12h ago

Canada’s housing market was poised for a comeback. Then trade war jitters set in

Most Canadians do not want a housing market "comeback". We need a crash, with the federal and provincial governments lowering costs by building. And tax changes to decommidify housing.

“It feels like the best case for housing is five or 10 years where price growth tracks sideways and you get the relief coming through income growth,” Mr. Doyle said.
“But the risk is things spiral with this trade war and we’re into a stagnation environment where it’s not a sideways movement any more, it’s a sharp downturn.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canadas-housing-market-was-poised-for-a-comeback-then-a-trade-war/

4 comments

Oh no, your house's value didn't double in ten years. How horrible for you, I will send a card at once.
- Mine like tripled. It's fucking stupid - my house is not worth its current price. I've been hoping for a housing crash for a long time. I don't know why people are excited about their house going up - like, congrats you sold your house for more than you paid and now you get to buy an equally inflated house...
  
  Because they're all land baron geniuses because they bought a box to live in and the price went up insanely.
  I've owned my own home for many years, but I'm under no impression I was some sort of Einstein because it's now worth way more than it ought to be. I don't get these people and I have more than a few of them in my life.

The real problem I see is its tied to our money supply.
-The mortgage acts as a gatekeeper for an inelastic good that is necessary for life and procreation, hence the youth are forced to sign up for it, which grows the money supply when they take out the mortgage. This means the price is always being bid up and will fill whatever available debt bucket people can attain.
-This newly created currency goes from the bank to the boomer, the boomer spends the money, and it grows aggregate demand.
-This then funnels down into goods prices, counteracting deflation due to technological progress; counteracting CPI deflation such as hedonic adjustments and subtitutions; counteracting money taken out of circulation rather than being spent, by it being invested into alternative investments; leading to our 2% inflation target.
If the price of homes fall then you get a virtuous cycle of people no longer taking out mortgages, as no one wants to catch a falling knife, leading to a dramatic fall in the money supply. So instead we push the bubble higher until it finally becomes unsustainable. Its really a fundamental problem with our entire monetary system as far as I see it, and will inevitably always lead to the kind of demographic collapse we are seeing.