Whatever

For some perverse reason, I talk to you every day. Nobody pays me to write this pathetic blog. There’s no advertising or revenue stream from the site. In fact, it costs a bundle just to have it hosted on servers with giant dogs surrounding them. Yeah, occasionally somebody throws me twenty bucks to buy a book, but nobody in Canada survives as an author.

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For the past three years or so I’ve posted here most days, and mostly enjoyed it. It started as an online addendum to my book, ‘Greater Fool,’ published when nobody remotely believed real estate in Canada could ever stumble. This is a subject which matters, since we have most of our net worth buried in a single asset. Besides, real estate is alluring, emotional, sexy. I enjoy good real estate porn right along with… you.

And most days it’s been fun being here. From zero visits then, there are now six million a year. That’s cool. Most people – well over 95% – come, read, enjoy (I think) and go back to being normal, getting creamy hot flashes over Bosch appliances.

My views haven’t changed. Real estate’s in a precarious spot at the moment for tons of economic reasons. But having said that, you don’t change human nature, and humans want shelter. So I try to explain why owning isn’t always better than renting, how some markets got toxic, how to buy, sell and finance, and why real estate should never constitute the bulk of your net worth – unless you’re a greater fool.

Of course, you can’t talk real estate without talking economics. It makes up a fifth of the country’s GDP, after all, and recently destroyed the American middle class. It’s responsible for record debt, is inextricably linked to the cost of money and impacts consumer confidence, which influences spending, which makes up two-thirds of the economy. It’s all connected. And right now it all wobbles.

This cranks me, weirdo that I am. Connecting the dots, trying to discern what lies ahead, is an interesting exercise. And along the way if I can use knowledge or experience to help people, then it’s worth the time torn away from my pining wife and dog.

Usually. But not lately.

Over recent months a small group of people – tiny relative to the total number of readers – has come here to pump and hump their own agenda. Characterized by a negative outlook and utter disdain for anyone who disagrees, they’ve used this space daily to ridicule those who don’t own gold or disbelieve the global economy’s screwed. Rude, abusive, petulant and usually juvenile, they stand in stark contrast to all those who want a respectful but rousing debate about housing and how messed up folks in Vancouver are.

Hard to know if these people are impassioned zealots blindly consumed with their own ideology, or just pricks. Whatever. Same result.

So, it’s over. This is not an Armageddon blog. Not a gold blog. Not an America-is-insolvent blog. Not a tin foil blog. Not a doomer guns-&-god blog. And not a place for antisocial metalheads to come and take a dump.

Be respectful, and you can post. Add to the conversation or the argument, and you’re always welcome. Express yourself without shredding others, and you’re free to speak. I’m a tolerant guy. I’m a democrat. I believe in digital democracy.

Just watch me.