47 Replies to “It’s Probably Nothing”

  1. Fascinating that a nation whose future is now pretty much locked in as a high tax and high unemployment backwater is creating bazillions in real estate wealth from nothing.

    1. When all the big money from China is bound up in real estate with outrageously-inflated values, as appears to be happening, what then? A “reckoning”?

      That will be fun.

        1. gym

          Calgary as well. Wife works for Lrg Homebuilder here in Calgary.
          Explosive purchasing the past 2months… I’M sure it’s not just them, but all the builders…..with predominately east Indian Buyers.

          1. Am also hearing that a lot of people living in office towers (condo or rental) are trying to get out and are buying up anything that has its own exterior entrance. Which is why those two- and three-story townhouses in West Hillhurst and environs are selling so quickly.

    2. Hint: The stock markets are all melting-up at the same pace, now fueled by Biden’s $5T money printing binge. These home prices will appear “affordable” when a loaf of bread costs $25 next year.

      1. Wait for Biden’s carbon tax. It’s coming America.

        It will help Biden look green, and Xi wants a carbon tax, cause it will drive more manufacturing jobs to China, where they will build even more coal plants.

  2. Whatever insane policies the government enacts to combat the housing boom is offset by the Spawn’s industrial scale looting of the treasury of the unborn and shoveling cash indiscriminately thereby heating up the market while his psychopathic equivalents in provincial and municipal politics continue to make housing as unaffordable as is possible while campaigning on affordable housing.

  3. Garth Turner is still around? He was always an excellent negative bellwether.

    1.5% rates make money pretty cheap.

  4. My carpenter friends are having 50 fits this spring as a dollar stud 2×4 is now 9 bucks.
    That shed last spring is now from a thousand bucks to $9,000.
    Spring time is usually deck building time but at these prices, everyone will pass.

    1. A sheet of crap OSB plywood has gone from $10 to $40

      It’s a good time to be in the lumber industry. Lumber prices, across the board have risen 270% in the past year. Man, did I pick a shitty time to remodel my home.

      1. Now had Trudeau plante dhis 2 billion trees, it would have kept lumber prices down 🙂

    2. jojo..

      Yep, was totally FLOORED when this weekend went to HomeDepot to buy 1ea 8′ 2X4 stud for a small project. $ 8.20 + taxes..!!

      thats Insane…

    3. This time last year I was in a total gut of my basement including reinforcing the exterior walls with 2 x 6s and 2 x 8s , interior walls and a wood floor (no more heaving concrete slab). At the time I committed, Covid had not yet hit fully but the stock market tanked. Carried on with the plan and on reflection best thing ever. The cost to do it today would easily be double if not triple.

  5. Garth posts weekdays on his blog greaterfool.ca
    Ryan Lewenza and Doug Rowat post on Saturdays.
    The 3 of them can be found at http://www.turnerinvestments.ca
    A Raymond James investment firm.

    Building materials are sky high right now.
    3/8 OSB is close to $50
    3/4 fir plywood is $100
    3/4 spruce in Saskatoon is $80
    The guy I deal with says if I’m building anything get 2×8, 10s or 12s now because we won’t be able to source it in the summer.
    It’s all going to the US

    1. Sounds like it is really going to get ugly as building demands have skyrocketed and materials will be scarce.
      Security of building materials will be a major concern to all these sites.

      Like you said, you better get your shit now before it really gets bad and they run out of it.

      1. Also copper and basic metal prices are going sky high. People should watch for theft in these. The metal “recycling market”, to use a PC phrase, will be growing.

        1. With metal thefts increasing, maybe the thieves will steel some public ‘art’.

          If I’m called for jury duty on a trial of someone caught melting down public art (like Calgary’s blue circle or Beaufort towers), I’ll vote not guilty.

          1. JOe…

            I lived in Harvest Hills for 7 yrs and watched that thing be installed from our Kitchen window. The most assinine POS ever (of a few of them), erected in this city. $417,000 bucks for a rolled piece of 16 or 20″ sch 40 Pipe painted blue. Wow..

        2. There are shortages of ALL building materials, across the board. I had to wait TWO WEEKS to schedule a concrete pour last summer. Yes, there was a cement shortage. Everything has been made worse by COVID lockdowns. So much for “essential” services, eh? Hint: EVERYONE and EVERYTHING is … essential

  7. Kate..your question on his blog brings up a good point. We are 3 hours north of Toronto.
    Prices have skyrocketed here. Real estate agents claim it is due to those civil “servants ” that are now working from home, did not lose their jobs, and are fleeing the city. They can sell their postage stamp property for a million, and come up to lakes, trees and space and outbid everything.
    An acquaintance in Halifax said they are fleeing Ottawa and taking up seaside property …easily.

