Today’s market may not have the mayhem of multiple offers it did last year, but it does seem to be pumping along. We’ve been involved in 7 multiple offer situations since the new year. So the multiple offers aren’t dead and gone, in fact they seem to have made a comeback since last September and October.
There’s definitely a difference between multiple offers now and multiple offers at the peak of the market. Firstly, they no longer automatically come over list price or without conditions. In our case some have come just over list price, some under or right at list price. Surprisingly enough, two this week were unconditional offers. Second, the timing has changed… at the peak you’d have multiple offers on a good listing within days of hitting the market, now you never know when the situation might arise -it could be only a few days into the listing or a few weeks.
The first question that comes to mind is why, with all the inventory would anyone go into competition? One reason might be the price – in particular those properties priced extremely well. It may also be the exact property that buyer is looking for, in the area or building that they really want to be in. In any case there’s no question that multiple offers aren’t dead and gone.
One of the best ways to get a house to sell is to severly under price it. For e.g., if I absolutely must get rid of my house, I could put my house up for sale well below the market price.
E.g., if my house is worth $400K, I would put it up for $310K. I will get multiple offers.
So what?
Reality is invetory is record high and it will remain so for months if not years to come.
Prices will go down further.
prices will drop way way down
listings way up
sales way way down
there is no bottom
only a fool buys now
Why do you post like that Squid?
Trying to be a real estate poet?
There is no bottom? We talking about actual houses or are you trading ABCP’s?
I recently sold a house in St Albert that went into multiple offers. I didn’t severly under price it but priced it accordingly. Nice houses that are priced properly are still selling.
Vern & Squidly77, keep on renting! You will always be priced out of the market!
Squiddly77 is a regular poster over at the bubble blog. He is so regular at his postings there that I doubt he holds a job.
He and his poster chums are very negative and bitter and have their fingers crossed that Edmonton will have its housing doomsday soon.
I wouldn’t give too much credibility to that nut.
BTW, Bob’s stats are out.
VERN:
You are not a house owner to talk the way you do. You obviously do not have a clue about finances.
There are a few persons out there with an obvious agenda. Why? Renters that are preiced out? Out of province observers?
Regarding the “intentional underpricing of homes”, some have taken this to the outer limits. Houses which should be listed at $200,000 are listed for 160,000, as an example.
Buyers in Winnipeg have become so frustrated that the Man. Real Estate Board has come down with directives concerning this practice. The bottom line on this issue: If an owner (and his agent) list a house at a certain price, and get offers beyond this price, the owner should seriously be considering taking that offer. Rejecting offers of $20,000 above asking-price is just not acceptable. From a “Buyer Agent’ perspective, underpricing a home to that extreme also wastes a lot of buyer agent times…
I’d just like one offer on my 1500 sq foot house in Sh. Park. It’s priced competitively and we’ve had around 16 showings with really good feedback, but no offers. It’s super frustrating.
We are selling through a realtor.
One doesn’t need to seriously under price a home to see multiple offers. Pricing is one consideration. None of the homes I’ve been involved with on the buying end or selling end were significantly under priced. Properties that do reflect a good value to multiple consumers will receive interest. Just because someone makes an offer doesn’t mean it’s a good one.
For some buyers they put their best foot forward. Sometimes its good enough to get the property and other times its not. Like buyers of mine who mad a list price offer this week only to be beat out by an unconditional offer of the same price.
As for Bo’s comments. The Real Estate Board should have no authority to determine or dictate policies surrounding pricing. The buyers agents can inform their clients about the situation and if their client still chooses to participate its their choice. If you make it a term of your representation that you won’t be involved in properties that have multiple offers then you can fully inform that in advance of representing them and they can decide if they still want you to represent them.
The buyers should have the ability to determine if they want to compete and based on the seller’s circumstances they should have the option to do as they choose and I believe any organization that impedes that choice is acting outside their jurisdiction of authority.
