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Ontario Implementing Measures to Cool Housing Market

Carjosse said:
Don't bother he does not understand that a 3+ hour commute is not normal and taxing on the life of a normal person. It is about both ownership and rent, prices for both are massively overvalued, there is a housing bubble.
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Actually the opposite, having done the three hour commute and knowing many who have, I call your argument BS. It's not fun but it's not a cause of clinical depression like you're making it out to be.
 
Carjosse said:
I believe in government and financial experts that say Toronto has a massive overvalued housing bubble that is not sustainable in anyway. It is all going to come tumbling down at some point, it is a time bomb. Toronto does not seem to have a problem with building, the skyline is almost entirely cranes. That 5% number comes from realtors, who as we learned from BC do not keep accurate information and also lie, most experts place the real number around 15%, the rest are Canadians being suckered and forced into it. DO you not see the massive problem a housing bubble causes?
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Whether or not the market is at a bubble is irrelevant. There is no such thing as overvaluing in the real estate market, property is worth what somebody will pay. Period. If you can't pay you have no right to live there. Living in a particular community is a privilege afforded to those who can afford it.

I can't afford to live on the street I grew up on, as much as I want to. I'm not demanding the government make it cheaper to live there. You have made it clear you have job elitism, you have neighborhood demands, etc that is pure entitlement. You are being selfish. Not only that the entitlement is justified by ethnic scapegoating about the "Chinese" because apparently it's wrong to purchase property in a free market country.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Whether or not the market is at a bubble is irrelevant. There is no such thing as overvaluing in the real estate market, property is worth what somebody will pay. Period. If you can't pay you have no right to live there. Living in a particular community is a privilege afforded to those who can afford it.

I can't afford to live on the street I grew up on, as much as I want to. I'm not demanding the government make it cheaper to live there. You have made it clear you have job elitism, you have neighborhood demands, etc that is pure entitlement. You are being selfish. Not only that the entitlement is justified by ethnic scapegoating about the "Chinese" because apparently it's wrong to purchase property in a free market country.
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There is nothing entitled about wanting an affordable place to live, that does not have an insane commute. With a quick Google search I found a lot of studies that link longer commutes do take a large toll on people's mental and physical health. Do you even know what overvaluation means? It means that house prices in the entire GTA and Golden Horseshoe are seeing price growth well above natural income growth, inflation, and other factors indicative of house prices. Houses are going up in price faster than people can earn money to buy them, as a result people are forced to spend more and more of their income on housing and less on things like savings. It has gotten to ludicrous levels, ask any financial expert. The foreign buyers which are mainly Chinese do not care about that, they have money to burn, the average Canadian does not. They are leeches on Canadian society, they contribute nothing and only make live harder for Canadians and immigrants.
 
Carjosse said:
There is nothing entitled about wanting an affordable place to live, that does not have an insane commute. With a quick Google search I found a lot of studies that link longer commutes do take a large toll on people's mental and physical health. Do you even know what overvaluation means? It means that house prices in the entire GTA and Golden Horseshoe are seeing price growth well above natural income growth, inflation, and other factors indicative of house prices. Houses are going up in price faster than people can earn money to buy them, as a result people are forced to spend more and more of their income on housing and less on things like savings. It has gotten to ludicrous levels, ask any financial expert. The foreign buyers which are mainly Chinese do not care about that, they have money to burn, the average Canadian does not. They are leeches on Canadian society, they contribute nothing and only make live harder for Canadians and immigrants.
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This isn't about an affordable apartment without a commute. You can find those all over Canada. It's about a place that's "affordable" by your definition in the city YOU want (not need, want) to live in close to a narrow band of jobs you want (not need) to take.

That is entitlement mentality. And to the contrary, the rich Chinese buyer will not only pay taxes on their purchase, they won't consume any Canadian taxpayer services, in fact they are the opposite of a leech.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
This isn't about an affordable apartment without a commute. You can find those all over Canada. It's about a place that's "affordable" by your definition in the city YOU want (not need, want) to live in close to a narrow band of jobs you want (not need) to take.

