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News Enough To Make You Take Your Money Elsewhere

Two reports from the Globe and Mail in Canada. “A drop in the number of low-rise houses under construction in the Toronto region has led to job cuts for workers who specialize in home-building trades. The number of detached and semi-detached houses under construction in the Toronto region fell sharply this spring, forcing companies in the home-building sector to cut staffing levels, especially in trades such as framing and bricklaying that feel the earliest impact of a slowdown.”

“‘We started seeing it a bit at the end of the year last year, but it certainly hit in the spring,’ said Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario, which represents home construction companies. ‘We went from a point where we had a serious shortage of bricklayers to where we didn’t have a bricklaying problem at all, and where we had a surplus of framers.'”

“Pent-up demand helped drive Greater Vancouver housing sales higher last month as buyers on the sidelines took advantage of slumping prices. Greater Vancouver’s residential benchmark price slipped in July to $995,200, down from a record high of $1.1-million in May, 2018, and the lowest since $992,500 in May, 2017, according to the board. The benchmark figure, an industry representation of the typical home sold in the region, has declined month over month for the 14th consecutive time.”

“It remains a buyer’s market in Greater Vancouver, with the number of properties listed for sale rising 17.3 per cent over the past year. On Vancouver’s West Side, the benchmark price for detached houses sold in July decreased to $2,895,400, down 13.6 per cent compared with a year earlier. The average price for detached houses sold in the Fraser Valley fell to $967,439 last month, down 11.7 per cent compared with July, 2018.”

From Global News. “Vancouver’s west side (13.6 per cent), West Vancouver (12.5 per cent), South Burnaby (12.3 per cent), North Burnaby (11.7 per cent), East Vancouver (11.3 per cent) and East Burnaby (10.8 per cent) all saw double-digit price drops for detached homes.”

“On the condo market, there were similar regional variations in annual price changes. West Vancouver (12.2 per cent), South Burnby (10.7 per cent), New Westminster (10.1 per cent) and Vancouver’s west side (9.9 per cent) saw the biggest price drops.”

From Pique News Magazine. “A new survey of Re/Max brokers and agents on recreational real estate in Canada signals a cooling off of the Whistler market. The report released last week presents Whistler and Squamish sales in the same category, stating that the median, year-over-year sale prices for recreational sales dropped by nine per cent.”

“‘If you are sitting somewhere in China or in the States or even in Alberta, you just don’t know [what’s next],’ said Andrey Pavlov, a professor of finance at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business. ‘You hear the news that B.C. is now imposing all of these taxes on foreigners and locals and the real estate market isn’t doing that well because of [it], and that news is enough to make you take your money elsewhere.'”

From My Comox Valley. “Sales on the mainland were 34.7 percent below the 10-year June sales average. This marks the lowest total for the month since 2000. ‘I was visiting the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver and the discussion amongst the professionals is that a large portion of realtors in the Lower Mainland have not done a deal this year, so that’s very interesting,’ said Vancouver Island Real Estate Board president-elect Kevin Reid.”

From CTV News Saskatoon. “New numbers show more homeowners appear to have trouble making their mortgage payments in Saskatchewan. A report from the province offers stats from the Provincial Mediation Board, which show the number of Notices of Mortgage Foreclosures have jumped from 772 in 2014-2015 to 1,409 in 2018-2019. The numbers include properties involving vendor and third party financing.”

“Meanwhile, the Saskatoon Region Home Builders Association (SRHBA) says the mortgage stress test, low interest rates and decreasing prices is benefiting buyers. And there are signs of stability. The organization’s second quarter New Housing Market Analysis report says inventory of new homes over the last year has declined 18 per cent, but still remains high compared to historic levels.”

“‘The new housing market continues to experience pressure from government policies and with the average price of a home continuing to decline in Saskatoon, it adds yet another layer of pressure onto entrepreneurs in the development and residential construction sector.’ Chris Guerette, CEO, Saskatoon & Region Home Builders’ Association says in the report.”

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This Post Has 52 Comments

    1. “Mortgage foreclosure notices up 80 per cent in five years”

      Roadsides over flowing with DebtDonkeys and DonkeyCarts in a tangled up, mangled up mess.

