HawthorneVillager.com

Oh yeah, I know...I thought it was pretty funny...
My attempt at humour failed, I guess.

When he says words like 'day of reckoning comes it could be swift and brutal' people should pay attention. He knows a long time before we all do.

Not a bad idea to be prepared.

The "COOMBS Court aka Mr. Dressup Crt - Hello neighbours thread!!" is up to 80+ pages.

People, don't slack now. Self-proclaimed housing market experts, voice your opinion!

Just curios as to why you feel that way...

Ah ok! Yes, we feel that way as well sometimes that we don't belong here but generally speaking Miltonians have higher incomes as I can see in my neighbourhood that most couples are well educated working professionals...

I came across 1 couple in that situation.
Everybody else I've dealt with doesn't really care either way, and have been getting their approvals done assuming the new rules were already in place.

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So many factors favour Canada but as you said, some people just don't want to believe (I'm still holding you to your original prediction from the other thread)

Canada has lower unemployment rates than US
Canadians get more social assistance than US
Canadian economy is far stronger than US

It doesn't matter how much debt you carry so long as you are able to make payments on said debt

You keep trumpeting how low the $44,000 number is. A good comparison to throw that into perspective is here:
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/famil05a-eng.htm

Exclude the types who would never buy a house and look what the average incomes are, then factor in Milton is a higher average than many Canadian cities

Recession in future is possible, double digit decline in houses here never unless we get a full fledged depression

Gee it must be hard for the "well educated working professionals" having to live in the same town as those "lower educated blue collar workers".

Ugh! We can't compare to the USA.

I just watched the documentary called 'Inside Job' -- We are definitely NOTHING like the United States.

They were knowingly giving people houses who didn't even have jobs, with no money down in a system where you are free to walk away from your mortgage without consequences. This was a giant ponzi scheme.

In Canada, you need to have income and a small down payment or no income but a massive down payment. When I got a mortgage I am pretty sure they wanted to see my income, my down payment (5% minimum) and my job history & letter from employer showing salary and years employed. My friends who are self employed for over 15 years (decent 100k+ a year income) couldn't get a mortgage from any major bank because of their self-employment. They ended up needing to go to a broker and get a mortgage from some small time lender.

One big argument is that Canada has cash back mortgages. This is *NOT* a no money down mortgage. I was also offered one (but declined) so I know how they work.

You STILL need your down payment and you need to close the deal with your own money and at that point the bank will provide you with cash back funds. You can't walk in without say $20,000 on a $400,000 house regardless of the cash back. Right away this means you've got some means to save & be responsible with money. Unlike the US situation.

Secondly, the cash back is NOT taking ANY equity out of your house. None. You can sell the house the day after you purchase and you still have your down payment as equity. If the market turns haywire and you put in a 5% down payment and got 5% cash back, you still have 5% equity. Not ZERO equity like in the states.

The 5% cash back comes from a higher interest rate. So in effect, you are paying more interest over the term of the mortgage (which means the bank makes several times the cash back they provided you. Now, they wont give you a cash back unless you are doing a 5 year term -- so doesn't this also avoid the problem the states had?

Everyone was no income, no job, no down payment, houses way higher than can be afforded, and doing variable rates.

I'm not saying Canada wasn't already on the heels of what was happening in the states -- for sure the Canadian banks would have saw the profits and started to get the itch .. but the meltdown stopped them in their tracks.

Now I don't argue, rising interest rates, lower mortgage terms, higher house prices, higher commodity prices will have an effect -- but this US style crash (or comparing our situation to theirs) isn't the same at all.

In 5 years when rates are higher, most people will just add another 5 years to the mortgage or cut back in other areas and the market will do just fine. Of course, don't expect double digit growth in the housing sector either. I think we are in for 5 years of low to moderate gains -- incomes need to catch up.

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Yawwwwn

If you can't afford 340k townhomes, move 10 minutes to Guelph you will get them cheaper, even Burlington has some nice townhomes in the 200's.
To say prices must go back to 220k for townhomes in Milton so people earning 70k can afford them is just well, you know....makes no sense.
In 2003, families that could not afford 340k town homes in Mississauga moved to Milton. You don't have super glue sticking your butt down to Milton. If Milton is no longer the bargain it was, move elsewhere!

Interest rates going up? Great for everyone! It just shows the economy has started to improve. Historically when interest rates are LOW bankruptcy is higher and mortgage default is higher because of a poor economy, we are more vulnerable NOW than when rates start rising. It's mutually exclusive, so if I am surviving now, I look forward to when interest rates start rising and I have more wealth opportunities.

