Excellent. I have been up to my armpits in home renos for about a year now, with the end still fairly far off. Looks like I'll be getting back some return on my investment though which is nice.

of course VREB is going to say everything is fine, their livelyhood depends on it. the only reason that the market didnt tank was the Bank of Canada dropped rates to the lowest ever... the next year should be interesting, rising canadian dollar, tanking us dollar, rising interest rates, rising unemployment....

Do you want the economy to tank? Just wondering

Rising unemployment, say what?

Stats Can disagrees with you:
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/1...r.html?ref=rss

In terms of housing, yes. House prices are completely out of whack with wages, and it's not sustainable. If prices continue at this rate, 25 years from now a $500k house is going to be $10,000,000. Is that sustainable?

Realistically, it won't tank, but values could likely go down 10-20% and then probably remain flat for a number of years.

One month does not a trend make. Thats also national. Also keep in mind that those stats don't include people who have given up and aren't looking for work, have dropped to part-time, etc. A few things I have read say it's closer to 17% in North America. Plus with the US dollar dropping, Canadian manufacturing could take a hit in the next few months.

Also, we are different here: http://www.timescolonist.com/busines...671/story.html Sad to see that we are nearly double the unemployment number from this time last year.

I'm of the opinion that things will get worse before they get better, but it is up to an individual to decide for themselves when/if to buy. I just don't want my friends buying into something they can barely afford, only to find 5 years from now when their fixed rate 4% mortgage jumps to 6%, that they can no longer afford the payments, and their 35 year mortgage means they haven't built up any equity.

Again, it's up to the individual to weigh both sides of the argument and decide for themselves. For many, it is worth the risk, for me, it's not.

I understand where your coming from but if your friend can't afford the payments at 6% compared to 4% then he should have never bought in the first place. He was already living beyond his means. No amount of doom and gloom can stop that type of idiocy. (sp?)

Nobody said the market wouldn't slow down and I'd say a $500k house is more than affordable for a couple with established careers. Condo's are still more than affordable for the younger bunch... not everyone gets to have a 2500sqft house with a pool for their first home.

Trends start somewhere and if you actually read the article, the gain was due to new full time employment, not part time as you suggest. Last year you couldn't throw a rock without finding a job. When McDonalds was offering $12/hr and benefits to flip a burger, there was obviously a shortage of workers. That's obviously corrected itself, and 6% unemployment isn't that far from the norm. Besides, don't a lot of the tourism based industries do substantial _seasonal_ layoffs right about now?

I travel a lot, and the slight correction we've seen here is nothing compared to other areas. I don't notice many vacant buildings here but everywhere else I go, there's lots of 'em.

Manufacturing has taken a shit already. Vic Ship just laid off 200+ workers in the past few weeks. From what I hear in the welding circles, a lot of the bigger fab shops are running on low staffing levels. I popped in at the boilermakers' hall last week, and the lady there told me things are as slow as she's seen them in 10 years. Not to say we aren't going to see improvement this coming year, but things are still tight for a lot of people.

I completely agree. Now you have to wonder how many people are in the same situation? Or worse yet, borrowed money for the 5% down...

I agree, but when the median house price is 7x median family income, something has to give.


True, trends have to start somewhere. My comment regarding part time and such was that the stats in that article (all in general, all unemployment numbers) don't usually include part time jobs, etc, so the "true" unemployment number can often be higher than the reported number.

If you look over the TC article I posted, not all the jobs lost were in seasonal employment, there were other areas like tech jobs as well.

Vic ship just lost a fairly large govt contract, but I was under the impression they were still busy. That sucks.

10% YOY drop on new house prices in Victoria according to Statscan: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quoti...1013a1-eng.htm