Housing

High flying home prices may be getting close to pushing their limits as last month home sales also saw a sharp decline in volume, partially attributed to prices.

The house price-to-rent ratio shows Canadian real estate is drastically overvalued making the U.S. real estate bubble back in 2006 look like a sleepy backwater market of value investors.

With deficits growing wider each year, we believe there is a very high likelihood that the price of gold will rise in the next few years.

“Buy as much house as you can,” real estate agents urged clients. “The more you buy, the bigger your tax break” is their advice using the mortgage interest deduction (MID) to explicitly promote over-investment in housing. Unfortunately, such advice fueled the previous housing boom and exacerbated its bust and could do so again.

Canadian real estate prices are expected to drop with the declines getting bigger as the lockdown persists.

Most people seem to think owning a house is a great “investment” but, in actual fact, when you look at the numbers closely, such an acquisition is anything but. Let me explain with supporting evidence.

In the past few decades, the concept of home ownership has been completely turned on its head. Previously, homes were considered a very long-term consumption good...[No one] ever considered tripling the value of their homes by retirement time and selling them to move beachside yet, somehow along the way, this became a reasonable investment expectation. Even today, home buyers still make their purchases with the hopes of escalating prices. [It begs answers to these questions: Is a house just a home? Should a house be expected to behave like an investment? Is the housing game nothing more than a Ponzi scheme where the end buyer before the market corrects becomes the "greater fool"? Let's try and answer those questions.] Words: 935

Toronto real estate is climbing up the charts, and is back to the second highest risk for a bubble. This is up from the number three spot it held in 2018, but down from topping the list in 2017.

This compilation of 7 graphics takes a look at the costs associated with U.S. home ownership and renting.

Experts have been closely watching several indicators that point to rising bubble risks in some housing markets. Earlier this week Bloomberg published results from a new study that tracks four key metrics and this infographic reveals how they apply to the 22 countries covered.