When We Know When It’s Going To End
It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “The housing dreams of families wanting to live in central Toronto will undergo a sea change in the coming decade as the supply of detached homes dwindles and the remaining ones soar in price, real estate experts say. ‘If you want to live in central Toronto, you’re going to have to live in a condo. Families will be forced to buy into high-density living. It’s the natural evolution of a city,’ says real estate mogul Brad Lamb, who develops condo projects in Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary.”
“About 53,000 new condo units are due to be completed in Toronto over the next 18 months alone.”
“Condo sales in Toronto’s downtown core took a large dip in June. RealNet Canada Inc. will release June preconstruction sales figures next week, but sales in the first five months of this year are 22 per cent below last year’s levels in that market, and May’s figure was 37 per cent lower than a year earlier. While the decline is significant, a large number of investors and Torontonians have still been scooping up yet-to-be-built units.”
“This week, one of broker Oliver Baumeister von Brettens’ clients who had bought a preconstruction condo last fall as an investment, and has already put 20 per cent down, said he wants to sell his contract to somebody else. ‘Builders are starting to feel it,’ said von Bretten. ‘They’re offering incentives to the clients, as well as larger incentives to the realtors to bring clients to the front door.’”
“Vancouver home sales have hit their lowest level in more than a decade. ‘This market has suddenly empowered buyers to get what they want in an offer,’ said associate broker Tony Ioannou, noting sellers no longer have the same number of offers to choose from now that sales have slowed. University of B.C. housing expert Tsur Somerville echoed that sentiment but noted it may not translate to cheaper homes just yet.”
“‘It’s not that they have more selection, per se - you’re just not all of the sudden needing to fight tooth and nail with other buyers to put offers on a place right after you’ve seen it,’ he said.”
“CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal says Vancouver shows where Toronto is headed. ‘The magnitude in Vancouver will be more significant but it is the same forces that really impact the Toronto market: namely we see some softness in investment activity, especially in the condominum market and we see less foreign money entering the city,’ Tal said.”
“Positive Real Estate CEO Sam Saggers says that the high-rise unit market in Surfers Paradise is particularly shaky at the moment. ‘There is a very depressed market at present, particularly the recently completed stock,’ he says. ‘Though prices have dropped, it doesn’t appear that the bottom of the market has been reached. Property values have dropped by up to 50% in some cases. On average, every property in the area has seen $100k stripped off its value from the last market peak. Luxury homes have gone from $4m to $2m. So unless you’re planning on buying a lifestyle property to live in, run the other way.’”
“Australia’s economy is dangerously dependent on China and the central bank will have to cut rates aggressively to protect the resource-rich nation from a slowdown comparable with that seen in struggling European states like Spain, said Andy Xie, an independent Shanghai-based economist and adviser to several Chinese banks. China is now Australia’s largest trading partner and the driving force behind its mining industry, which accounts for about 7% of GDP”
“‘Already the Chinese banks are having trouble lending money to fund [resources] projects,’ said Mr. Xie. ‘When a bubble is funded by foreigners, that’s when we know when it’s going to end.’”
“As early as 2009, SouFun Holdings Ltd. had organized a consumer group to US specializing in purchasing houses. It also helped many eager consumers take overseas houses and lands in Canada, Australia and Singapore. According to Zhuang nuo, the Managing Director of world SouFun, purchasing overseas house and lands has been a new tendency for Chinese buyers. The main impetus behind Chinese individual buyers has changed. In the past, they bought for housing demands, such as for children’s overseas education, emigration and retirement life, but now it is replaced by an expectation of investment returns.”
“‘It must be much more appealing for a freshman to have a 10,000 square meters villa land in US than an apartment burdened with mortgage loan and located out of rings in Shanghai,’ said Zhuang nuo.”
“California would become the first state to write into law much of the national mortgage settlement negotiated this year with the nation’s top five banks, and expand it to all lenders, under wide-ranging legislation state lawmakers approved Monday. Jose Vega drove 70 miles to Sacramento with his two young children to lobby lawmakers to pass the legislation after he spent three years battling to keep his home in the San Francisco-area city of Pittsburg.”
“In November 2009, he said, he found a trustee sale notice posted on his door 16 days after he was placed in a loan modification program. He was put into another modification program in the spring of 2010, only to have the bank again begin foreclosure proceedings. Vega eventually kept his home after filing for bankruptcy and getting help from the office of Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Now he and his family owe $466,000 - including the bank’s legal fees - on a home he said is worth about $200,000.”