That is entitlement mentality. And to the contrary, the rich Chinese buyer will not only pay taxes on their purchase, they won't consume any Canadian taxpayer services, in fact they are the opposite of a leech.
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I don't decide where the jobs are, the jobs are in Toronto. It is about affordable housing in one of the largest cities in Canada. If you do not see the problem with that, it is your ignorance. The Chinese buyer will pay property taxes which does not compare to to a person living in that house and paying all the other taxes as well. I care about Canadians being bale to buy homes not ****ing foreigners who leech off of Canadian socierty while hard-working Canadians cannot find a place to live.
 
Carjosse said:
I don't decide where the jobs are, the jobs are in Toronto. It is about affordable housing in one of the largest cities in Canada. If you do not see the problem with that, it is your ignorance. The Chinese buyer will pay property taxes which does not compare to to a person living in that house and paying all the other taxes as well. I care about Canadians being bale to buy homes not ****ing foreigners who leech off of Canadian socierty while hard-working Canadians cannot find a place to live.
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Damn are you sure you don't like Donald Trump?

There's 35 million people in Canada and like 3 million of them live in Toronto, so unless you're insisting 33 million Canadians are unemployed then that's not accurate to say "Toronto is where the jobs are" Toronto may be where your wish list jobs are, but if they don't pay enough for you to live close enough to Toronto then maybe you're not applying the right criteria to your job search.

And considering 3 million people live in Toronto they clearly have some arrangement for housing. So Toronto is in fact adequately affordable for three million folks.

What you have never even touched in this discussion is why when three million people can, you cannot. That's not the fault of foreign investors you don't make enough money.

Canada John who I guess lives in Toronto laid it out, and his post was no different then what I said, the city and province are not permitting enough development of new housing and infrastructure and more people want to live there then there is housing for them. Toronto officials would rather appease political factions then green light housing for lower price points in these undeveloped swaths of the city. So instead of acknowledging their own failures creating a market realityof high prices, they're blaming the yellow man for taking up 5% of transactions.

So that's fine if Toronto wants to kill foreign investment like Vancouver is doing and drive these cash buyers to filling the coffers of American state and counties be my guest, and funny thing about it is, two years from now you still won't be able to afford to live in your preferred neighborhood in Toronto.... because the city is artificially limiting housing construction.

And let's not forget, if the shoe were on the other foot and you owned a Toronto house that somebody would pay 6000 dollars a month to rent you're certainly not going to rent it at 1250, this ain't Chilliwack, want 1250? Move to Chilliwack, this is the big city, ground is valuable
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Damn are you sure you don't like Donald Trump?

There's 35 million people in Canada and like 3 million of them live in Toronto, so unless you're insisting 33 million Canadians are unemployed then that's not accurate to say "Toronto is where the jobs are" Toronto may be where your wish list jobs are, but if they don't pay enough for you to live close enough to Toronto then maybe you're not applying the right criteria to your job search.

And considering 3 million people live in Toronto they clearly have some arrangement for housing. So Toronto is in fact adequately affordable for three million folks.

What you have never even touched in this discussion is why when three million people can, you cannot. That's not the fault of foreign investors you don't make enough money.

Canada John who I guess lives in Toronto laid it out, and his post was no different then what I said, the city and province are not permitting enough development of new housing and infrastructure and more people want to live there then there is housing for them. Toronto officials would rather appease political factions then green light housing for lower price points in these undeveloped swaths of the city. So instead of acknowledging their own failures creating a market realityof high prices, they're blaming the yellow man for taking up 5% of transactions.

So that's fine if Toronto wants to kill foreign investment like Vancouver is doing and drive these cash buyers to filling the coffers of American state and counties be my guest, and funny thing about it is, two years from now you still won't be able to afford to live in your preferred neighborhood in Toronto.... because the city is artificially limiting housing construction.

