10,430 sales through the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in March

This market is nuts, 10,430 sales and it's mainly Toronto (vs the rest of the GTA i.e. the 905) that's leading the charge.

Consider this:



Yes there is a condo craze going on...but there is huge increases in detached properties in the 416. WOW, I believe it.

So does how our market compare to other markets that I frequently look at

Vancouver 2,473 sales in February

This is a an increase of 67.1 per cent compared to February 2009. However, 2473 sales is a 7.6 per cent decline compared to the 2,676 sales recorded in February 2008 and were 13.5 per cent behind February 2007 when 2,859 residential sales were recorded on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS®) in Greater Vancouver.


Edmonton 3,728 residential listings in March

This up over 30% from a year ago and up 246% in the first quarter. Residential sales of 1,571 properties in March were up 15.1% from a year ago and 77.3% in the first quarter. Sales were up from 1,307 in February: a 20.2% increase.


Taking a look at the most recent housing Charts available at TREB, we see how hot this market is when comparing to 2007.

For the love of us buyers, please go down.

Do you want facts or sugar coating?

Here are sample of my sources no particular order:


CMHC
Statistics Canada
Canadian Real Estate Association and their particular local boards
Alberta Finance
City of Edmonton
Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
Alberta Energy
Federal Reserve Bank and their particular state representatives
Moody's ($300/report)
IMF (International Monetary Fund)
World Bank
Canadian Bankers Association
Trends Research Institute ($185/year)
Urban Futures Institute
University of Toronto Innovation Systems Research Network
Centre for Urban Studies at the University of Toronto
Economic Cycle Research Institute
Urbanation
Centre For Spatial Economics
Genworth
Conference Board of Canada ($5,225/year)
RBC Economics
Scotia Economics
BMO Capital Markets
TD Economics
CIBC World Markets

Be contrarian: Be a real estate Hero

I often get asked why are you investing in Alberta when you are from Toronto? It's an excellent question. I'm not going to say the GTA is a great place to invest into and hope the property will do well.

Simply put: I never HOPE. I always make expectations based on fundamentals.

I can invest anywhere in North America, I choose Edmonton because the fundamentals show growth long term.

I know my goal is to make money for my partners, in order to achieve that goal I have to do things that are uncomfortable.

It can be hard sometimes pushing through. I have to get past the dominant thinking from my friends and colleagues, many who are rightfully scared, to achieve these goals.


When things go as planned, It may look like luck from the outside...It requires constant diligence, education and action.

So what does this mean for you? study the fundamentals especially from people who present facts and don't care if you buy real estate or not.

Why we don't speculate - We Buy cashflow properties in the best neighborhoods of the strongest towns and we always buy undermarket value

Waiting in line to buy pre-construction when you don't know what the market value will be when the product gets built could be dangerous and expensive



Check out this article here

Buyers put $20,000 in deposit money to tie up property for $400,000. Today those same units are sold for $355,000.


That's a loss of $45,000. Scared investors try to walk away thinking that they will just lose their deposit are instead being sued by the developer for $75,000.


Do your due diligence, focus on the fundamentals...buy properties under today's market value and keep for cashflow.

US needs us more than we need them!!!!

Why we invest in Alberta:

• Shell Canada estimates that there is 2 Trillion Barrels of Oil in Alberta
• Other major sources of oil: Venezuela, Middle East (Saudia Arabia, Iran and Iraq), Russia and North Western Africa. Which one of these countries are your friend?
• Oil Prices have to increase: most major suppliers are below the break even point
• $25 Trillion in stimulus...everywhere around the world needs our resources
• Chinese are becoming serious players. India and China has 100 million in middle class people that are going to need our fuel
• High wages
• Labour Shortages
• Population growth

More Responses to Globe article

More responses to comments to an article in theglobeandmail

Home prices new and resale will continue to fall in prices until the average wage can afford the average home price which is in some cases 50% and more of a price drop. The housing crash is here and many people are defaulting on their mortgagae in great numbers. Don`t believe the liar RE agents who are starving for sales.
As for defaults, the Canadian Bankers association, the number of mortgages in arrears (i.e more than 3 months behind on their payments) is still at historical normal levels.





I thought switching from renting. Considering latest development on the GTA market I'm not doing it anytime soon.

Anybody with a piece of paper, a pen and 5 minutes of spare time can figure out that buying now is a financial suicide. Unfortunately false affordability numbers caused by artificially low interest rates lure people without pens and paper into lifelong mortgage servitude.

You might want to re-consider this. Mortgage rates are at historic lows, if you have an open mortgage you can pay more principle than interest than you ever could and again…the affordability is at what it is historically.

In addition, as a investment real estate has blown apart other investments if done correctly...simply because of leverage.




DON'T BUY NOW! WAIT TILL THEY DROP BELOW 200 GRAND!

Every measurable fundamental (inflation, average income etc) has pushed real estate well above $200,000. Land prices, construction costs have pegged the cost to build an average condo semi-detached home in Edmonton to be well over $200,000. I'm not sure what the base of this statement is.

No Growth Expected for any province - Scotia Bank

Curious article from Scotia Economics in their provincial outlook I'm really surprised at the short-slightness in their article. Especially in light of my previous post.

Investment in non-conventional oil production has virtually disappeared and weak energy prices will reduce conventional oil and gas production as well as drilling.

and

The precipitous decline in oil prices from their mid-2008 peak, coupled with still-high costs and tighter credit availability, have led to the postponement or cancellation of over $40 billion worth of capital projects, including new oil sands upgraders.

According the latest report from the Government of Alberta there is $234,001,200,000 in projects planned, $86 billion of this amount is on hold.


They believe that this huge slow down of only having $148 Billion in projects will cause the economy to shrink by 2.3%. Hmmm....That works out to be $41,000 in spending per person.

According the Conference Board of Canada (who don't care if you buy real estate), they expect to see a 0.5% drop in Alberta output. This seems to be more realistic


According to AIC, There is $25,000,000,000,000,000 (i just wanted to see how $25 trillion looked like) in worldwide stimulus that is being spent world wide, plus the hundreds of million new middle class people in China and India will require FOOD FUEL AND FERTILIZER


What kind of impact do you think this will have on our economy?

New home prices edge lower - Western cities post largest drops, Statscan says

My Response to the comments on the latest globeandmail article

Why is western Canada taking a bigger housing hit when Ontario has lost more jobs.


Taking a look at prices at a historical level we have seen the market appreciate at incredible levels since 2005. It’s hard to put in context that the Tiger Wood’s like years we have been having is not the norm. The home prices shot up too quickly because of the frenzy of buying since 2006. We are seeing a normal correction in a long term up cycle.







We need to get back to late 70's house prices for it to match peoples ACTUAL paychecks these days. Till then oh well, the price crash has just started.


Affordability of a home is a key measure of the health of the market. According to the RBC affordability index, which measures the average pre-tax income that goes towards housing, Edmonton is currently under 40%. This is at the historical norm. It should be taken into account that the affordability now is even better than it was over the past 20 years with the introduction of the 35 amortization mortgages.