tenant Housing market to cool down ?

 THINGS ARE GREAT!

Condos drive Canada’s housing start surge

Housing starts shoot higher on back of condo boom

Caviar condos set to flood Toronto market

Busy builders unfazed by talk of Toronto condo bubble

DON’T BE SO SURE…

Canadian house prices overvalued by 10 per cent, IMF warns (2011)

Toronto, Vancouver house prices to sink 15% over 2-3 years

Canadian economy ‘vulnerable’ to overheated housing market, IMF warns

How deeper euro crisis would whack Canada

Bank of Canada flags ‘spillover’ of Europe’s deepening troubles

Banks Not Immune To Housing-Related Failures: Corporate Canada

…WE’RE NOT SO SURE OURSELVES

Is Canada in a bubble? Housing experts face off

What will make the housing boom go bust?

IT’S THE FOREIGNERS!

Are foreign investors driving up Canada’s housing prices?

Flight to safety fuels Toronto’s condo market

Offshore bids price Canadians out of housing market

To tame Toronto’s housing ‘bubble’, ban foreign buying

OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS ARE DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM

Government fixes mortgage market, but will it work?

Ontario government will review condo legislation

Ottawa to toughen CMHC oversight

Canada’s banking watchdog to oversee housing agency

WE’VE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE

Vancouver Real Estate Cools – Could Toronto Be Next?

Canada’s housing bubble: This time is not different

And perhaps the three most telling of them all:

IT’S GONNA HAPPEN…REALLY…

Toronto housing market expected to cool next year: CMHC (2010)

Toronto house prices expected to cool through autumn (2011)

Housing market to cool: CMHC (2012)

So far, two of these three headlines have proved less-than-accurate. When seen together, I get a sense that we’re dealing with Mayan prophecies. And speaking of doom foretold, let’s let the following headline segue us into why this all might be going on:  Be very afraid of the tenancy deposit claim solicitors. At the moment, that seems like a very safe strategy. Be afraid; you know how this will end up.

A recent Bloomsberg News survey (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-02/canadians-dominate-world-s-10-strongest-banks.html) listed four Canadian banks among the top six “strongest” banks in the world. Following the universally painful “readjustment” of the U.S. economy starting in September of 2008, Canada was left relatively unscathed as our neighbours down below and cousins across the pond fell into hard times that, like aftershocks, continue to threaten the Global Economy. Not everyone in the world lost their savings, though, and quite a few people who still have money – and need a good safe place to store it – have been looking to Canada. The International Monetary Fund and the Financial Stability Board (currently run by Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney) have both recently chimed in on Canada’s hot housing issues, and our Feds have been listening (and responding). It might be a case of fiscal ’post-traumatic stress disorder’, but these days, when you see the words “housing” and “bubble” side by side, in 40-pt. type, every day, you might wish to see a safer landing than the last time.

In 2008, very few people were talking about the U.S. housing bubble, and even fewer could anticipate the disastrous effects once it burst. In 2012 (or maybe ’13?), everyone wants to be able to say, “I told you so…” No one, yet, knows how the story will end. Ideally, in a uniquely Canadian way, it will not so much burst or implode as much as it will likely slow down, maybe after having a few government-directed “time outs,” leading safely to a sustainable anticlimax. But we shall see.

In following columns, I’ll delve deeper into the whole state of affairs and even – having not forgotten the name of this blog – discuss the effect that Toronto condo sales are having on rentals.