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The Globalization Of Residential Real Estate

A report from the Globe and Mail in Canada. “Not so long ago, real estate industry and government officials were doing their best to shut down concerns that skyrocketing housing prices in Vancouver and Toronto were related to non-resident buying. As it turns out, they were very wrong.”

“‘Basically, if we put every residential property unit that was built in the city of Vancouver from 2006 to 2017 into a single building, every tenth unit [and a bit more] would have been owned by somebody who doesn’t live in the country,’ says Andy Yan, urban planner and director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program.”

“And new builds were a particular draw. Non-resident owners played a part in 19.2 per cent of Vancouver condos built between 2016 and 2017. In other words, almost 20 per cent of condos built that year had at least one non-resident on title. Also, these rates do not include pre-sale purchases, or what units were not owner-occupied and held as investments. The study authors did not provide data on the source countries of origin for non-resident owners.”

“‘The summary of all this is the globalization of Canadian residential real estate,’ Mr. Yan said, ‘and what are you going to do or not do about it, on a federal, provincial and local policy basis? This is about transparency, taxation and fairness, and how we build housing and for who, in our communities.'”

“Josh Gordon, assistant professor at the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University, says that the delay of such important data has likely been a setback. He points out that industry voices used the previously limited CMHC data to bolster their arguments that foreign buying was exaggerated. Prof. Gordon had questioned the CMHC’s reports at the time, and received some flak for it.”

“‘Imagine in 2015 if we had a sense that non-resident buyers were buying 15 per cent or so of new condos. How would that have changed the nature of the debate? Would that not have indicated that there was an issue that needed addressing?,’ Prof. Gordon asks.”

From Burnaby Now. “For years, the previous government told us overseas money into housing was coming in small amounts – barely enough to make any difference.”

“With that having been thoroughly debunked, and frankly impossible, we are now discovering that a large portion of the money has arrived via the fentanyl trade. So when I walk with my son past a person who could very well be lying dead on the street from a fentanyl overdose, am I supposed to be grateful for the small possibility my future is more secure because I’m a property owner? That is not the type of equity I want.”

“Money laundering is not a victimless crime. Drug trafficking is not a victimless crime. Prostitution is not a victimless crime. Pricing a generation out of property ownership is not a crime, but it does have many, many victims. These are the connected crimes that our government is somehow not capable of protecting us from.”

“As we are seeing with the recent stayed charges in recent high profile money laundering cases, it is lucrative to launder the proceeds of fentanyl trafficking into Vancouver real estate, with zero risk. But the largest crime could still be happening. Is our democracy under attack by criminal elements? These are very serious times on the west coast, and require a serious response.”

“Allowing money laundering into the real estate market was apparently government policy for years. Allowing fentanyl traffickers to clean their money through our casinos was apparently government policy for years. Local taxpayers are not only faced with reduced economic opportunity because of it, we are faced with the prospect that we are, in fact, subsidizing it.”

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  2. “‘The summary of all this is the globalization of Canadian residential real estate,’ Mr. Yan said, ‘and what are you going to do or not do about it, on a federal, provincial and local policy basis?

    When the sheeple elect globalist quislings, they lose the right to complain when their country gets sold off to the highest bidder.

  3. In a philosophical mood this morning … (meaning I was up too late and haven’t had any caffeine yet):

    I believe there is a built in compulsion in the human genome to collect and horde. It’s reflected in that all of our economies are (and have always been) built around always growing (as opposed to steady-state).

    For our global financial ‘haves’ (for lack of a better term) the further concentration of wealth/property/power will always be a compulsion-level goal for them.

    Eventually the non-elite/have-nots push the reset button as much as they can. Human history seems to suggest this is a never ending cycle of variations on a theme.

  5. This reminds me of how kids who grew up very poor have a tendency to overfill their pantries when they grow up and have some money. Rich kids are probably even more worried about running out of money than poor kids when they grow up, because they’ve never had to deal with it.