And let's not forget, if the shoe were on the other foot and you owned a Toronto house that somebody would pay 6000 dollars a month to rent you're certainly not going to rent it at 1250, this ain't Chilliwack, want 1250? Move to Chilliwack, this is the big city, ground is valuable
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You know the GTA has 7 million people and the Golden Horseshoe where these laws apply is well over 10 million, that is almost a third of the country's population. This does just affect the city of Toronto but all the suburbs and exurbs as well. People are still buying because they have no choice it is where the jobs are, they just spend far more of their income on housing than they should. You seem to lack any kind of large scale understanding of this. Shady real estate practices along with foreign speculators are making housing unaffordable for Canadian residents, I would have no problem with them if they actually lived here and contributed to Canadian society.
 
Carjosse said:
You know the GTA has 7 million people and the Golden Horseshoe where these laws apply is well over 10 million, that is almost a third of the country's population. This does just affect the city of Toronto but all the suburbs and exurbs as well. People are still buying because they have no choice it is where the jobs are, they just spend far more of their income on housing than they should. You seem to lack any kind of large scale understanding of this. Shady real estate practices along with foreign speculators are making housing unaffordable for Canadian residents, I would have no problem with them if they actually lived here and contributed to Canadian society.
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No it's where preferred jobs are. You keep mistaking these concepts. You could just as easily operate machinery in Edmonton at the Tar Sands and live far cheaper than in Toronto. I named several cities in the US where IT workers are in demand where you can live cheaper and probably make more money if the skills you're learning qualify you for a visa. You can probably work in forestry in cheaper areas of QC and the Atlantic Provinces or Vancouver island. There are certainly jobs at all these places. You don't want to work some of those jobs or live some of those places. Which is fine, but you will pay a premium for being picky. If people chose to move out of Toronto or not work where they couldn't afford then market forces would apply downward pressure on prices. In the end you're trying to escape the market, you can't. More people then housing means high prices. And controlling rents will not solve that, and a speculation tax will certainly not solve it, at best the rate of growth in prices will slow. Unless there's a massive die off or exodus from greater Toronto or a housing bubble bursts (which is unlikely since I ran some numbers by a realtor friend of mine and she doesn't see a "bubble" here, all the growth in values is well consistent with a constricted market) prices go up.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
No it's where preferred jobs are. You keep mistaking these concepts. You could just as easily operate machinery in Edmonton at the Tar Sands and live far cheaper than in Toronto. I named several cities in the US where IT workers are in demand where you can live cheaper and probably make more money if the skills you're learning qualify you for a visa. You can probably work in forestry in cheaper areas of QC and the Atlantic Provinces or Vancouver island. There are certainly jobs at all these places. You don't want to work some of those jobs or live some of those places. Which is fine, but you will pay a premium for being picky. If people chose to move out of Toronto or not work where they couldn't afford then market forces would apply downward pressure on prices. In the end you're trying to escape the market, you can't. More people then housing means high prices. And controlling rents will not solve that, and a speculation tax will certainly not solve it, at best the rate of growth in prices will slow. Unless there's a massive die off or exodus from greater Toronto or a housing bubble bursts (which is unlikely since I ran some numbers by a realtor friend of mine and she doesn't see a "bubble" here, all the growth in values is well consistent with a constricted market) prices go up.
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I think your friend might be an idiot then, because everyone form the government to financial experts to normal people see a housing bubble. Prices are artificially high, like they were before the 2008 recession. Realtors are part of the problem, fabricating buyers and offers, and doing this paper flipping. What you propose work for one person but doe snot for the majority of people and the country, Toronto is where there are jobs, there needs to be affordable housing. One thing you do not seem to understand is that not everyone is you. You know Alberta has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country right now, and is still trying to recover form the oil crash right ?
 