Ol Skool, till May before you comeback? No chance. With Dabill (your Ol trusty sidetrick) pleading to people to revive your doom threads in other off topic threads and when that fails he revives it himself.

Dabill, seriously are you suffering from seller remorse because you sold your house and currently renting and now hoping the market will fall? See why I told ya not to listen to Ol Skool? Set you wrong, he still has his house!

Angry? Well, is that what you are? Anyway, I think you probably need to see maybe a shrink. You keep bringing this topic up everywhere, asking people to comment, if you are so sure of your move to sell your house and rent because the sky is falling why are you now constantly bringing up these threads and seeking gloomy news in threads not related to your gloom?



Isn't that a definition for insanity? Get back to you in May (Meaning next week when you bring this up again hoping the news would have turned gloomy)

you guys are out to lunch with doom ol skool and all the cutting and pasting of negative data, funny you leave the relevant data and not post it. just today statistics Canada released that 40% of homeowners have no mtg. out of the remaining 60%, half have a mtg of 25% or less. its frustrating to even read your threads ( at least Dabills expresses minute amounts of sense! ) as you miscontrue fact. this thread is getting like beating a dead horse, no pun intended to the horse.

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BTW the cost of my house (that hasn't even been built yet) has gone up 12% in the past year. I still have 4 months to go before I move in and it's likely it will go up more. Sales are flying and lots are selling out quickly.

So does that mean that if it goes down 10%, I'm still ahead? What was the original statement for this thread? By May 2011 prices would be 10 percent lower than the peak?

May is close!

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I'm curious to read this Stats Canada release too.
If this is true that makes the nearly 400 to 500 billion CMHC has in liabilities even scarier since it involves an even smaller number of mortgage holders.
Know who's on the hook for that amount?

For those who believe that just anyone in the states can walk away from their mortgage responsibilities that is just not true.
19 states have non-recourse mortgage rules and even then if you've borrowed against the house the banks/lender can come after you.
That leaves 31 states that have recourse rules. So it's not as easy as just getting up and walking away from your home. Similar to here no?

http://moneywatch.bnet.com/investing/bl ... blog-river

I don't understand why a negative sounding article would be considered doom and gloom vs the one dtc just posted.
CREA has it's agenda and while it was touting small house price increases it ignored the double digit drop in home sales.
Some parts as much as 25% drop in 2010. If it's a larger amount of first time buyers not being able to afford 'entry level' homes then home price numbers would be skewed towards the higher end.
It's not million dollar home buyers that keep the housing market fueled.
Although I guess those higher end homes are skewing numbers now.
What happens to a company that loses 10% to 20% in sales every month for even a year or two? Would there be celebration?
Isn't blowing sunshine up someone's arse just as bad as doom and gloom? Who's fooling whom?

So do we ignore all those articles that warn about potential downturns?
That would be foolish. How easily we forget what happened to us in 2008/2009 when the American economy took a downturn.
We were affected too in Canada. I work for a large company and many people lost their jobs during that time and almost none of them have been recovered.
Whole departments gone.

I want nothing more than our economy to keep going strong but why is it wrong to heed warning signs and be prepared?
Take both sides into account and do the best to prepare.

I doubt Ol Skool or Dabills want to see a downturn since we all will be affected.

When you insure a mortgage with CHMC you pay between 2 and 2.5% of the purchase price upfront, in cash. If you've rolled it into the mortgage, that's a loss to the bank as they are only insured for the leveraged amount less down payment and CHMC costs.

The doom and gloom is acting as if as soon as someone defaults, its a complete loss of money by CHMC. Immediately everyone involved has lost
$345,000.

This happened in the states -- oh yes -- but it was because once the "real" rules of purchasing property came back into effect, there simply aren't enough approved purchasers who met the criteria left to purchase the sheer amount of foreclosures put onto the market in an attempt to recoup the money. The US has a massive supply/demand issue. This is what happens when technically only say 40% of the population should qualify to buy homes, but then you change the rules so 60% qualify and then the builders go nuts building homes for people who never should have had them.

In Canada we are a lot more subdued. You won't see 25 houses in foreclosure sitting on the same street -- something that made getting any money back by the insurers/banks impossible. Here if a house is on foreclosure for non-payment and in decent condition, it's snapped quickly -- and likely for at least -- if not more than the amount owing to the lender.

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