“‘I’m not asking for a handout. All I’m saying is, you created this mess, let’s work something out,’ said Vega.”
“Northeast Ohio’s shaky housing market will grow more unstable and possibly drag down the local economy if banks don’t reduce the principals on more mortgages, foreclosure prevention advocates say. Nearly a third of mortgages in Ohio are underwater, according to RealtyTrac. Foreclosures also are increasing, after falling in recent years. They reached a 17-month high in May, RealtyTrac said.”
“Debbie Kline did a lot of research before buying her home in 2008 in Cleveland’s West Park neighborhood. She searched for a neighborhood with few foreclosures. She shopped around for the right mortgage. Maybe she should have looked into a crystal ball. Kline said foreclosures on her block have gone from two to about 15. The home she paid $79,000 for has dropped by at least $30,000. Frustrated, she, too, considered walking away.”
“Then she decided to fight. Kline heads Cleveland Jobs with Justice. ‘We, the taxpayers, bailed the banks out, now it is time for them to bail us out,’ she said.”
“Middle Tennessee home sales picked up momentum in June. In the April-June period, sales of single-family homes increased 26 percent compared to the same quarter in 2011, the latest data for nine counties in Middle Tennessee show. ‘Based on census data and other research, it appears that 34.1 percent of home owners in greater Nashville are paying significantly more than 30 percent of their income for housing,” said Loretta Owen, executive director of The Housing Fund, a group that works to increase the supply and financial resources to spur affordable housing.”
“‘While every situation is different, it seems clear that financial or credit counseling along with other preparation could help people who are paying a large percentage of their income for housing. They might be able to either reduce the amount they’re paying or begin to build equity through ownership rather than renting, and be better prepared for all that comes with owning a home,’ she said.”
“Others in the real estate sales community caution against overly restrictive bank lending on mortgages, though, saying it could undercut Middle Tennessee’s recent housing momentum. Certainly there were mistakes made by lenders during the housing boom, then bust, said Eddie Latimer, president of Affordable Housing Resources, a homebuyer education group. ‘While there is no way to defend the practices that caused the problems, the correction seems to be so overdone that the home ownership opportunity is being unnecessarily limited,’ Latimer said.”
“The Vue high-rise in uptown is converting to luxury apartments, ending years of speculation about the fate of a skyscraper filled with condos the developer couldn’t sell. One existing owner said he heard of the change when he received an email. The news, he said, wasn’t a surprise, but ‘I am disappointed that as homeowners there weren’t any options laid out in the letter. Obviously the value of our properties takes an immediate hit as our resale options are extremely limited. Again, not a surprise, but now a reality.’”
“The recession took a toll on Arizonans employed in real estate during the past five years with the loss of nearly 17,000 agents. Now that the market has turned, said Gordon Snyder, chairman of the Realtors group, he and other agents, brokers and title companies are seeing a tremendous amount of activity. Agents like Gary Holloway of Zip Realty Inc are dusting off an old joke about a recovery that goes something like this: ‘Dear God, give me one more real-estate boom and I promise I won’t spend it all on toys.’”
‘This market has suddenly empowered buyers to get what they want in an offer,’ said associate broker Tony Ioannou, noting sellers no longer have the same number of offers to choose from now that sales have slowed. University of B.C. housing expert Tsur Somerville echoed that sentiment but noted it may not translate to cheaper homes just yet.’
Eager Vancouver buyers who are capable of sitting on their hands are hereby advised to do so, at least until shock waves from the “worse than expected” Chinese slowdown ripples through the local housing market, by knocking out the all-cash investors from the East.
China Slowdown Cuts Luxury Spending, Hong Kong Retailing
By Justina Lee - Jul 3, 2012 10:50 PM MT
China’s slowdown dragged Hong Kong’s retail-sales growth to the weakest pace since 2009 as shoppers visiting from the mainland cut back on purchases of luxury goods such as jewelry and watches.
Sales increased 8.8 percent in May from a year earlier to HK$36 billion ($4.6 billion), the government said yesterday. That was the smallest gain since September 2009, excluding seasonal distortions each January and February.
The deceleration of Asia’s biggest economy is rippling through Hong Kong, which had record retail-sales gains as recently as last year. In neighboring Macau, a center for Chinese gamblers, a report this week showed that casino revenue was below estimates in June, clouding the outlook for companies including Sands China Ltd.