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Carjosse said:
I think your friend might be an idiot then, because everyone form the government to financial experts to normal people see a housing bubble. Prices are artificially high, like they were before the 2008 recession. Realtors are part of the problem, fabricating buyers and offers, and doing this paper flipping. What you propose work for one person but doe snot for the majority of people and the country, Toronto is where there are jobs, there needs to be affordable housing. One thing you do not seem to understand is that not everyone is you. You know Alberta has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country right now, and is still trying to recover form the oil crash right ?
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Well not everyone is you either. You haven't made their mistakes yet so don't. Do not buy a house you cannot afford, or a car you can't afford and if you can't afford you need to move and if your career isn't making enough change career. The government will not fix this problem for you. The vacancy tax in Vancouver didn't fix the housing problem because the fundemntal problem is more people moving in then capacity to house them.

So instead of being slave to the system, be the master of the system. But if you choose the path of being a broke victim, well you'll spend your whole life being a bitter broke victim choose otherwise early
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
The Canadian housing market in the Toronto region and Vancouver area have been seeing drastic increases in the prices of housing units sold. A significant amount of the purchases have been from foreign buyers, generally mainland Chinese seeking "investment" properties. Or more to the point a place to stash money outside of China and which is relatively safe. A large amount of said homes by the foreign buyers remain unoccupied for the most part, leaving a smaller pool for the rental market. This is causing the rents to increase as well.

A few policies changes are idiotic

Rent control is idiotic and should be done away with, it reduces the incentive to build more rental units, leading to a chronic undersupply leading to more rent control.

-Introducing a 15-per-cent “Non-Resident Speculation Tax” in the Greater Golden Horseshoe region This is also idiotic. If a foreigner wants to buy property in an overheated market let them, those in that region should take the money and run. Move about 2 hours to the south west around London Ont where the housing prices are a third of the Toronto region
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Argh.

Give up Toronto, for London? There isn't enough money in the world! Now Toronto for Montreal, possibly. But not London!
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Well not everyone is you either. You haven't made their mistakes yet so don't. Do not buy a house you cannot afford, or a car you can't afford and if you can't afford you need to move and if your career isn't making enough change career. The government will not fix this problem for you. The vacancy tax in Vancouver didn't fix the housing problem because the fundemntal problem is more people moving in then capacity to house them.

So instead of being slave to the system, be the master of the system. But if you choose the path of being a broke victim, well you'll spend your whole life being a bitter broke victim choose otherwise early
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The Vancouver market was cooled, for now. But we will see if it was too little too late. This is a national economic problem, people cannot afford to live where the jobs are. This issue is larger than one person. People have no choice but to live and work in Toronto and are forced to pay these artificially high prices. It affects me and affects everyone else, because if the market crashes the economy is going down with it. You fail to see the larger issue.

I made the right choice, I chose a educational path that should lead to a well-paying job from graduation but it requires being near an urban area like almost any job these days.
 
Carjosse said:
I believe in government and financial experts that say Toronto has a massive overvalued housing bubble that is not sustainable in anyway. It is all going to come tumbling down at some point, it is a time bomb. Toronto does not seem to have a problem with building, the skyline is almost entirely cranes. That 5% number comes from realtors, who as we learned from BC do not keep accurate information and also lie, most experts place the real number around 15%, the rest are Canadians being suckered and forced into it. DO you not see the massive problem a housing bubble causes?
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Nobody who knows the situation is saying that and I defy you to quote some "financial experts" who say housing in Toronto is "massively overvalued" and "not sustainable in any way". And just because you pull statistics out of thin air doesn't make them honest or accurate. I trust the real estate industry in Ontario and Toronto far more than I trust the lying, corrupt, ignorant POS who is the Premier of this province.

You may find politicians and other teat suckers who want the government to stick their noses where they don't belong because that's all teat suckers and governments know how to do.