    1. My daughter has friends who lived near me here in the SF Bay Area, and we became good friends. They in their thirties, and me in my sixties. He works for Salesforce, his wife is an attorney. A few months ago, they sold out of the SF Bay Area and moved to a MANSION on a golf course in an Atlanta suburb. He still works for Salesforce, and she still for her Bay Area Law Firm.

      It’s happening. The next great migration away from overpriced shit holes of multi-culti urban decay is happening … fueled by the portability of Jobs today.

    1. Neither. As part of the great reset, these homes will be confiscated, for nothing more than an elimination of the mortgage, over leveraged people will have no choice. They will essentially be on UBI, along with the CERB and government employees, well over 50% of the population will be dependent on government for food and shelter, at that point the majority Canadians will applaud the confiscation of investments from the rest to pay for it, and there you have Marxism, which the majority opted for. This budget will contain enough to get it defeated, the Turd will win a majority, and that will be the last election with a choice for Canada. Future elections will be for representatives to a “peoples assembly” or some such, but the government will be here to stay.

      My dual citizenship never looked so good. The same thing is being tried in the US as i type this, but Americans are much more independent and much better armed. My first two purchases in my new home state will be an AR-15 and a Sig Sauer p226.

      1. Yes, and after the great reset, the remaining few that manage to survive the Bill Gates, New World Order depopulation agenda will have nothing and be happy.

        1. Yep, we will have nothing and be happy – just like life on the Reserve: They don’t own any property (apart from the big screen TV) and they are, apparently, a picture of happiness.

          1. John Lennon famously … imagined … no possessions. While living in a toney penthouse overlooking Central Park, surrounded by the greatest luxuries imaginable, never having to worry about money for the rest of his life. Yes, when you are THAT rich … you don’t have to think about money, or the rent payment, or paying for anything.

      2. Peter, Excellent choices. Ensure you have sufficient amounts of ammunition, as I predict they will become even scarcer than they are now.
        As an aside, would you consider adopting me please?

  9. “but Americans are much more independent”

    I’ve listened to that myth for years. Maybe it was true once, but the US is leading the world in progressive lunacy, and the democrats are just getting started.
    “Hello, fake president biden….just ignore all the internet bluster, it amounts to nothing but noise .”

    1. By the time the Bidenites reshape America, life in the Soviet Union will look pretty good.

    1. Mr. K, That’s great news. I can sell my home for a fortune way above what I paid for it and I’ll be rich enough to by a smaller, less well appointed house or home at about the same price. Then I won’t be rich anymore. I think I’ll just need to buy a tent. A luxury one of course.

  11. Printing TRILLIONS of dollars in EVERY theoretically free society will have EXACTLY 2 results – inflation and higher interest rates. That sounds like a great way to introduce a Great Reset. The end result is the government OWNS EVERYTHING. You get to live under the boot of some faceless government slug who gives ZERO shits about YOUR problems.

    1. You get to live under the boot of some faceless government slug who gives ZERO shits about YOUR problems.

      What’s the difference between that and what we have now?

    2. The Fed already OWNS everyone and everything in this country. They’ve “bought” all the debt … and will have no choice but to “buy” more.

      Modern Monetary Theory is nothing more substantial than wishful thinking. When that wishful thinking slams head-on into Personal Monetary catastrophe … you’ll be yearning for The Great Depression … because at least there were soup lines.

  12. May I yet again remind my friends to read Lionel Shriver’s “The Mandibles”.

  13. The ChiCom’s authoritarian hammer coming down on Hong Kong over the last 2 years has been responsible for the movement of 42 billion just to Canada alone. That’s a lot of multi million dollar homes. All government actions in response will be to exclude first timers and cater to the rich. As a reward, the young and homeless will vote for more of the same.

  14. You better take your money out now while you still can.
    When shit hit the fan in banks, you only get $100,000.

    1. Yeah Jojo, and that $100,000 will only be worth the equivalent of $25,000. sigh!
      In the last couple of years I’ve been liberally “investing” in some physical metal assets. So I’ve managed to get well below that thresh hold. Not knowing, but wondering, if you have accounts in other bank companies, does that get you a separate $100,000 coverage for each account? Anyone know?

      1. Wouldn’t hurt to have it in more than one bank as your going to lose it anyways.
        Being diverse, at least you may have more banking options.
        And it may be per bank your limit is.
        CHMC is involved in that $100,000 limit guarantee.

  15. Wait till they come after the equity in your home and demand you pay taxes on it.

  16. Ronald Reagan: ” Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

    With the neo robber barons in tow. When we’re sure it won’t move – buy it. Marxist Mission accomplished; “we” own everything.

    Someone else runs it; and our lives, but we own it. Voters will fall for the obvious gambit, flush money around, their money, their borrowed money, used to acquire assets or to party, or both. A slight uptick in the economy provides cover for technocrats and kleptocrats to claim victory and put us into real and virtual lockdowns that will make today feel like a legal walk in the park.

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