      1. Just up the left.coa$t $horelines:

        Sounds like he’s gonna have “time” to ponder all those $mart real.e$tate inve$tments whilst dwelling in his 8′ x 6′ “off.the.grid” new $helter.$hack accommodations.

        NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (KABC) –By Eileen Frere and ABC7.com staff

        A Southern California multimillionaire, who went on the run after he was charged in the 2012 death of his wife, was captured in Mexico over the weekend and is now in the hands of Orange County authorities, according to the Newport Beach Police Department.

        Peter Chadwick, 55, is accused of strangling 46-year-old Quee Chadwick, to whom he was married for 21 years, after a heated argument on Oct. 10 of that year, the U.S. Marshals Service said. Her body was found eight days later in a dumpster in San Diego County.

        The real e$tate inve$tor disappeared in 2015 while awaiting trial. According to investigators, Chadwick withdrew millions of dollars from his bank accounts. The father of three had allegedly read books about how to live “off the grid.”

        He was placed on the U.S. Marshals Service Most Wanted list, with combined rewards for his capture totaling $100,000.

  3. ‘I was visiting the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver and the discussion amongst the professionals is that a large portion of realtors in the Lower Mainland have not done a deal this year’

    Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Sha na na na, sha na na na na
    Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
    Mum mum mum mum mum mum
    Get a job, sha na na na, sha na na na na

    Ev’ry morning about this time
    She get me out of my bed
    A-crying, get a job
    After breakfast ev’ry nay
    She throws the want ads right my way
    And never fails to say
    Get a job, sha na na na, sha na na na na

      1. I want to go to an open house for an overpriced used house in Denver next weekend, eat all the REALTOR cookies, and leave a few packets of ramen in the empty cookie bowl…

        2. What! They’re knot providing “edibles” cookies?
          (Bee careful knot to “over.indulge”!)

        3. “I want to go to an open house for an overpriced used house in Denver next weekend, eat all the REALTOR cookies”

          I would have thought the Realtors in Denver would be serving brownies.

    1. They show prices dropping w a break even of 2.2 years. Wtf
      How do you breakeven when prices are falling?
      Ever

    2. Wow median list still over 800$/sq.ft. 1000 sq.ft. unit over 800,000$ plus taxes and fees? And that after a 10% pull back? It’s a wonder even one property is sold in that zip code. Even Zillow is projecting another 10% decline in the next year informing anyone buying now that they can expect to throw 50-100k out the window over the next twelve months. And 10% is more than the median downpayment. So the “median” buyer is being told they will be underwater in about a year. But they still buy. I guess the bait is that it’s going to up in the long term?

      1. 98101 is dead center downtown – Benaroya Hall, the Library, Westlake center, up to the hospital complex where my knee was done. I dont think there could be more 2 singe family homes in that entire zipcode … if any at all. Maybe a few condos.

  5. ‘I was visiting the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver and the discussion amongst the professionals is that a large portion of realtors in the Lower Mainland have not done a deal this year, so that’s very interesting,’ said Vancouver Island Real Estate Board president-elect Kevin Reid.”

    I bet the realtor rage against greedheads who are clinging to their wish prices was palpable.

  6. A secret NASA initiative tasked with receiving possible communications from aliens outside our galaxy has received its first confirmed message. It said, “Realtors are liars.”

  7. This just in:

    Boris Johnson to defy any vote of no confidence

    ‘Constitutional experts confirmed yesterday that Mr Johnson would technically be under no legal obligation to quit if he lost a confidence vote. Tory Remainers have conceded that there is no “absolutely foolproof” parliamentary mechanism to stop a no-deal Brexit.’

    ‘On Friday Mr Cummings made clear to government advisers that Britain would leave with or without a deal on October 31. He told colleagues that “nothing will stand in the way of that” and that the prime minister had the power to set the date for the next election after Brexit has been delivered.’

    ‘Catherine Haddon, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government think tank, said that, technically, under the Fixed-term Parliament Act, the prime minister was not required to resign upon losing a vote of confidence. “In terms of a strict reading of the legislation, Boris is not required to resign. It is completely silent on all of this,” she said.’