    2. Richie Rich kids dont have a clue how to take care of themselves – parents pay for everything – rent/mortgage, cars, insurance, phones while they work junk jobs because they majored in **** studies or some other useless major. Sure a few of them will hit the lottery, turning their backyard grow-op into a successful weed biz or they get selected out of a bunch of other actors to push some fake “green new deal”, but thats obviously rare.

  7. Crow casserole recipe for all the Real Journalists, progressives, and celebrities who went all in on the “Russia owns Trump” attempted railroading.

    CROW CASSEROLE

    1/2 dozen crow breasts
    1 qt. sauerkraut
    1/2 dozen strips bacon
    1/3 c. chopped onion
    In skillet brown the crow breasts, then place them on a 1 1/2″ layer of sauerkraut in bottom of a casserole. Cover each piece of meat with a strip of bacon and sprinkle the onion over them. Cover the breast with another layer of sauerkraut and pour sauerkraut juice over it. Bake two hours in oven heated to 350 degrees.

  8. “And new builds were a particular draw. Non-resident owners played a part in 19.2 per cent of Vancouver condos built between 2016 and 2017. In other words, almost 20 per cent of condos built that year had at least one non-resident on title. Also, these rates do not include pre-sale purchases, or what units were not owner-occupied and held as investments. The study authors did not provide data on the source countries of origin for non-resident owners.”

    China, perhaps?

  10. “Money laundering is not a victimless crime. Drug trafficking is not a victimless crime. Prostitution is not a victimless crime. Pricing a generation out of property ownership is not a crime, but it does have many, many victims. These are the connected crimes that our government is somehow not capable of protecting us from.”

    It seems like opening up a country’s residential housing market to the highest bidder in the international financial markets has very destructive consequences. What dumb economist claims credit for pushing this pernicious policy?

  11. Will the Plunge Protection Team buffer stock market investors from the devastating losses that normally follow a Treasury yield curve inversion?

    1. S&P 500 could fall 40% as yield curve inverts, says analyst of one of 2018’s best hedge-fund returns
      By Sunny Oh
      Published: Mar 23, 2019 10:26 a.m. ET

      Crescat’s Costa says number of inverted yield spreads in the Treasury market spells trouble for stocks
      Getty Images

      Stock investors should heed the warning emanating from the bond market, says at least one hedge-fund manager, as the yield curve staged a stunning inversion Friday.

      “I think people are going to be surprised where the S&P 500 is trading at the end of the year. We’re going at least for a 40% decline from the S&P’s top,” Otavio Costa, a macro analyst at Crescat Capital, a hedge fund that oversees $52 million, told MarketWatch in an interview.
      …

    2. The Financial Times
      Markets
      – Global markets take fright as fears of a slowdown intensify
      – Stocks lose almost 2%, Bunds turn negative and US Treasury yield curve goes inverted
      ‘The global growth outlook has come into question and people are taking profits’
      © AP
      Katie Martin in London and Joe Rennison in New York March 22, 2019

      When bonds rally as much as they have over the past few days you have to suspect there is something much larger going on.

      — Tom di Galoma, managing director at Seaport Global Securities

      Fears of a deepening economic slowdown rattled global financial markets on Friday as stocks fell, German government bond yields turned negative and a widely followed US Treasury market indicator raised fears of a recession.

      Investors scrambled for the safety of sovereign debt after figures showed that Germany’s manufacturing sector had tumbled into contraction, stung by slowing demand for cars. Coming two days after a much more cautious tone from the US Federal Reserve, the gloomy European news prompted investors to consider whether this year’s muscular rebound in riskier assets had been built on shaky foundations.

      Stock prices followed bond yields lower as a result, with the S&P 500 closing down 1.9 per cent in New York to just above 2800, and the Stoxx 50, which tracks Europe’s biggest companies, closing down 1.8 per cent.