“The consumption appetite of mainland visitors has dropped compared with last year because of the economic slowdown,” said Raymond Yeung, a Hong Kong-based economist at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. The data are a “warning sign for Hong Kong retailers.”
…
‘By Jean Chua | CNBC China’s unexpected cut in interest rates - the second in less than a month - suggests that the world’s second-biggest economy is in worse shape than it appears and the government is getting worried about growth prospects ahead of the release of key economic data next week.’
‘By Jean Chua | CNBC The rate cuts from three major economies on Thursday may have dominated headlines, but it did little to inspire confidence in global stock markets, which fell as investors took the move to mean the world economy remains in trouble. For many market watchers, it’s becoming apparent that there’s little global policymakers can do to arrest what some describe as a global “synchronized slowdown.”
‘The European Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China both slashed interest rates, the former to a record low, amid signs that economies in these regions are still weakening. The Bank of England, whose rates are already at an all-time low 0.5 percent, said it would buy 50 billion pounds ($78 billion) of assets with newly printed money to help the economy out of recession.’
‘We don’t think people have got it in their models, what all these mean to oil prices, what all this means to copper, steel and coal prices, you name it,” Smead added. “There is going to be a massive revamping of the secular global synchronized trade pricing mechanism and it’s started but we’re probably in the second inning, we think.’
Back when I was a young pup studying economics at the University of Michigan, I had a prof who was an internationally renowned expert on the Chinese economy. One of his greatest challenges was teasing the real story out of the official Chinese government data.
To put it mildly, the Chinese government wasn’t telling the truth about the national economy. My prof was too polite to say so, but it sure seemed to me that China had made lying into high art.
Isn’t deceiving your enemy part of the “Art of War” according to Sun Tzu?
The Chinese have nothing on our gov’t. The lying & deception by the Fed-Treasury-Banker-Politician-Lobbyist turnstyle makes China blush.
Nice one Timmy…I recall working with a friend who escaped out of Chechoslovakia when it was behind the Soviet “Iron Curtain”. He said the only difference between Soviet propoganda and American propoganda was that the Americans acutally believed theirs.
“When a bubble is funded by foreigners that’s when we know when it is going to end.”
Wise words. The locals are the first to see the turn because they can see it with their own eyes - that’s if they care enough to look and pay attention to what they are seeing.
Those who are located somewhere else have to depend on what somebody else - an “expert” - tells them, an expert that may have an interest in painting a picture of the situation that is a bit different from the reality.
I note that over the course of the unraveling of the Housing Bubble, the notion of “equity locusts” has morphed from wealthy Californians buying investment properties from Vegas to Boise, into that of all-cash Chinese buying investment properties from San Diego to Vancouver.
It is always a good idea to keep Stein’s Law in mind when witnessing such spectacles:
Ben, are you running across any articles where Chinese “equity locusts” are HELOC-ing their houses in China to buy $500K shacks in CA? Or are the Chinese bringing cash with no strings attached?
It makes a big difference in how the bubble will play out on the West Coast.
‘Or are the Chinese bringing cash with no strings attached’
There’s a couple of things here. When there’s a lot of speculation, there are always strings. First, if some are paying cash, there are others who aren’t and are borrowing more to outbid the cash buyers. Plus the basis for this foreign money is about to be undercut. When rich Texans poured into Colorado in the 80’s, they were paying cash and it still wiped out the ski markets when the Texans got rolled over.
Here’s an article, and I’ll post the first comment last:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/australia-a-favourite-among-chinas-rich-20120702-21cck.html
‘Australia is the third most-popular tourist destination for Chinese millionaires, a report by Shanghai-based private wealth researcher Rupert Hoogewerf reveals. The report also says that China is home to more than 600 US-dollar billionaires, of which 325 have hidden wealth. China’s super-rich, especially the relatives and business associates of Communist party officials often hide their assets and incomes of dubious origins from public scrutiny.’
‘Last week, Bloomberg revealed that the relatives of Xi Jinping - the heir-presumptive to the Chinese communist throne - have more than $US376 million in assets stashed away in offshore locations including villas in Hong Kong.’
‘6 comments so far. So Australia is a favourite destination for corrupt criminals. Yet the story never makes the connection. At least it mentions it. Australia has come to a pathetic juncture. Living off the proceeds of crime and the destruction of the environment and it is trumpeted in this article as a good thing. It’s the millions and millions of poor exploited powerless Chinese with no human rights that are never mentioned in these sort of articles. It’s those people that I think about. But do our media ever mention these people? No - they just write about the rich criminals and now this corrupt country, Australia, welcomes them with open arms and so do articles like this. It really is a disgrace.’