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-to-defy-any-vote-of-no-confidence-s28ksnhzm

      1. Not a good day for the Globalists. However it looks like the Chinese might have decided to support the Yuan.

    2. a strict reading of the legislation

      Sometimes it is helpful to learn what your own laws are.

      1. Perhaps the nature of their legislation is of the type that needs to be passed in order to find out what is in it.

      2. to retaliate for Chinese yuan devaluation. I really can’t imagine that he’d do something that extreme…

      3. “Just why do we need that?”

        I thought that would be used if China decided to dump its treasury holdings en-mass.

  11. Winds in the east, theres a mist comin’ in
    Like somethin’ is brewin’ and ’bout to begin.
    Can’t put me finger on what lies in store,
    But I feel what’s to happen all happened before.

    Prologue: Chim Cher-ee Lyrics by Original London Cast

  13. Seems to be escalating…

    China suspends U.S. agricultural purchases
    By Chao Deng
    Published: Aug 5, 2019 7:12 p.m. ET

    BEIJING – China has suspended purchases of U.S. agriculture products in response to U.S. threats to impose tariffs on billions of U.S. dollars more in Chinese goods.

    The Chinese Commerce Ministry said early Tuesday that China “will not rule out” putting tariffs on U.S. agriculture imports purchased after August 3, two days after President Trump declared he would impose 10% tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese imports.
    …

    1. Hard to suspend something you were not actually doing. Actually, it looks like China blinked it is back to supporting the Yuan today. I think watching Bitcoin explains it’s action money was pouring out of the country when devaluation was on the table. China may change its mind again but right now it is supporting it’s currency. China should have made the deal last summer it was a better deal than it is going to get right now. Of course the deal right now is far better than it will get if Trump is reelected.

    2. China has suspended purchases

      The story might be that the US has responded to China not keeping promises made quite a while back to resume ag imports from the US. Empty promises should have consequences.

      So we’ll have more food and they can eat their cell phones and plastic crap. Soybeans are off, so commodity food will fall too. We watched the price of food double as the oil bubble grew. Oil is off by half over the past five years and so are commodity food prices. Ironically, retail prices for food, at least what I buy, do not seem to have tracked down much at all.

  14. Go ask Alice…

    Markets
    The Bond Market Goes Through the $14.5 Trillion Looking Glass
    The value of bonds yielding less than zero has trebled since October. Expect renewed talk of helicopter money, MMT and sub-zero U.S. Treasuries.
    By Mark Gilbert
    August 5, 2019, 11:00 PM PDT
    “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
    Photographer: Getty Images/Hulton Archive

    With negative yields becoming commonplace across even the longer maturities in many of the world’s government bond markets, fixed-income managers are letting their imaginations run a little wilder about what might come next. So brace yourself for renewed talk of helicopter money, the implementation of Modern Monetary Theory, and the prospect of the benchmark U.S. Treasury offering less than zero.

    Bond investors have spent the past few years becoming accustomed to previously inconceivable developments in the markets. So they can be excused for developing an immunity to just how extreme recent shifts in the debt market have been, at the forefront of which is the explosion in the amount of negative-yielding debt.
    …

    1. “Go ask Alice…”

      Or you could dwell on Jeffery’$ thoughts:

      DoubleLine’$ Gundlach says it’s ‘a little late’ to go into U.S. Treasurie$ after rally

      (Reuters) – It is “a little late” to purchase U.S. Treasuries, which have been rallying recently, and “if Treasury rates are going to fall from here, something bad is happening,” Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, said in a telephone interview on Monday.

      Gundlach said U.$. $tock market$ have not made progress for 18 months and that “everywhere you look, economic data is worse than it was last October.”

      Reporting By Jennifer Ablan

  16. Hard to suspend something you were not actually doing. Actually, it looks like China blinked it is back to supporting the Yuan today. I think watching Bitcoin explains it’s action money was pouring out of the country when devaluation was on the table. China may change its mind again but right now it is supporting it’s currency. China should have made the deal last summer it was a better deal than it is going to get right now. Of course the deal right now is far better than it will get if Trump is reelected.

