ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
July 8, 2024 | Whistleblower
Happy Monday Morning! Canada is a great country, we are a rich country with an abundance of natural resources, good people, and a generally stable democratic system. There is so much to look forward to, so much potential, however, there’s no doubt we have stumbled in recent years. This is largely due to poor policy, […]
June 25, 2024 | Luxury Troubles
Happy Monday Morning! National house prices slid lower in the month of May, falling 2.4% from last year. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the national home price index is now down 14% since peaking in February 2022, marking the steepest decline since the index was created back in 2005, per CREA. Source: CREA It’s true […]
June 17, 2024 | A Heist of Tax Dollars
Happy Monday Morning! It was just a few weeks ago when PM Trudeau lamented on the need for affordable housing while at the same time saying housing needs to retain value since it makes up such a large part of people’s retirements. In other words, the prime minister is trying to ride two horses with […]
June 10, 2024 | Enjoy The Moment
Happy Monday morning! As widely anticipated, the Bank of Canada slashed rates this past week, cutting by 25bps. The move was celebrated across the nation, not just by Realtors and mortagage brokers but provincial leaders in BC & Ontario. The economy is struggling so much so that it warrants a rate cut, and this is […]
June 3, 2024 | No Panacea
Happy Monday morning! Housing affordability, or lack thereof, is all the rage these days. Politicians from every colour of the political rainbow are rallying around restoring some semblance of price stability, or so they say. They’ve been working hard lately, through mass rezoning, tax breaks on new rental construction, and even housing catalogues. In fact, […]
May 27, 2024 | Hoping for the Cut
Happy monday morning! The Bank of Canada got the news they needed ahead of their rate announcement on June 05. CPI inflation decelerated to 2.7% year-over-year in April, down from 2.9% in March, and remaining below the upper end of the Bank of Canada’s 1% to 3% target range for the fourth consecutive month. The […]
May 20, 2024 | The Lost Decade
Happy Monday Morning! It’s a big week for central bank watchers and debt holders alike. The CPI report for the month of April drops tomorrow, it’s the last CPI before the Bank of Canada meets on June 05. Markets are currently pricing in just shy of 50% odds that Tiff cuts in June. It’s a […]
May 13, 2024 | Happy Monday morning!
Happy Monday morning! The labour market in Canada has weakened but hasn’t cracked, at least not yet. The economy added 90,000 jobs in the month of April, far surpassing all forecasts while also marking the largest employment increase in more than a year. What a pickle for the Bank of Canada. Rate cut expectations continue […]
May 6, 2024 | Balance Sheet Woes
Happy Monday Morning! The housing market is taking an early turn, cooling swiftly in the month of April. The month of April usually marks the middle of the busy spring selling season so it’s rather unusual to see things fizzle out this early. The problem wasn’t so much that home sales were weak, up from […]
April 29, 2024 | Happy Monday Morning!