As for Squidly. Everyone knows what puddle of crap he crawled out of so take his comments for what they are worth. $0.00
thank you so much for the comments
i can see that the thermometer is set on high for home sellers
when your market drops from $451,000 to $390,000 and your listings quadruple…thats called a crash
we all now that the avg edm house should cost about $130,000
not $390,000
anyways the insults are ALWAYS appreciated so please keep them coming
and by the way
enjoy your home
Sherwood Park,
You are getting 10 times the activity you might if you were doing it on your own. Certain properties in certain areas may have a higher demand then yours.
Look what I just found during my lunchtime surfing:
http://pricedoutinedmonton.blogspot.com/
That will interest the bubble folks!
it wont be long now until you realize that you were duped
no way edm houses can hold these prices
theres just no way
10,000 jobs are about to disappear at petro can srathcona as the project is winding down
BA energy at redwater is in some serious financial trouble and the project is very shaky..at best
look for edms population to shrink this year
why are you people so hostile here ?
arnt cheaper homes for your children to buy a good thing ?
would you rather pay .40 for a ltr of gas or 1.40 ?
you people are strange thinkers
encouraging higher prices
inflation and high prices are your enemy
we are all better off if inflation and housing costs stay low
i mean…why would you want to pay more ?
***Response -
Still trying to scare the kiddies eh Squibber. Your record at predicting disasters has been less then stellar. Still trying to beat down the prices so your undeserving sibs can buy a house I see. Well let’s just say we agree to disagree. Anyone who can post as often as you do is either unemployed or not deserving of employment. Let’s just hope you are one of the lucky 10,000 that will move away. As far as being hostile, that is a stretch coming from you. Anyways lets just say we agree to disagree and if I’ve been too hard on you I do apologize. I know you like to dish it out but didn’t realize you were so sensitive. ***
I just threw that realtor comment out there in case people thought I was using Comfree, which I am not, nor would I.
why would housing costs falling be a disaster ?
sensitive squid ? not a chance
i can and have taken more insults then you can imagine
when that happens i know i have gotten under your skin
again..a simple question
why would cheaper housing costs be a disaster ?
i await your responce
***Response, To be completely fair there is noway of telling if you are the real Squibbers. I’m sorry you don’t feel you’ve been treated very well. I’ll have a word with the ruffians who have treated you so porrly.
Prices will be what they will be. I am not in control of pricing. I can only deal with the market conditions as they are. You on the other hand have demonstrated a clear agenda. I also disagree with most of your facts and figures. I have not said here today that house prices are rising although the average has risen. I do remember your glee the day the Journal posted a 1% decline and how you speculated that was the beginning of the end. So lets call your pious act that you want prices to be reasonable what it is. A farse. Todays post is about my observations dealing with multiple offers, why are you so threatened by that you have to come on here today simply to spread your b.s. BTW Lower house prices are not a travesty and I have said that many times but you definitely have demonstrated selective hearing. I’ve already wasted too much time on you already.
Sheldon
by the way..my kids are both pipefitter apprentices working out of ua 488
one is working at petro-can the other at cnrl
they are good kids..but neither can afford to buy a home at these prices
and there lyes your problem
good alberta born kids with very good jobs ($17 and $24) who can not afford to buy a alberta home
this should tell all for the future of prices
Squidly
When they get their journeyman certificate they will.
From http://www.alis.gov.ab.ca/occinfo/Content/RequestAction.asp?aspAction=GetHTMLProfile&format=html&OCCPRO_ID=71003103
According to the 2007 Alberta Wage and Salary Survey, Albertans in the Steamfitters and Pipefitters occupational group working part-time or full-time earned from $45,200 to $166,700 a year. The average salary was $68,700 a year.
Whew, $166,700, that’s pretty good coin.
squiddly wrote:
“good alberta born kids with very good jobs ($17 and $24) who can not afford to buy a alberta home”.
Poor squids… very good job? at $17? Stop living in 1991 gramps!
Real jobs here involve $35/hour wages.
Squids/bubble posters unmasked again!!!