I lived through two "housing bubbles" - how many have you lived through? I saw a bubble in the late 1980's when government incompetence led to massive inflation, in the range of 20% annually and people were forced out of their homes because their mortgages became impossible to maintain. The government didn't owe them a home - they made their own beds by buying a home they couldn't afford in the times. It took almost 2 decades for house prices in Toronto to regain the values lost in the late 1980s - that's how it should be - and now people are benefitting from the increased value in their homes. Just because you're young and want to live in a house you own doesn't mean that some senior who's worked all their lives to pay off their home and build their retirement security in the equity in their home should have to devalue it to suit you or the idiot in the Premier's office.

The second bubble was in 2007 when the government in the US, led by Bill Clinton and Andrew Cuomo, pushed banks to reduce lending requirements so that people who couldn't really afford homes were able to buy homes with nothing down and in some cases no income and that just led to banks creating Ponzi schemes to rid their balance sheets of such bad paper and create "investment" vehicles full of such bad mortgages, and leading eventually to the financial crisis suffered world wide.

Governments playing around with property values and home ownership is almost always destructive. Maybe one day you'll be smart enough to see it, but considering you think government owes you an affordable home, I doubt it.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
after working my magic in Toronto Craigslist,

West Brant, Apartment for 799 100km from Toronto

3 bed for 1450 (very affordable when divided three ways, or even two) in Hamilton. also in Hamilton 2 bed for 1299 in a very nice bulding, 650 a piece divided twice is affordable in my book 65 km to city center

like I'm finding deals I consider acceptable distance and price for my income if I had to earn in it Toronto, so to claim you can't live affordably is a crock, what these people are really saying is, they want rural mother in law prices on a luxury 1 or 2 bed in the city with view.
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Hamilton is not Toronto. It can be argued perhaps it's in the greater Toronto area. But it's not Toronto. I've stayed there. Unless something's changed in the intervening years, I would not consider it a substitute for Toronto at all.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Nobody who knows the situation is saying that and I defy you to quote some "financial experts" who say housing in Toronto is "massively overvalued" and "not sustainable in any way". And just because you pull statistics out of thin air doesn't make them honest or accurate. I trust the real estate industry in Ontario and Toronto far more than I trust the lying, corrupt, ignorant POS who is the Premier of this province.

You may find politicians and other teat suckers who want the government to stick their noses where they don't belong because that's all teat suckers and governments know how to do.

I lived through two "housing bubbles" - how many have you lived through? I saw a bubble in the late 1980's when government incompetence led to massive inflation, in the range of 20% annually and people were forced out of their homes because their mortgages became impossible to maintain. The government didn't owe them a home - they made their own beds by buying a home they couldn't afford in the times. It took almost 2 decades for house prices in Toronto to regain the values lost in the late 1980s - that's how it should be - and now people are benefitting from the increased value in their homes. Just because you're young and want to live in a house you own doesn't mean that some senior who's worked all their lives to pay off their home and build their retirement security in the equity in their home should have to devalue it to suit you or the idiot in the Premier's office.

The second bubble was in 2007 when the government in the US, led by Bill Clinton and Andrew Cuomo, pushed banks to reduce lending requirements so that people who couldn't really afford homes were able to buy homes with nothing down and in some cases no income and that just led to banks creating Ponzi schemes to rid their balance sheets of such bad paper and create "investment" vehicles full of such bad mortgages, and leading eventually to the financial crisis suffered world wide.

Governments playing around with property values and home ownership is almost always destructive. Maybe one day you'll be smart enough to see it, but considering you think government owes you an affordable home, I doubt it.
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CEO of RBC
Bank of Canada: 2014, 2016
Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation
 
EMNofSeattle said:
then maybe if it's so easy you should just start real estate speculating yourself. forget this IT/management, get in on a real estate firm, because if you know how all this works you can find real good money working real estate.

the condos are only worth what people will pay for them. if nobody was waiting to buy them at 400,000 there would be no investors buying them at 2. there is no moral or ethical obligation to house people in your houses, if you want them to sit on your balance sheet there's nothing wrong with that. and if what you're saying is true, then at some point the house of cards falls and you get a luxury condo for 98K in a foreclosure auction.