Happy Monday morning! Last week we wrote about the big lie, the federal government claims they are going to build 3.9 million homes over the next seven years. Remember that’s 1528 homes per day, or 64 homes per hour for 7 straight years, no weekends off. So unless the homes look like this, I have some […]
April 22, 2024 | Two Big Lies
Happy Monday Morning! We typically try to steer clear of politics in these weekly musings. However, there were two big lies told by the Trudeau government this past week, both of which relate back to housing, the key focus of my work. The federal budget announced this past week brought no reduction in spending, shocking […]
April 15, 2024 | Pie in the Sky
Happy Monday Morning! The federal government will unveil their budget this Tuesday, ironically on the same day CPI data drops. They’ve already promoted billions of dollars in new spending in pre-budget announcements. Including more than $21B allocated to housing, which we discussed last week. In essence, the feds are paying for zoning. If provinces commit to […]
April 8, 2024 | Zoning for Cash
Happy Monday Morning! It’s budget season, and the fiscal taps are wide open, flush with new promises and billions in new spending. This will make life more difficult for Macklem and friends at the Bank of Canada who are still fighting the last mile on inflation. They’re on deck this week, no cut expected. It […]
April 1, 2024 | Productivity Emergency
Happy Monday Morning! The Canadian population ballooned by nearly 1.3 million in 2023, Stats Canada reported this past week. The expansion was fuelled largely by the arrival of temporary residents, which include international students, asylum seekers and people in Canada on work permits. Last year, their ranks grew by slightly more than 800,000, according to […]
March 25, 2024 | The Immigration Relief Valve
Happy Monday Morning! Housing affordability is front and center these days, as it should be. We are currently sitting at the worst levels of housing affordability since the 1980s. If housing doesn’t get fixed, and quickly, the political careers of JT and his liberals are finished. With the next federal election less than eighteen months […]
March 19, 2024 | Housing Wealth
Happy Monday Morning! In what seems like a recurring theme of late, inflation came in hotter than expected in the US this past week. Consumer prices increased 0.4% for the month and 3.2% from a year ago. Meanwhile, core CPI rose 0.4% on the month and was up 3.8% year-over-year. The last mile on getting […]
March 5, 2024 | Sheltering in Place
Happy Monday Morning! As expected, the Bank of Canada held rates firm last week, pushing back on a growing chorus of market pundits calling for rate cuts. “The assessment of the governing council is that we need to give higher interest rates more time to do their work.” The persistence of core inflation north of […]
March 4, 2024 | Vacancy Control
Happy Monday Morning! Last week we introduced the home flipping tax. A seductive new tax introduced by the BC Government that will hit evil speculators with a 20% tax on any profits derived from flipping a property within two years. Remember this new tax comes on top of the tax CRA already collects which, for […]
January 29, 2024 | Kneecapped
Happy Monday Morning! As expected, the Bank of Canada maintained rates at 5% this past week. While Tiff pushed back on rate cut talk, he did leave us with some clues. “If the economy evolves broadly in line with the projection we published today, I expect future discussions will be about how long we maintain […]
January 22, 2024 | No solutions, Only Trade Offs
Happy Monday Morning! Tiff Macklem and the Bank of Canada are on deck this week. While they’re largely expected to remain on hold, Canadian households suffocating under the weight of higher interest payments will be looking for clues for when relief can be expected. The real estate market will be doing the same, it has […]
January 15, 2024 | Two Year Warning
Happy Monday Morning! We’ve talked a lot about immigration in this newsletter over the past couple of years. Immigration in Canada has always been considered an economic strength, the fact that people want to move here in large numbers is a testament to the desirability of this great nation. However, in recent years something has […]
January 8, 2024 | The Fate of the Housing Market
Happy Monday Morning! We’re back after a two week hiatus, hope everyone had an enjoyable holidays. I’m back in the saddle and gearing up for what will surely be an entertaining year ahead. I have seen a plethora of predictions for 2024, from soft landings to no landings, rate hikes to rate cuts, and everything […]
December 18, 2023 | Circling the Drain
Happy Monday morning! The worlds largest and most important central bank shook financial markets this past week, signalling rate cuts are now on the table next year. The feds dot plots, which are basically forecasts from fed members point to three rate cuts in 2024. Markets are currently expecting six!! Source: Jim Bianco Suffice to […]
December 11, 2023 | For Better or for Worse
Happy Monday Morning! In last weeks note we highlighted the BC Governments passing of bill 44 which effectively stripped municipalities of their zoning power by eliminating single family zoning, and requiring high-density development next to transit. The magnitude of these changes should not be understated. This is perhaps the single largest housing policy change in the history […]
December 4, 2023 | Rate Cuts and Density
Happy Monday Morning! On the heels of inflation slowing to 3.1% last week, we got more evidence rate hikes are indeed working through the system. Demand continues to weaken, households have stopped borrowing money, and as a result, the economy is circling the drain. GDP fell at an annualized pace of 1.1% in Q3, well […]