1st year apprentice is about $17hr
3rd year apprentice is about $24hr
hey those are good jobs and neil is right
40hrs a week at 35hr is about $70,000 yearly
i bought and paid for my calgary house and raised a family on those wages my kids both played hockey and soccer and we never missed a vacation
being a tradesman is not a bad job
Sarah, thank you for the update on multiple offer situations. It provides interesting insight into buyer behaviour in this market that does not look in favor of sellers, right now. From the available statistics, it’s not easy to fully understand the market dynamics within the various price ranges. My assumption is that we should be seeing decent activity levels within the price range that is accessible to first-time buyers or people who want to trade up from a starter home. Looking at individual listings at the higher end, though, it looks like sales are rather slow from 600K up, with numerous price reductions in the 500K and 600K range. Are there sales figures for 500+, which is a price range that, until a few years ago, had very few sales? We had earmarked several houses around 800K in the Fall and have seen significant price drops on many of those, which makes us hesitate to purchase right now.
***Response, The multiples we have been involved with have been between 330 and 500. In some areas the over 600k market has been really sluggish. On one of our recent sales over 800k the buyers were able to get their home sold for what they needed in order to move up. For them they felt the time was right because the move was relative. If market values went down they felt they would lose on both properties but they wanted to be closer to a certain school and again we were able to negotiate a sale on their home that allowed them to move forward.
Sheldon
It is rather stunning the licking that the realtors are giving to home owners and renters. The personal attacks are absolutely stunning.
Inflation is not helping any consumer but it does help the realtor. These are the only ones to benefit. Speculators and realtors skyrocketed the prices in Edm, well beyond the affordability and this is why Edm is experiencing a buyers market for the last 10 months despite sky high oil prices.
Oil prices will comedown but not right away and the skilled labourers will not see appreciation in their salary when the price oil does come down. For most Edmontonians, the massive increase in housing prices have not been matched by the increase in salaries. So yes, salaries have increased but the increase in salary is going to the mortgage banks not real folks.
This is why Edm and AB experienced net migration OUT.
What remains absolutely striking is that at a time of absolute-record high oil prices and having the 2nd highest inventory of oil in the world, AB is experiencing a substantial buyers market!!
Realtors-speculators have conflict of interest or bias. Simple as that.
*** Is it that simple Vern or is your view of the entire equation that simple. I’m not sure of the basis to which you first paragraph relates but I’m assuming you are unhappy with all REALTORS and speculators. Based on your list I’m surprised builders didn’t make it in there. The vast majority of spec inventory was sold directly to individuals not by REALTORS but by the builders themselves.
Sheldon.
It’s clear that the market peaked last year and it’s a risk to buy, right now. Especially if you’re short term like myself.
If prices weren’t so out of whack compared to rents I probably would have bought a home when I moved here. But I wasn’t willing to pay such a high premium for ownership when there was a risk that I would be moving in a couple years and end up owing the bank 50-100k because home prices dropped.
Slamming renters or calling for a real estate apocalypse both sound like biased bitter positions.
*** Response. I am on the record disagreeing with slamming renters. Its a benign arguement. I think its just easier for people to rationalize there angst towards certain people through characterizations.
The market needs renters as well. If all the renters pick up and by we have the same problem today in that the investors would now need to sell.
As far as buying now goes every situation is different. For many people it makes sense. If the inventory is this high and the values have not plunged what happens when the inventory balances out again?
Sheldon
I just found your blog site. It is excellent. I like the statistics and the personal stories. I am trying to do the same on my site but for the Ottawa market. Keep up the good work.
Sheldon:
Thanks again for more fear mongering.
“If the inventory is this high and the values have not plunged what happens when the inventory balances out again?”
-Inventory is high because of speculation has put it beyond affordability for the blue collar $60-100K workers. White collar $60-100K workers may still buy but not blue collar.
-Greedy speculators (which includes realtors but not only) will hold on bec of high oil prices. The prices have come down substantially anyways.
-There is more room to go for the prices. The real-estate prices are always sticky to come down and rapid to go up. Just wait.