If only I was born 8 years earlier I could've had the top level penthouse suite in a waterfront condo in Bremerton for 450K, now it's worth 2.5 million. but when the market crashes again, I got money and employment potential. so why buy a condo today at 200 if in a few years you think the market will collapse, because then you'll have it for 90K. You need to start thinking of how to adapt to the system instead of demanding your MP adapt it to you, that will always be more lucrative in the end.

and stop with this "Work-life stuff" you see the pictures I post on the member pics thread? does it look like I don't have any life ? having money is why I can take vacations to Missouri, and Montana, and Canada, and tour the coast, and do everything I like to do, I do not lack work life balance. I simply put more in the work column, because in 25 to 30 years I won't have my health, so actually burning down the work fuse early in life to stockpile money is the smart thing to do. if you don't have any children now's the time to work and work like sled dog.
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Man, do I ever agree with the bolded! Work hard, play hard, but work when you can! For the day when you can't.
 
Carjosse said:
The Vancouver market was cooled, for now. But we will see if it was too little too late. This is a national economic problem, people cannot afford to live where the jobs are. This issue is larger than one person. People have no choice but to live and work in Toronto and are forced to pay these artificially high prices. It affects me and affects everyone else, because if the market crashes the economy is going down with it. You fail to see the larger issue.

I made the right choice, I chose a educational path that should lead to a well-paying job from graduation but it requires being near an urban area like almost any job these days.
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Well I don't know, if your job can only be done somewhere you cannot afford I would contest whether you made the right choice. You keep dancing around the real issue. Why do you think foreign investors are buying in GTA and not in Yellowknife?

And if there's a bubble burst these foreign investors will lose millions of dollars in holdings very fast. I don't think they're dumb enough to be bamboozled by realtors into making million dollars buys, they have research showing that continually more people at the higher end of the salary spectrum are moving in. You identified the problem but won't connect the dots. Supply versus demand.

If there was not an underlying supply problem in the first place there would be no money in buying and holding housing.

And probably the government isn't helping. Here in Washington it costs almost more money to get the permits to build housing then the actual construction. And what builder will sell units for less then he can get for them? Why would the developer sell a condo at 200 to somebody who can flip it to 400 if he could just collect 400 himself and eliminate the middle man?
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Well I don't know, if your job can only be done somewhere you cannot afford I would contest whether you made the right choice. You keep dancing around the real issue. Why do you think foreign investors are buying in GTA and not in Yellowknife?

And if there's a bubble burst these foreign investors will lose millions of dollars in holdings very fast. I don't think they're dumb enough to be bamboozled by realtors into making million dollars buys, they have research showing that continually more people at the higher end of the salary spectrum are moving in. You identified the problem but won't connect the dots. Supply versus demand.

If there was not an underlying supply problem in the first place there would be no money in buying and holding housing.

And probably the government isn't helping. Here in Washington it costs almost more money to get the permits to build housing then the actual construction. And what builder will sell units for less then he can get for them? Why would the developer sell a condo at 200 to somebody who can flip it to 400 if he could just collect 400 himself and eliminate the middle man?
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People still invested in 2008 before the bubble burst. They are buying in Toronto because Toronto is one of Canad's main cities and where growth is the highest. People are buying thees homes expecting massive returns in a few years but when growth inevitably slows down, their investments suddenly become liabilities when they realize they bought a ****ty home for $500,000 over asking from that shady realtor and no one wants to buy it for what you paid.
 
Carjosse said:
CEO of RBC
Bank of Canada: 2014, 2016
Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation
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Yes, comments from bankers who continue to lend cheap money to valued and eligible customers who meet very stringent criteria for mortgage loans. Unlike in the US, here in Canada you need significant dollars down to buy a home. If the powers that be at the RBC don't think that the homes they're mortgaging are worth the paper they're signing, then the powers that be at the RBC are idiots of the highest order. Ever spend any time listening to the radio or watching TV? You'd be surprised how many big banks and little banks in Toronto are dying to get mortgage customers and every one of those mortgages is backed by a property value assessment before the paper is signed.