      “The big one was the German data,” said Myles Bradshaw, head of global aggregate fixed income at investment house Amundi. “The global growth outlook has come into question and people are taking profits.”

      Ten-year German Bund yields sank below zero for the first time since 2016, showing that fund managers are happy to take a nominal loss on their holdings in return for the safety of the continent’s most rock-solid debt.

      In the US, three-month Treasury yields surpassed those on 10-year debt — a kink that has preceded every US recession since the second world war and last occurred before the global financial crisis in 2007. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell by 10.4 basis points to 2.44 per cent, down from 3.26 per cent in October.

      US Treasury yields have been falling as investors fret over the outlook for the US economy following a U-turn by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. The central bank shelved plans to raise interest rates this year and said it intended to halt the wind-down of its balance sheet by September.
      …

    3. Another day, another plunge in stock markets all around the planet on recession fears…

      1. Asian markets plunge on recession fears
        By Marketwatch
        Published: Mar 24, 2019 10:41 p.m. ET
        Nikkei down more than 3%, Hang Seng off nearly 2%
        Bloomberg News
        Pedestrians cross an intersection in the Shibuya district of Tokyo on Monday.

        Asian markets plummeted in early trading Monday, amid heightened recession worries.

        On Friday, the closely watched yield curve inverted, a key indicator of a potential U.S. recession. That sent global bonds yields plunging. Weak economic data from Europe added to fears of a global economic slowdown.

        Japan’s Nikkei (NIK, -3.22%) tumbled more than 3% on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (HSI, -1.45%) fell 1.7%, while the Shanghai Composite (SHCOMP, -0.57%) slid 0.9%. South Korea’s Kospi (SEU, -1.56%) sank 1.6%, and benchmark indexes in Taiwan (Y9999, -1.36%), Singapore (STI, -1.10%) and Indonesia dropped as well. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 (XJO, -1.26%) was off 1.2%.
        …

  13. Oink, Oink …

    The World Is Watching China’$ Consumer$

    BY ANDREW CAPON FOR CME GROUP |Published on March 11th, 2019

    China has entered the Year of the Earth Pig. Astrology experts prophesize that those born this year will be good-natured, calm and lucky. Recent economic data suggests that these resilient characteristics will prove useful.

    The official GDP report issued on January 21 was far from auspicious. Q4 2018 GDP growth (6.4 percent) was the worst since early 2009, the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

    The mercantilist economic policies of yesteryear may still vex some in Washington. But the facts on the ground are that domestic consumption, not exports, is by far the biggest determinant of Chinese growth (78 percent of GDP). A $13 trillion economy means that Chinese consumers matter just as much to the rest of the world as they do to authorities in Beijing. But their current mood is harder to read than headline statistics.

    Bigger Than Black Friday
    China’s Singles’ Day (November 11) is now the biggest retail event on the planet. 2018 broke all previous records for spending. To put it into context, Alibaba Group had double the sales volume than the entirety of the U.S. e-commerce sector on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. It ended the day with $30.8 billion added to revenues. However, overall monthly retail sales growth in November fell to its lowest level since 2003 (8.1 percent).

    There are good reasons to believe that this does not herald a dramatic decrease in Chinese consumer spending. Policy effects, both good and bad, may be slowly working their way through to consumers and official statistics. Fully 50 percent of the decline in retail sales in the second half of 2018 was due to the auto sector. This can in part be explained by the end of tax relief for purchasing smaller cars.

    Changing Monetary Policy
    Chinese authorities have not been sitting idly by as growth and consumption have swooned. In October, the threshold for monthly taxable income was raised to 5,000 yuan. Monetary policy has also been loosened. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) issued new lending quotas for policy banks in November, and in January, a two-stage cut in the RRR (required reserve ratio) released 800 billion yuan of liquidity.

    The December Central Economic Work Conference shifted the official monetary policy stance from “prudent and neutral” to “prudent with appropriate looseness and tightness.” This precisely echoes the language used in 2015 when monetary policy loosened significantly.