-Fundamentals suggest a further softening but no catastrophy can be predicted as long as oil stays high. If oil drops to $60 – expect a catastrophy.
-Something is off when Brampton/Mississauga (VERY similar to Edm) offer $175/sf and Edm is at $275/sf. Sure in Mississauga people are paid less but the discrepency is rediculuous.
-Something is definately off.///
Sheldon,
Prices have come down quite a bit, especially if you were first coming into the market last June like I was. But you are correct, things aren’t dropping much now considering where inventory levels are. But if up to 40% of the homes on the market are empty and migration into the province has slowed, I think that it might just be a waiting game. If the US recession causes a few projects to get shelved, things could turn around in a hurry here.
I also think that dropping interest rates have helped maintain current prices. The monthly payments on a 300k mortgage don’t look too scary with these rates. But low interest rates combined with peak prices just create more risk for buyers. When the fed tries to combat the hyper inflation that we’re about to experience, rates will come back up and that will put even more pressure on home prices to come down. Even if inventory levels have dropped by then (thanks to builders cutting production in half), prime getting close to 10% is going to crush a lot of first time buyers that bought whatever they could afford.
I’m in a situation where I can wait a couple years. I don’t have kids yet and we’re spending less than 10% of our income on shelter. So we’re maxing out our rsp’s and planning on doing some traveling while things settle here.
Squid,
If you’re kids are basically still training/schooling, why do they need to buy homes? They have some time to save up down payments, get their journeyman certificates and then settle down with a lady (or guy) and enjoy the power of dual incomes.
***Nate, I never said they haven’t come down. I never said they won’t come down further. I do think they’ll go up in the short term and then we’ll see what happens comes June to September. All I posted today, were my observations on multiple offers in this market. Noone asked if I’m surprised by it, but then in some peoples mind no matter what I post they have a pre conceived attitude towards it.
My honest opinion is that Vern & Squidly77 are both very, very mad at themselves for probably being lifetime renters in Edmonton. They are probably so mad that they could have bought a home pre-2005 for a decent price but didn’t. OUCH!!! Shall I say OUCH again!!! Now they are doing their best to fear monger the public in hopes that the market will hit a downturn and they can have a second chance at home ownership. EDMONTON WAS SEVERLY UNDERVALUED until 2006/07. Look up the stats, it still has the lowest average home price for metropolitan areas of 1 million or more. People just aren’t used to reality yet and those who didn’t pull the trigger a few years back are idiots. “Why would I buy for $250,000 when I can rent for $700/month?” just turned into “Why would I buy for $500,000 when I can rent for $1400/month?”
Other than that, salaries will rise, home prices will rise, gas will rise, groceries will rise, you name it…
Calgary’s RE Blog is way less negative than this one because people probably understand what’s happening a little better. They too have 15,000 homes on the market at a higher avg. with a slightly higher avg. salary.
DREM,
“Look up the stats, it still has the lowest average home price for metropolitan areas of 1 million or more. ”
Do you have a source for this assertion? The last figures I saw put Edmonton behind Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, but well ahead of Montreal and Ottawa.
In any case, its a contrived stat – the slightly smaller (and generally significantly cheaper) cities, such as Winnipeg, Quebec, Hamilton, etc are better comparables for Edmonton than Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal anyway.
hey richard cool down…body.
they bring some ideas ,dont trust blindly every thing you listen from realtor ..i am not favoring those two brothers ,however sheldons artical is hard to digest today.
Maybe someday the negative folks that post here will “get it”. Until then keep comparing oranges to apples (i.e.Edmonton to out east) and enjoy life a bit for once.
P.S. Your rents are due on the 31st.
Do still have snow in Edmonton? How much is an iglu?
dawson:
How full of snow are Ontario/Quebec?Maritimes?
Big igloos there, no?
BTW: Awesome post at that new RE blog:
http://pricedoutinedmonton.blogspot.com/
There appears to be a direct correlation between the lack of grammar & spelling skills and the uneducated comments posted by the Bubble folks!
ray,
I trust you see the irony in touting an article that describes the advantages of both Edmonton and “out east” Kitchener-Waterloo, immediately after posting your “oranges to apples” comment.