But as long as there are buyers and sellers at the prices offered there is no bubble. The only time you have a bubble is, as I stated, in the 1980s when inflation soared and people couldn't afford mortgages so house prices plummeted and in 2007/08 in the US when the Ponzi schemes eventually ran out of people to buy homes that people bought to flip.

The whole problem is the simple economics of supply and demand - you should read up on the subject sometime. As long as there's a shortage of supply, which there is in Toronto, and a surplus of demand, which there is in Toronto, there will be an increase in the value of whatever commodity is being sold. And guess what? Leafs hockey tickets are through the roof expensive - most expensive in the entire league - people are paying outrageous prices on the secondary market to get a pair of the limited supply. Should Premier Wynne intercede and ensure that those who can't afford the prices are somehow able to afford them?

If you were telling Premier Wynne to get off her ass and make it more financially viable and attractive for home builders and investors to create new housing in Toronto and the surrounding area, dampening demand by saturating supply, I'd have a little respect for your position. However, as it stands, you support actions that will do dick all to reduce the cost of buying a home in Toronto, but progressives and liberals will be delighted by the flashy lights.
 
Carjosse said:
People still invested in 2008 before the bubble burst. They are buying in Toronto because Toronto is one of Canad's main cities and where growth is the highest. People are buying thees homes expecting massive returns in a few years but when growth inevitably slows down, their investments suddenly become liabilities when they realize they bought a ****ty home for $500,000 over asking from that shady realtor and no one wants to buy it for what you paid.
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Why should you care is someone with more money than brains makes a bad investment and loses money? What business is it of your or the governments?
 
CanadaJohn said:
Yes, comments from bankers who continue to lend cheap money to valued and eligible customers who meet very stringent criteria for mortgage loans. Unlike in the US, here in Canada you need significant dollars down to buy a home. If the powers that be at the RBC don't think that the homes they're mortgaging are worth the paper they're signing, then the powers that be at the RBC are idiots of the highest order. Ever spend any time listening to the radio or watching TV? You'd be surprised how many big banks and little banks in Toronto are dying to get mortgage customers and every one of those mortgages is backed by a property value assessment before the paper is signed.

But as long as there are buyers and sellers at the prices offered there is no bubble. The only time you have a bubble is, as I stated, in the 1980s when inflation soared and people couldn't afford mortgages so house prices plummeted and in 2007/08 in the US when the Ponzi schemes eventually ran out of people to buy homes that people bought to flip.

The whole problem is the simple economics of supply and demand - you should read up on the subject sometime. As long as there's a shortage of supply, which there is in Toronto, and a surplus of demand, which there is in Toronto, there will be an increase in the value of whatever commodity is being sold. And guess what? Leafs hockey tickets are through the roof expensive - most expensive in the entire league - people are paying outrageous prices on the secondary market to get a pair of the limited supply. Should Premier Wynne intercede and ensure that those who can't afford the prices are somehow able to afford them?

If you were telling Premier Wynne to get off her ass and make it more financially viable and attractive for home builders and investors to create new housing in Toronto and the surrounding area, dampening demand by saturating supply, I'd have a little respect for your position. However, as it stands, you support actions that will do dick all to reduce the cost of buying a home in Toronto, but progressives and liberals will be delighted by the flashy lights.
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I do not think you understand what a bubble is. This is similar to the the original bubble, the Tulip bubble. Several hundred years ago in the Netherlands Tulip bulbs were selling for ridiculous amount of money like thousands of dollars so people bought them thinking they would increase in value and they could sell them later. Then the price suddenly stopped increasing as much and dropping, I assume because people realized how stupid it was so suddenly they found these bulbs not worth as much as they thought they were worth but no one wanted to buy these decreasing value bulbs so the bubble collapsed and the Dutch economy took a very large hit. It is a bubble, just a different kind, it is time bomb. A market correction will come along and people will find that these homes are not worth nearly as much as they thought. Or do you think our Bank governor, CEO of RBC, and the CHMC do not know what they are talking about? You are just denying facts at this point.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Why should you care is someone with more money than brains makes a bad investment and loses money? What business is it of your or the governments?
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Because it will take the economy with it if something is not done. A lot of these people just want a place to live.
 
