly transient … very de-stabilizing, and all pre- mean reversion … but no worries, trudeau’s got it
[LATIMES] – Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis is a national disgrace
…”There are close to 58,000 homeless people in Los Angeles county. That’s a stunning, bewildering, tragic number – in a region that’s home to some of the richest people in the world. This is an L.A. Times editorial series.”…
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-homeless-crisis-overview-20180225-htmlstory.html
I was having breakfast in a diner in Burlington Vermont – a nice little college town – in July 2016. The diner owner was telling some regular customers he might have to close after 40 years. Why? The lease had become too expensive. They’re tearing down old buildings in downtown Burlington and putting condos in their place, and that’s crowding out business space. If this is happening in small college towns like Burlington, it’s happening everywhere.
“I’m in so strong and so deep, and so are you”:
A nation of slaves.
I have lived in Vancouver since 1968 and my wife was born here, as was her mother, and now we are about to leave because this town, and I call it a town, because it not a real city, has priced us out. The things that made Vancouver great have been hollowed out, sold off or torn away and unfortunately all that is left are the investors and the very rich visitors. The carrion have the carcass.