Rob and Ray.
Ad hominem attacks are especially futile on the internet.
Enjoy the new blog, I’m sure the discussion on a site where everyone agrees will be very engaging.
Sheldon,
I wasn’t trying to say that you’re fluffing future real estate prices or anything along those lines. I think that we can both agree that no one knows exactly what will happen to prices over the next year or two. There are forces pushing the market in both directions. It is however, looking much more bearish than 05-07.
ray, if you are limited only to Canada, yes,, you are right… everywhere is crap. spend some money from your good investment and see other parts of the world where a house is a house not a box without architecture, where at this time you have flowers in your garden, where you can have a nice coffee outside in March and where you have a city life, and many other things. Alberta is good to make money but believe me, I don’t know where to spend them here. At the end of the day doesn’t matter how much money you have if you don’t have a life… and in Alberta you don’t. I can’t explain this to you because you don’t understand and you don’t know what a life means… By the way, I own 1 house and 1 apartment but not here. I’m not so stupid to spend all my life walking inside for 8 months a year. Other than a 2-3 weeks vacation in the Rockies I haven’t seen something interesting in Alberta. And that vacation you take once in your life because there are many places to see. Last year I spent 1 week in Vienna for example… I haven’t seen all the places, museums and concerts. Can you do this in Edmonton? Spend one week where? You need 5 hours to see everything and that’s it.
dawson:
You are the best poster here.
Keep it coming! I love your tales.
i have to say i take offence to the needless insults to renters or future home buyers, we would love to buy a house as a newly married couple, but our income is only 70,000 combined, our bank will only approve us for 210,000
and no way would we pay that for a wooden box condo, but insulting us is going to far, posters like squidly77 give us some solice and hope, if houses dont become more affordable we will leave this city and buy where it is more reasonable, where as ontario may not have the jobs there is still work and owning a home is not enslaving yourself to financial serfdom
gary/squiddly77:
$210K is not bad to start.
That’ll get you in a nice starter home.
3 years back I was not earning enough but I changed jobs and now earn more.
Think outside of the box.
booms come and go, houses and debt load stay, where as Ontario may be slow now, in 1 or 2 years who knows where the work will be, many parts of Ontario are really under priced such as my home town of Barrie.
i am getting sick and tired of all this negative press here, all they preach is that higher prices are good, how can that be ?
we want to start a family and it just seems impossible to do here, this realy dose seem like a greedy me me province.
and treating renters as second class shows that you have no empathy for people.
Gary… Find solace in the fact that many people have a household income like you and that your not alone. Promoters and rent insultors like Ray and company show just how clueless they are about economics.
The very fact that there are people like you or other’s that cannot afford a home and yet make good money is all the proof you need to know that this is a bubble. I find it utterly ironic and hillarious that people like Ray slag rentors as bitter and then tell us prices are going to stay and run higher. Their very arguement shows their complete lack of economics knowledge. Get a clue.
I suspect that the people active in this market are buying the best and most value priced products out there. I also suspect the majority of them also have some sort of property that they bough pre run-up and are therefore using the equity gain to ‘trade-up’ and therefore realize on their capital gain.
I’m also sure these low sales figures will continue to trickle through our so called ‘high season’ until fall. At which point a whole bunch of people will still have the house they were planning on selling in the spring and summer and suddenly realize that they’ve got to carry it for yet another 6 months during our ‘low sales’ season. At which point more aggresive reductions will occur.
At roughly 600 SFD sales per month on 3000+ inventory I guess that some “deals” are to be had out there (according to Trueman’s site). Using “deals” relatively ‘loosely’ in the historical sense. But 600 or so sales for a city the size of Edmonton which has had the influx of people it’s seen over the last 18 months is lame. Just lame.
Bottom line. If you’ve got ‘Bitter Rentors’ who make a decent household income; have a good credit history; and who still cannot get approved for enough to buy something reasonable; guess what, they’ve got a right to be ‘Bitter’. And with that one must realize that your market has outstripped the very people that buy the homes of those homeowner’s ‘Trading Up’. So thanks Ray and company for really just showing us all your not even thinking when your saying prices are going up; up; up; while slagging rentors.