‘Commenter dirty money’
“The locals are the first to see the turn because they can see it with their own eyes - that’s if they care enough to look and pay attention to what they are seeing.”
The locals have a particularly hard time not seeing it first, as they are the ones who are priced out of being able to afford a home as a place to live in, thanks to the scourge of equity locusts.
“…an expert that may have an interest in painting a picture of the situation that is a bit different from the reality.”
What makes a real estate expert? If actual knowledge bestowed that qualification, I’d venture that we have as much collective expertise on this blog as the individuals quoted in the stories, and possibly more.
I’ve always been entertained by how Ben juxtaposes the articles. It’s always a fatuous remark by someone in the grip of bubble mania, or someone trying to save his or her bacon, followed by sober numbers. These Canadian developers are every bit as greedy and short-sighted as their American counterparts.
At the risk of appearing a bootlicker, his posts are more than entertaining. It’s a way of thinking that reflects his life experience in finance, RE and boom-bust economics. Mine is from a different angle resulting from my training and experience with administering construction contracts. We all have blind spots that are easily exploited by The Temple Moneychangers. Don’t let it happen to you.
Peace
Pimp-tastic - I wish more of your comments were this thoughtful and productive.
“Pimp-tastic - I wish more of your comments were this thoughtful and productive.”
Agreed! Many good points get lost in the spite. Or hate, whatever it is.
I don’t have alot of love for liars.
How about you?
“‘It’s not that they have more selection, per se - you’re just not all of the sudden needing to fight tooth and nail with other buyers to put offers on a place right after you’ve seen it,’ he said.”
Awaiting, take heed…buying frenzies tend to be short-lived.
Families will be forced to buy into high-density living. It’s the natural evolution of a city,’
This is happening in my neck of the woods too. The “master plan” for the business part of town is to knock down a lot of older strip malls and build high-rises. Thank you, I lived in a high-rise for seven years and that was enough.
“Families will be forced to buy into high-density living. It’s the natural evolution of a city,’”
Sounds like the Toll Brothers quote just before the US bubble popped.
Toronto Ont. has an awful lot of relatively affordable land within an hour or so of it , the multi-lane Hwy. 400 that runs due North into the hinterlands. We lived there in the late 1970’s ,back then if you survived the 9 month long winter , the rest of the year was nice.
You make a point that has had me scratching my head ever since the Greater Toronto Real Estate juggernaut began. The GTA is not hemmed in by geography (except for Lake Ontario to the south), so there is for all practical purposes, unlimited land to build. Manhattan is an island, San Francisco is a narrow isthmus, and as such I can understand on some level that yes, they’re not making any more land in Manhattan and SF. But Toronto, somewhat like Chicago, can go almost infinitely outward in 3 directions.
Someone please explain to me why T.O. just keeps getting more and more expensive.
Here’s something in the CBC piece:
‘Of the 6,005 condos ready for occupancy this year in the former city of Toronto, 63 per cent are studios, one-bedrooms or one-bedrooms plus den. The average size is 822 square feet, according to Urbanation. Meanwhile, of 9,090 condos slated for completion in 2014, 67 per cent are studios, one-bedroom units, or one-bedroom plus dens. The average size of all these units is only 695 square feet.’
‘The reason for this is that, typically, developers have to sell 60 to 80 per cent of their units before they can secure bank financing to start construction, so they’re building what sells now — small units for singles and young couples who want to be urban dwellers. ‘There’s just no demand for three-bedroom condos downtown. Those units sit on the market a long time,’ says Pasalis.’
So, the developers are not building long term housing. Just stuff for people to live in for the years between graduation and kids?
‘not building long term housing’
What condo boom is? IMO, the reason is only singles and couples want to live the urban dream. (My best guess; they are barflys, and people grow out of that phase.)
So since these condos are actually speculations on the bubble, they speculate in what sells; small little units. Despite all the blah blah about urbanization and families living in towers, why isn’t it happening?
Myths have to be developed to explain the mania. Anyway, it’s freaking pre-construction condos people! And condo-tels!
‘Barflys’
BINGO………..lmao
My nephew moved to Seattle and paid a huge amount (he’s not saying) for a tiny 800 1-br high-rise condo. The reason: he’s into the “grunge music” and bar-hopping lifestyle. You would think at age 45 he’d grow out of it.
