MarkG

But there are plenty of people who do have to sell, so that situation can't last long. Not many people who inherit a house want to become landlords in the hope of future price rises, for example.

Plus, today's boom town can be tomorrow's economic wasteland. Look at Detroit, for example.

I'd only buy in the current market if it was somewhere I planned to live for at least ten years regardless of what happened.

MarylandNed

Maybe but the problem is that no-one knows for sure where the floor is or will be. You can only look back afterwards and see where it was - by which time it's too late to take advantage of it.

Shard

Agreed that there are always people who have to sell, but they sit beside many people who would like to sell but won't sell because they prefer to wait for more favourable conditions. That behaviour puts something of a brake on downward prices.

Detroit is an extreme example, although in theory it can happen in other boom towns. If the oil price crashed for a decade or two (unlikely) Fort Mac, for example, would see a sharp change in fortunes.

Agreed also that it is not possible to reliably predict a floor.

bra_boy

"John Garth Turner, PC (born March 14, 1949) is a Canadian business journalist, best-selling author, entrepreneur, broadcaster, financial advisor and politician, twice elected as a Member of the House of Commons, former Minister of National Revenue and leadership candidate for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. After serving as a PC MP between 1988 and 1993, he returned to political life as a candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada in the 2006 federal election, beating Liberal Gary Carr in the riding of Halton, Ontario. On October 18, 2006, the Conservative Party suspended him from the Conservative caucus for his independent stance and he sat as an Independent MP until February 6, 2007, when he joined the Liberal Party of Canada"

When it comes to RE, nobody (including me) can be objective. Garth Turner presents a point of view that is in opposition to the information that emanates from realtors and their associations. His reasoning about the market is sometimes tendentious, and like most authority figures he gets prickly when you point that out (on his blog). Realtors also have their own agenda, you know.

I posted those links because I feel bad for people who get into trouble with real estate. Even if you disagree with GT, it is a good exercise to be sure that you go into any transaction with your eyes wide open about the possible consequences.

Martin the cdn expat

Vancouver Island will never 'bottom out', there are too many people from the ROC ( rest of Canada) willing to relocate and retire, due to the weather.
Our baby boomers will be doing just that in a couple of years.

They don't call it home of the newly wed and nearly dead for nothing !


Half the articles you read on Canadian house prices say prices will go down.
Half say prices will go up.

You can even choose.

Short of an earthquake, Nanaimo should be stable. I would be careful in Victoria, prices there are just nuts.

MillieF

How frightfully depressing! I think you have just hit me in my age bracket Martin we sort of have a plan to move near to Nanimo....in ten years, when sprog is big....for the weather! Unless the weather in NB has got us first

Martin the cdn expat

Hi Millie one of the reasons I am thinking about NB is the lower housing prices, probably among the lowest in the country right now.
All the stats I read show the population of NB is declining, as more people leave (mostly to Fort Mac I think) than are arriving. MLS has tons of people listing their houses, but I'm guessing not that many buyers. I expect that trend to continue. The pipeline might help Saint John, but NB in general needs to find something to get it back in the game.
IDK what that is; cheap retirement province, shale gas, superprisons, who knows. Obviously trees and fish aren't cutting it,
but people were saying the same thing in the 80's.

If I was serious about going to BC, I would probably go sooner rather than later, but I wouldn't go now. West Coast needs a correction in a big way first.

Novocastrian

Cheap, yes, but who'd want to retire there? Shale gas and superprisons don't sound all that attractive to me.

If people were saying it in the 1980s, it seems they were right.

orly

I'd be reasonably confident the prices will fall in the coming years simply because the economy will struggle more in the coming years when the knock on arrives from the EU and US taking epic dives.

Some cities will buck the trend and others will take a hiding.

Chapponick

What about in Saskatchewan?

Shard

It's very flat, and I believe they have a tree there too.

Chapponick

Haha I meant house prices and maybe include how much for the tree?

MillieF

I read last week in our local paper that various areas of Sussex are virtually ghost towns. The well populated areas such as Moncton and Fredericton are doing well and certainly in town, prices are holding, it seems to me.

I went for a day out to the coast to a town called St. George, a nice place, popped into the Tourist info for a map, and they said 'you're a visitor'? They then gave me a very expensive brochure telling me how they'd love me to come to live there and guaranteeing me tax breaks and all sorts of incentives to start my own business! I think they are desperate!

Saint John is one of the most depressing grey places I have ever had the misfortune to visit, although I believe some of the outlying areas are better. It is evidently suffering economically and it shows.

Shard

That's unfortunate. You would think that NB could incentivise new immigrants to settle in the province in the same way Quebec does.

ExKiwilass

hmm, I think Van is a Pacific Rim city so more likely to follow the lead of Sydney/Melbourne/Perth and Auckland. Therefore it's more what happens in Asia that matters, not the US/EU.