But what do I know, I only have a graduate degree in economics.
Gary, 7 years ago I was in your exact position. My husband and I had a combined income of about $60k. We were paying $850 a month in rent, to live in a cockroach infested 1-bedroom apartment. We were approved for a $200,000 mortgage, which would get us a tiny, old condo where we lived. Guess where?
Toronto. So…we moved an hour west of the city and bought a small house, and commuted. Earned some equity and over the years moved up.
I appreciate you’re tired of people being rude to renters… I also think it’s inappropriate but I don’t think it is geared towards all renters. There are a few specific commenters on this blog who preach renting and continuously insult home owners – that is who the “anti-renter” comments are aimed at.
I am empathetic to your situation, but I am also sick of people thinking they should be entitled to their dream home as their first home.
You can’t compare Barrie to Edmonton. Perhaps you should consider Leduc, or Fort Saskatchewan, or Stony Plain, heck Barrie is probably more comparable to Camrose or Mundare.
thanks O, we could have qualified for well over 300,000 using a variable rate mortgage on a 40 year maturity with a broker, but i as you have an education, those products are really bad long term, we will just wait and see and use the money we are saving renting for a future purchase probably back home in Ontario
One should not have to sign there life into a 40 year mortgage to afford a home and in the process pay the bank basically the asking price of the home PLUS the principal borrowed. Good call Gary on avoiding that type of product.
There are good times to ‘Rent and Save’ and good times to ‘Buy and Hold’. Unfortunately, the former is the intelligent financial plan of action right now unless you’ve got a long long hold horizon for living in Alberta.
I think it is unfortunate that people like Gary are unable to purchase their dream home but they need to realize that they need to start somewhere. Real estate prices are up across country. I am from Northern BC (Prince George) where there have been lay-offs due to the lumber industry, yet real estate prices have escalated. Alberta may see some minor corrections due to inventory levels over the next several months, but I am confident that prices will be nowhere near levels seen in the past. Prices will eventually begin to climb slowly. Rent too will increase.
in all fairness Sarah, Barrie has a population of 128,000 people, you should have known that living in Toronto.
a very very nice family home can be had for about 200,000 less then Edmonton prices. tinyurl.com/3yu7lh
that’s a massive saving, we like Edmonton, but it is just so expensive
Yes but Barrie is a bedroom community – most of the people there work in Toronto and trade off the commute for the lower housing prices. That’s why I suggested you look a bit outside Edmonton where you’ll find lower prices if you’re willing to commute like you probably did when you lived in Barrie.
my last post
no Rob your wrong, we are not looking for our dream home, just a home with a yard and our own front door, to have to pay 350,000 is a rediculous price to pay. we dont feel entitled to anything, we have saved 20,000 over the past 2 years, laughable amount to people here maybe, but we scraped and saved that money
it wasnt easy, we want to
ok im wrong im a useless renter i guess and am of no worth here
going home
I LOVE RENTERS!!!
They are paying off the mortgage for my 1st property (bought in 2005). I treat them like gold – because that’s what they are.
Renters – please stay – I’m planning on buying another place in about 2-3 years and will need someone to rent my current personal property… (:
I’ve lived in a few provinces and the disconnect I see here is unreal. On one hand, every second vehicle I see on the road is less than 3 years old and probably cost more than $50,000 brand new. On the other hand, people gripe and moan about paying $2,000 – 2,500/month on an appreciable asset.
Some people have to stop worrying about being seen in designer sunglasses, $300 jeans, and other crap like that and worry about investing in their future.
Maybe I have it wrong but I see a significant number of people who try and act like money’s falling out of their pockets but no one can afford to mortgage a $500,000 home.
All it takes is 2 people who make at least $50-60,000/yr each and a decent down payment. C’mon now, everyone in Alberta makes over $25/hr. At least that’s what they’re all saying, save a few.