    Fiscal levers are also being pulled. Local governments have been given permission to issue bonds equivalent to 64 percent of the 2018 quota, before the 2019 allocation is officially announced. The high-speed rail network in 2019 will expand by 3,200 kilometres, a 45 percent increase over 2018. China has scope for further fiscal largesse that most western governments would envy. Its government debt-to-GDP ratio is still below 50 percent, and Chinese Government Bonds (CGBs) are about to be included in global indices for the first time this year.

  15. My wife passed away in early December, I don’t think she could get over the loss of our daughter a year and a half ago at the time of her passing. Of course I haven’t either and now most nights I can’t sleep.

    I don’t think the grief of losing my middle daughter at 24 will ever go away and now I’ve lost my best friend who I was with for the last 30 + years.

    I still have 2 daughters and 2 granddaughters so I try to stay strong or at least look that way for them. Still some nights when I am by myself it hits me and I break down, some nights something stupid like watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the first time and hearing the song below does it to me and I can’t believe I am sitting there with tears running down my face.

    Anyway sorry for the ramble, Ben sorry to make you read this for moderation and you guys be sure to hug your kids and tell them and your wife or husband you love them because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdPe1SxitI

    1. Jeff, I’m so sorry for your loss. Those girls carry your wife with them, in them. In many ways, they are her. Hold on to them, and know that even if quiet, their love for you is so fierce it makes the sun pale in comparison. Reflect it back to them as often as you can. Love is every thing.

      1. “Child Mortality – Our World in Data”

        (snip)

        “A century ago every third child died before it was five years old, almost a century later the child mortality rate has fallen to 4.35%. We will not learn about this development from the news as such a slow development is never fast enough to make the a headline. The headline that could have been published on every average day in the last century is ‘The global child mortality rate fell by 0.0008 percentage points since yesterday’.”

        I’ve often wondered how parents of a century ago successfully coped with life when one out of three of their children died before they reached the age of five. My understanding is that many children weren’t even named until several months after their birth because the expectation of early death was so high.

        But cope they did, somehow. It might be worthwhile on your part to explore just what mechanisms they utilized.

        FWIW.

        Link …

        https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality

        1. I’ve had conversations about this with my dad, who grew up out in the countryside in the Midwest farm belt before the advent of modern vaccinations and antibiotics. He told me that many families in his community lost children at an early age, and it was more or less taken in stride as part of the normal course of family and community life.

    3. Jeff,

      The son rises and sets on my wife and daughters, so I can only imagine what you are going through. I remember growing up, our pastor claimed from the pulpit that “God never puts more on us that we can handle,” but life and my own “dark night of the soul” ordeals showed me what a crock that is. All you can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other, love and uphold the people (and animals) still in your life, and try to live your life in a way that shows obedience to God and exemplifies the honor and duty we are put on this earth to fulfill as men during our passage through this life. Also, hang on to the promise that you will be reunited with your wife and daughter in an afterlife that will be a place of transcendent peace, joy, and rest from the cares and afflictions of this life.

    4. I’m so sorry for your loss.

      Your daughters and granddaughters need you, and is wonderful for you to be there for them.

      To this day I cherish memories of time spent with my mom’s mom, who was a part of my life from my earliest memories. She was a widow and retired already by when my parents got married, so she mostly lived for time spent with her children and grandchildren. I never thought much about how hard it must have been for her to lose her life partner so early, but now I know. I also think she underestimated how important her role was in shaping her grandchildren’s lives. Not a day passes when I don’t think about her positive influence on my life.

      Never underestimate the power of a grandparent’s love.

      1. My heart breaks for you Jeff. I am deeply sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing something personal with the readers.

  16. Ruh roh…all the happy talk on Markewatch dot com about Mr Market’s next big breakout isn’t stopping today’s selloff.

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