    1. Sorry about the double post, it did not pop up as being moderated when I first posted. DJ up 180 so far, this is far from over but the currency manipulator label has real teeth in the future. China is left threatening suspending farm imports when in actuality it had stopped importing in May. The whole reason it had new tariffs imposed was due to the failure to import meaningful quantities of farm products. Of course, China realized once it imports large amounts of farm products it has lost all leverage on Trump. Trade wars are not easy for the side with the huge trade surplus. Of course, overall with the world it does not have a huge trade surplus. Paying more for crops from Brazil which are poorer quality than ours does not help that problem. China used to export large amounts of oil and coal now it imports massive amounts of both. Prior to Trump it could pay for its natural resource imports by selling junk to the US. Now, it had no answers just frustrations. Yesterday it shot its own foot off

      1. Yesterday it shot its own foot off

        What exactly changed dramatically and irreversibly yesterday?

        1. Confidence in the Yuan changed dramatically. I would not say it is irreversible but it is almost like putting toothpaste back into the tube. If Bitcoin goes back down to say $7000, I might believe it has convinced its population that the Yuan is supported. However, right now money is pouring out of the country and I think the elevated levels of Bitcoin is a reflection of that reality. China wants that money spent on new cars or new machinery to increase productivity not sent out of the country. However, the reaction to the devaluation was a loss of confidence by Chinese in their economy which will only slow the economy. That is shooting yourself in the foot in my opinion.

      2. “Paying more for crops from Brazil”

        China is knot paying Brazil U$ “tariff.dude” price$, looks like agdan does knot under$tand how commodity prices work

        Brazil to keep neutral in relation to China-U.S. trade war: minister

        Reuters |BUSINESS NEWS | AUGUST 5, 2019 / 9:46 AM

        SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil’s Agriculture Minister said on Monday that the South American country should remain neutral in the U.S.-China trade war while pushing Brazilian farm products in as many markets as possible.

        Tereza Cristina Dias told a news conference that while the world’s two largest economies work out their differences, Brazil will seek to keep good relations and trade flows with both.

        “The U.S. is a competitor selling agricultural products to China. China is a great trade partner. Brazil has products that can be sold to both markets,” Dias said.

  17. “China used to export large amounts of oil and coal now it imports massive amounts …”

    Xi, Thee Emperor, out.maneuvers aqdan, because … he can.

    China coal mine approvals $urge despite climate pledge$
    David Stanway, Muyu Xu | ENVIRONMENT| AUGUST 5, 2019 / 10:49 PM

    SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) – Approvals for new coal mine con$truction in China have surged in 2019, government documents showed, with Beijing expecting consumption of the commodity to rise in the coming years even as it steps up its fight against smog and greenhouse gas emissions.

    Long-term cuts in coal consumption are a key part of China’s energy, environment and climate goals, but the fivefold increase in new mine approvals in the first-half of 2019 suggests China’s targets still provide ample room for shorter-term growth.

    China’s energy regulator gave the go-ahead to build 141 million tonnes of new annual coal production capacity from January to June, compared to 25 million tonnes over the whole of last year, Reuters analysis of approval documents showed.

    The projects included new mines in the regions of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Shanxi and Shaanxi that are part of a national strategy to consolidate output at dedicated coal production “bases”, as well as expansions of existing collieries, the National Energy Administration (NEA) documents showed.

    The NEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Beijing aims to raise the share of non-fossil fuels in its overall energy mix to 15% by the end of next year from around 14.3% currently, and to 20% by 2030. It cut the share of coal to 59% last year, down from 68.5

    1. Nothing your showing refutes anything I said. The increase in production is less than 4 percent of the total coal demand and the article says demand is rising. China does not collect any tariffs when it flat out refuses to buy US ag products, it just pays a higher price from other suppliers Meanwhile the US collects tens of billions in taxes on the tariffed goods and since China is dropping prices to try to stay competitive, so it is essentially giving money to the US government. China did not do what it did yesterday because it was winning the trade war. So it threw a hail Mary pass which was intercepted. Its people know it is losing and are trying to get their money out of the country.

      1. Xi, Thee Emperor, out.maneuver$ aqdan, because … he can.I

        Consider yerself … refuted!

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