Most definitely barflies. During the condo frenzy of 2005, about half the ads for condos downtown — especially the ones in the Adams Morgan section — showed pictures of people raving it up at the club, not even a picture of the condo. The other half of the ads were happy couples painting the walls.
Adams Morgan is one of the most rat-infested sections of the entire metro area.
Smells like Teen Spirit is over 20 years old. Seattle still has a grunge scene?
As for the condo, a quick Zillow search shows 1-bed condos anything from $90K to $350K, with $160K being about median. It depends on where he lives.
Seattle still has a grunge scene?
Only in the minds of 45 year olds who have seen better days. And I say that as someone who just turned 45 :-).
“You would think at age 45 he’d grow out of it.”
I resemble that remark.
[realtor mode]
Now might be a good time to buy in an older leafy neighborhood. An SFH with a yard will be a be a precious commodity when those condo towers tremble with the synchronized ticking of a thousand biological clocks.
[/realtor mode]
My leafy neighborhood happens to be infested with cottonwood trees. Yesterday a huge cottonwood branch came down on the power lines, ripped off the riser and cut the lines to our house. Everyone but us had their power restored last evening. WE had to call an electrician to re-attach the riser, and THEN the power company will come and restore our power. Cable is out too. Thank Eru for the hard-wired natural gas generator we had installed a couple of years back.
Sometimes those developments on former farmland, the ones with no trees, look kinda good.
Aaaaah….yep, the good ‘ol cottonwood trees that give you a summer blizzard of white fluff
that makes you sneeze for an hour…
And clog up your A/C…
I’m sure there would be plenty of demand for 3-bedroom condos if they were priced correctly.
Who’s gonna live in a 3 bedroom condo? Families, right? Who wants to raise a family in a tower, surrounded by nightclubs and seedy downtown ‘vibe’? The whole idea breaks down when you look at it. A family might rent an apartment, but they probably wouldn’t buy one.
If it was cheap enough and close to my work I’d consider it.
It’s common to raise a family in an apartment/condo in Europe and in many Latin American cities.
I was going to say. Growing up, I spent many years in residential apartment buildings in Latin America. That’s probably why I’m so hostile to most suburbs. I would really like to live in a neighborhood of properly-scaled 3 to 6-story apartment buildings, as long as they didn’t look like Soviet worker housing.
Jess
You must not have been an alpine skier, hockey player, skater, snowmobiler, nature lover, toboganist, cross country skier, etc.
Indoor sports, although nice, cannot be compared to any of the above and we need those five or six months of brutally cold winter to be able to enjoy them !
Toronto prices are weird, cannot be understood, hugely speculative, defy reason, — typically Hogtown (nickname for Toronto)! Did you know that the Canadian Banking industry is focused thru Toronto? The large realty companys too?
Toronto and Chicago are almost the same size.
‘Toronto and Chicago are almost the same size.’
Yes, but their pricing trajectories are going in very different directions, hence my confusion. Condos in Chitown are NOT selling, and construction begun during the peak of the stateside boom years has ground to a halt. Chicago may not be the center of the US’s financial universe the way Toronto is for Canada, but it’s still got the CBOE, Merc and some decent sized corp headquarters so the bucks are still moving through the streets there.
Their geographies and sizes are almost the same, yet I have never read about a modest SFH going for a $1 million in Chicago. I believe the HBB linked to a story from the Toronto Star reporting on a sale for that much a couple of months ago.
goorish
I think Ben might be right about barflys in Toronto wanting to live in the trendy areas downtown. There are about three such areas, including two housing areas where ten years ago prices were in the thirties and now are often over one million - and the condo towers mostly on the lakeshore - a very trendy area with lots and lots of night life and with easy access to the “islands” with their beaches.
A couple of areas are wall to wall disco type places with line ups galore. At one time on the harbor they had a dance place, etc, that would have more than 20,000 people there on weekend nights. (much like Fort Worth has (had).
Blue skye, you might remember the boat facilities they had - sort of preferred parking (docking).
Toronto’s barflys are almost all university types with good jobs. They are often single until into their 40s.
There is a very heavy immigrant population and they tend to be very well educated Indian, Hong Kong, China types who bring in a lot of money.
Another thing, Toronto really doesn’t have a ghetto area like exists in several US cities I have been in. Every area is basically safe to walk around in at night alone. Whenever there is a crime the whole world finds out about it.
