Canada

For those people who are actually wishing for the bubble to burst, remember that's exactly what happened in 2008, and what happened back then. Literally the only people who won were the rich as they just bought out all the property that got severely discounted while other rich people got a massive payday from the government (aka regular Joe's tax dollars) for fucking up. And the bubble simply got restored because those rich people could afford to sit on unproductive products for a decade at a time because they knew that without a constantly increasing supply of housing, the prices will explode again because housing is a requirement, not a luxury.

And the losers was everybody who doesn't make 7 figures or more. People's retirements were crushed, their savings crushed, their existing lives crushed. And the economy was set back for years and inflation skyrocketed for a little while, which never came back down.

And in places where such housing bubbles really burst, Japan hasn't seen any growth for 30 years. They're still in what they all the Lost Generation, because they realized that calling it the Lost Decade was premature and it didn't end in 10 years. We're watching China's housing implode on itself right now with hundreds of thousands of people losing their entire investments and retirement savings. We're watching 80 year olds going back to work so that they don't starve to death while youth unemployment reaches levels so insane that they'll take a job that only pays under the table because the company can't afford to pay minimum wage!

You want a dystopia, you'll get it if the bubble bursts. You'll also get it if the bubble continues to inflate.

So the only solution is to slowly deflate the bubble by increasing housing construction so that it outpaces demand in a controlled manner until the prices come back down to something reasonable, then to continue keeping pace. And for that, we need the political will for both government subsidized housing and a overhaul of zoning laws to allow for mixed-use residential to replace all residential zoning.

Detached single family housing don't belong in major cities, and suburbs shouldn't be subsidized by the downtown core.

When I read stuff like this I often wonder why nothing is mentioned about Canada's lax laws on foreign ownership of multiple properties and failure to verify the legality of these owners' funds.

Because that's what started this shit show in the 90's and nothing has been fixed.

I’m ready for this bubble to pop.

Even though I had to pay though the nose to buy a house years ago, I hope for a crash so that people are not screwed forever more.

What I find really odd is the commercial market in smaller towns, its cheap as shit.

While this is commonish sense, this news isn't trustworthy without any evidence or numbers.

How much exposure is there, what order of magnitude of assets are at risk, what would a target for post-bubble prices be, how at risk is Canadian debt servicing, etc.

As far as I can see the risk is 2023 to 2026 sees fixed rate renewals happen from covid rates to current or elevated rates. Variable rates make up about 1/3 of mortgage debt and defaults/sales would already be priced in.

Let's run the numbers for Ontario.

Avg mortgage last year (in June, the easiest number to pull from CREA website) was $829k, at 2.5%, which is $3713/mo or $44,555 annually. They do 5 years and renew at 6%, leaves $701k on 20 years for $4997/mo, 34% increase and $60k/year to service. The Bank can extend you by 5 years and reduce the payment to $4489/mo reducing the cost to $54k.

So the question is, can families who already bought homes find $10k annually to make up that shortfall? That will command supply of homes. This should be worse for 2021 and 2020 purchases, but they have a lower total mortgage.

The affordability calculators all suck because they're based on the down payment, so we'll do it ourselves. According to stat can, average after tax family income in 2021 was $99,100 (Table 11-10-0190-01, can't link on mobile), with 32% of income on housing we're looking at $2650/mo which is a $415k mortgage at 6%. At 50% they can do $4129 for a $650k. That's feasible but not recommended. The CMHC calculator goes to 70% (seems farfetched to me)

So, 50% of couple-families can roughly afford $650k at current rates on after tax income, and the average family has about $10k additional exposure, that can probably lead to a 25% drop in prices. That's if median families are buying and have the down payment ready.

This is all napkin math though and not using the full distribution of prices. If I were doing this professionally I'd have simulated pricing structures and rate increase schedules. But to me I don't think this bubble is going to see houses drop to the 300s like they used to be.

Increasing supply to decrease prices is the best option, that should be a priority for all levels of government. It would also deflate the balloon but not catastrophically.

What is bnnbloomberg, anyway? I see them in my feed sometimes and they have highly-produced news, but they don't seem to have a lot of it, which makes me feel like it is carefully targeted (ie propaganda)