Bubbles in Cottage Country

It’s not just urban real estate values that are soaring these days. If an economic boom can be conjured up by encouraging people to spend more than they can afford to on a principal residence, think of how much bigger the boom can be when they do the same for a lakeside home.

The Grey Bruce Owen Sound region has seen prices for single-family home jump 33.3 per cent during the period to $432,100, compared to the same period last year, according to CREA. The average price of homes sold in March was a record $646,488, a 44.9 per cent improvement from March 2020.

23 Replies to “Bubbles in Cottage Country”

  1. I live in Muskoka and this too has been happening.
    A property being bought added $150,000-$200,000 and back on the market.
    I’ve noticed some same properties flipped multiple times.

  2. I bought a used mobile cottage. Not planning to leave AB this summer so might as well enjoy its scenery. There’s a bit of a bubble with campers too with crappy SUV towable tent trailers selling north of six grand in Calgary. People are desperate to get away even if they’ve never heard of GVWR, tow chains or Class III ball hitch.

  3. Goodbye gentrification, welcome back white flight, as our betters cash out of their investments in residential real estate in drug- and diversity-infested cities.

    Except this time they’ve made sure those other whites can’t afford to follow, unless they plan to live way off grid or in a rural slum as depressed and drug-ridden as the cities they fled.

    Wuhan flu has proven incredibly versatile as an excuse for the elites to do what they otherwise wouldn’t dare do openly.

    Absurdly low interest rates courtesy of the “global savings glut” haven’t hurt a bit. We should all have a rich Chinese uncle willing to subsidize our lifestyles, on condition he can count on our loyalty.

  4. My buddy has a cottage a little past Peterborough about 140km from Toronto. He noted on his little road a tear down went for $370, a modest cottage sold for $675k, a fully modernized one was $1.10m. My brothers collage is on Lake Eugenie south of Collingwood and his doctor friend 3 doors down from him just sold for $1.4m. Scary and they sell almost immediately.

  5. 90% of population living in an urban setting is a historical aberration, albeit cyclical. Ur, Uruk, Toronto….the great cities of Babylon.

    1. It’s evolution. The whole world is urbanizing. Ruralism is increasingly obsolete.

  6. What bubble? My made in China Magic 8-Ball says “All your land are belong to us.” As long as there are Chinese millionaires to buy up our land, the bubble won’t burst, and as long as their are grifters running the show, that will be the case.

    1. A family member had the misfortune to have been nearly run over by a mob of deplaning Chinese passengers outside of Customs at YVR. She got rudely bumped and when she told one of them to mind where he was walking, said CCP fan immediately turned to her and shouted, “Not you country!”
      Oh, what a giveaway…….!

  7. Unpopular opinion: it isn’t a bubble.

    We are going to be dealing with major inflation in the coming years + immigration/investment from the far-East, anyone who can will get out of that region.

    1. @Chebur…:
      Inflation, as a retiree, that is my biggest fear. Plus I fear a repeat of 2008 when the market dove down, that would be tough on people who rely on their invested RRSP’s and RRIF’s. Thank you Turdoo.

      1. Yup, those of us on a fixed income will be dipping into savings to get by, assuming they have any savings. A whole lot don’t, and I expect to see a big increase in homeless, drug use, and crime. There is an increasing divide between the have and have nots. There are more homeless, more drug users, more crimes and criminals than ever before. Homes selling way over listing, but that extra money ain’t worth the fiat paper it’s printed on. Again, I envision a very dark time ahead for us all, perhaps for decades. I have no intent, or plans to go quietly, into that ugly void!

        1. ” more crimes and criminals than ever before.”

          That is contradicted by all evidence.

      2. My fear as well. Which is why it makes sense to look towards with stable “commodities” where at least you retain dollar value, such as real estate.
        But what do I know…not an expert in any of this stuff.

    2. Getting out now. Had my late mother’s cottage appraised in January 2020 for estate valuation. Having it appraised again now, as some beneficiaries wish to purchase. Not me; no way. I can’t wait to see the figure, after 16 months.

      1. *
        even if you can afford the initial purchase
        price, the cottage country taxes will kill you.

        every new homeowner out here in prince
        edward/hastings cty is fleeing the urban
        shithole that is post national toronto.

        our neighbours just sold their place for
        five times what they paid a couple of
        decades ago.

        *

  8. If you own real estate then sell it. When interest rates go up. And they will. You can pick up foreclosures for cheap. Works every time.

  9. Why not just sell the whole country to the CCP in one big fire sale, instead of doing it incrementally piece by piece.
    Chinada is for the CCP, get used to it.
    French colonial shitholes sure are corrupt.

    1. And after selling it… nationalize it. To free it from the colonizing oppressors.

  10. I live in Owen Sound grey bruce, a house down the street from me is a old 1920s home been completely remodeled with a full finished basement, finished attic, 4 bedrooms nice backyard. The family that bought the house about 4yrs ago listed the house 2 times before the covid, asking was 399k they could not get a bite.
    They listed again in Feb this yr this time for 599k next thing you know there was a bidding war and was sold in 2wks. Over asking.
    Wartime houses selling in a weeks time, an old house size of a shed(maybe little biggar) on a small lot sold for 220k, my brother in laws daughter sold her house 3yrs ago for 289
    It sold recently for 569 and they did nothing to the house.
    Trouble is now people have sold big but you need to replace, your no further ahead.
    Houses and cottages at Sauble Beach on lake Huron are out to lunch.

  11. We are North Bay area…3.5 hrs from the hole (Tranna).
    Our real estate friend has watched the big city people sell a bunglow for a million, and get into bidding wars up here. The appeal: peaceful, clean, space, trees, rocks , lakes, and no 401 commute.

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