For my money I would prefer to live in downtown Chicago with all of it’s waterways - but I haven’t been there in several years.
Goorish, you have asked a very very good question and I really cannot give a decent answer. Sorry. I guess if the answer was apparent we could all become rich. The trouble is all of Toronto is priced speculatively but downtown the most weirdly.
Makes some sense when you set it out like that. There may be a lot of buildable land for 50 miles in 3 directions, but not so much where all the kids are or want to be. I also wonder whether the health care issue has indirectly fueled the bubble. Since Canadians don’t have those expenses to deal with (out of pocket anyway, I know that taxes are higher on average so no free lunch and all that) and university tuition is also lower on average (hence lower student loans to pay back), does the lack of those expenses free up more dollars to go chasing after real estate?
Perhaps someone has performed academic research to prove or disprove the idea, I just don’t know.
But there’s no MID in Canada.
It’s mania, pure and simple. Canucks don’t buy real estate in the sticks, because it has less “appreciation potential” than a condo in one of Toronto’s tonier central nabes. Or at least that’s what they believe.
Another thought, commuting long distance in an Ontario winter might be less than fun. It can be a bear in the Centennial State, and we get a LOT less snow than they do.
Goorish / Colorado
Health care savings by individuals are very real compared to the States and that savings can be used for housing. If an employer’s gross pays are more than $400,000 annually then he pays an Employment Health Tax. EHT is nominal, and nothing like the fees paid down south and is generally borne by the employer. Every Canadian has a health card, even if they are not working, which they give to their doctor or hospital. When 65 or over all medications are basically free. I would think our healthcare alone would save at least $2,000 a month for a family of four.
Actually our effective corporate tax rate is less than yours, depending on province and mix. Our tax structure has been dramatically improved over the last ten years.
My daughter went to NYU. Wow, are you ever right - your foreign student fees are outa sight ! Tuition is about $6,500 for want of an average and average student debt is about $32,000 upon graduation.
Summary: yes, I think that surplus money is going into housing. Remember, our average pays are close to those in the USA.
Colorado:
You must have been here in the winter. Winter driving can be challenging in a white out - but that happens very seldom.
No MID here but then no income taxes on selling a principal residence either - no matter what the price, and I think this is a very attractive feature for the infestors who live in their unit.
Our ski hills are not even as good as your bunny hills - but condo prices at their base are ridiculous. I have friends who have bought in the US west for 2 to 300. That is the starting price here for anything decent.
Toronto has a huge bubble any way you phrase it.
Regarding winter: It only lasts about four months in Toronto, roughly Dec. thru Mar., although you may need heating from mid-October through April. When I lived there my yacht club on Lake Ontario launched the boats on the last weekend in April and hauled the last weekend in October.
On prices: Historically Toronto has always had the highest house prices in Canada, a phenomenon recently taken over by Vancouver. It has always been a city with a tradition of high home ownership, which constantly lead to speculation and bidding wars. During my 31 years there I felt the majority of house owners were investing in a capital acquisition rather than buying a home. Most house owners only stayed around long enough to plan a move up to something more expensive (and financially most did very well). Of course all of this was fueled by high immigration rates.
On land availability: Yes, one hour out of Toronto there is endless land, but there is a protected “Greenbelt” surrounding the Greater Toronto Area. If I recall, it would be 15-30 kilometres deep at various points. Its purpose was to stop development on the best agricultural land in Ontario. So a developer has to jump the Greenbelt to get to that “endless” land. Which leads to the subject of commute times. Toronto has the longest average commute time in North America and it gets worse each year. Hwy. 401 (the major east-west route through Toronto) has the highest daily vehicle flow of any highway in North America. To avoid long commutes more and more folks are willing to bid up real estate closer to the core.
“I’m not asking for a handout. All I’m saying is, you created this mess, let’s work something out,” said Vega, a member of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.
Hmm….nothing like having an FB take responsibility for his own actions….
For more on ACCE see http://www.calorganize.org/ . All those poor “helpless victims”.
California; whine country. You know, it’s supposed to be this big economic engine. But what I see is a state that wants to eat its cake and have it too. Go all out on a housing frenzy, but pay the price? Nooo. They want to refi 6 times AND keep the house. Loosers.
Well said.
Now the idiot politicians think we need a bullet train that we can’t afford.
Monorail!
All those victims were driving hummers and mercedes during the boom. It was amazing how fast they disappeared from the roads when the bust hit.
And don’t forget the obligatory SLOBurbans and TaWhores.