So does eveyone just pretend to make “huge coin” out here? Because to me, a city that can pay every tradeperson more than $100,000/yr should be able to sustain not only the housing prices, but the economy in general.
But hey, maybe they spent it on that jacked-up Ford F-350 Chief Super Duper Extended Cab Turbo Diesel. That $80-90,000 would have been a nice 15-20% downpayment.
In other provinces, the people making over $100,000 own the business, not work for it.
Awesome post, DREM – absolutely awesome.
Don’t forget, a lot of Albertans own a second home in Kelowna.
Alberta has the lowest unemployment, highest paying jobs. the cost of living is higher – it is all reletive. people will not sell there houses way below what they paid for them.Homes cost more to build in alberta.
What is every one crying about.
A crash is not the near future a slow decline of prices will happen but not to crashing levels. the prices where to high in my opinion(may 2007) this is a correction not a crash.
ryan,
” people will not sell there houses way below what they paid for them”
But some have no choice. Simply holding onto a property is not a zero-cost proposition: there are interest expenses, taxes, maintenance, etc to consider.
Those with a second property (eg, either trading up, or as an investment), will be faced with either taking a monthly loss (the monthly loss of renting at below cost of ownership, plus the opportunity cost of the downpayment) or taking a big loss up front (selling below cost, especially once all expenses are accounted for).
Gary,
there are alot of single datached homes east of downtown in your price range. It’s a great area especially if you work downtown and don’t mind the slightly higher crime rate and colorful neighbours.
I think that the bubble boys and girls are getting a bit ticked at that new blog…
http://albertabubble.blogspot.com/
The posters there are delirious big time now!
Anyway, the U.S. Fed. reserve went down another
3/4 % today… still can’t recover from that mess now.
The Fed is pulling out all the stops to avoid a severe recession. Which will affect both Canada and Alberta. Some estimates are that it’s going to be of the magnitude of 1 in 25 years bad. At this point aggressive interest rate cuts actually should cary more negative sentiment than positive. Since a cut of 25 bps plus the Fed actions on the weekend basically confirm just how bad the US economy is.
Sorry I meant 75 bp cut today + the 25bp cut (to a different rate) and allowing investment banks to borrow from the Fed as a last resort.
Cutting rates in the U.S. will actually bring up inflation by xmas.
The yanks will possibly be knocked back to the stone age.
I have good sources in Montreal (a business partner) and in Toronto (in-law). They both forecast that things will get bad soon. layoffs, etc. investments in/by government, etc to be cut.
They hear that some folks there are coming west to weather the storm…
BTW: nasty posts on Alberta RE at:
http://pricedoutinedmonton.blogspot.com/
Some people think that buying a home in an outlying community makes sense because it is more affordable.
I, for one, think this is a complete myth. Once you factor in your extra commute costs like fuel and maintenance, I actually think you are further in the hole.
Sure properties in Edmonton are more expensive on a comparable basis, but dear lord, what’s the cost of commuting an extra 100 km a day. By my crude math, somewhere in the order of an extra thousand bucks a month.
MK:
Do like me. I am investing in Wainwright in April.
It makes sense. as much as silver and gold will go up. And as much as every western country will boycott the 2008 summer games in Beijing.
And as much as George W will not abdicate and will promulgate a National emergency to saty in power so he can nuke Iran.
Cutting rates in the U.S. will actually bring up inflation by xmas.
The yanks will possibly be knocked back to the stone age.
http://pricedoutinedmonton.blogspot.com/
Ray,
So is that your troll blog? It might be more interesting if you did more than call Gloria fat and make fun of renters for being poor. You are just a troll…..
these realtor run blogs seem to totally ignore people who are struggling to buy a home, its like its a joke to them, we are all stupid dumb rentors, realy discouraging to me at least. we were thinking of buying here in a year or two, but no more.
You’re going to let the attitudes of blog commentators dictate when you buy a home for you and your family?
gary:
I found some advice for you here:
http://pricedoutinedmonton.blogspot.com/