Carjosse said:
Because it will take the economy with it if something is not done. A lot of these people just want a place to live.
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Carjosse, how old are you? I don't mean that flippantly, I really don't. I'm trying to understand your context of economic times. I'm 24 and I get the feeling you're at least 5 years younger then me. Because I have lived through an actual recession as an adult, and things aren't as bad as they're made out to be. I was in like Grade 9 when the housing market fell in the US, and that continued until about 2013 it was not like mad max. A housing bubble is not going to take the entire economy down with it, in fact in many cases you wouldn't even know the difference. Especially if your career field isn't in real estate, and even then if you weren't leveraged in debt this is when you get the deals that make you money later.
 
Carjosse said:
I do not think you understand what a bubble is. This is similar to the the original bubble, the Tulip bubble. Several hundred years ago in the Netherlands Tulip bulbs were selling for ridiculous amount of money like thousands of dollars so people bought them thinking they would increase in value and they could sell them later. Then the price suddenly stopped increasing as much and dropping, I assume because people realized how stupid it was so suddenly they found these bulbs not worth as much as they thought they were worth but no one wanted to buy these decreasing value bulbs so the bubble collapsed and the Dutch economy took a very large hit. It is a bubble, just a different kind, it is time bomb. A market correction will come along and people will find that these homes are not worth nearly as much as they thought. Or do you think our Bank governor, CEO of RBC, and the CHMC do not know what they are talking about? You are just denying facts at this point.
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I'm not the one who seems to lack a basic understanding of the real estate situation in Toronto. You're the one claiming there's a "housing bubble" in Toronto when there currently is no such thing. You may have missed it, but a lot of the demand for housing in Toronto is being fueled by young people such as yourself who are being gifted with living inheritances by their parents who are selling their empty nest homes, downsizing to condos or the cottage or some even renting, and sharing the profits from their home sale with the children who then have money for a down payment on a home of their own. I have several young couples who bought houses on my street 5 or so years ago, paying what many said was "bubble" prices of around $750,000 for a bungalow, and now their home is worth $1,750,000 and they've gained a $million in equity over that time. Who knows - in another 5 yrs, their homes might be worth double that again.

I've a simple solution for you - if you think homes in Toronto are too expensive and set for a major correction, pocket your money and don't buy here and wait for that correction to come and then pounce on deflated values that you seem to believe are imminent. But I'll warn you, there are many who unlike the young couples I mentioned above, who sat on their money and refused to buy a home 5 yrs ago, expecting prices to drop, and now they're priced out of the market here.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
Carjosse, how old are you? I don't mean that flippantly, I really don't. I'm trying to understand your context of economic times. I'm 24 and I get the feeling you're at least 5 years younger then me. Because I have lived through an actual recession as an adult, and things aren't as bad as they're made out to be. I was in like Grade 9 when the housing market fell in the US, and that continued until about 2013 it was not like mad max. A housing bubble is not going to take the entire economy down with it, in fact in many cases you wouldn't even know the difference. Especially if your career field isn't in real estate, and even then if you weren't leveraged in debt this is when you get the deals that make you money later.
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21, three years younger. I am reflecting what the government and industry dears, the real estate industry is driving a lot of growth. It is not going to be a 2008 level effect but is going to have an effect on the economy especially in Toronto. It probably won't affect me personally but it will affect a lot of people. Then there is the fact I and a lot of others are going to be priced out of the market no matter what happens most likely unless major steps are taken.
 
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