If you want to be notified when I update this site, go to: twitter.com/Brian_Ripley and click "Follow". Welcome to Brian Ripley's Canadian Housing Price Charts Blog for Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal comparing Canadian Real Estate House Prices and Market Values against a Backdrop of Gold Bullion, Oil, CPI, Interest Rates, the Canadian Yield Curve and the S&P TSX Housing, Financial Services, Energy and Gold indices. Also available are the current Canadian census population data, Stats Can employment earnings, mortgage affordability tables and a quick and easy spreadsheet for discovering real estate value. I update the commentary, the monthly price change summary, the housing and financial charts, the percentage price change scorecard and the Plunge-O-Meter, usually by the 2nd week of the month which is when the Canadian real estate boards generally have their data published from the previous month. If you want to advertise on this site, contact Brian Ripley

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Real Estate History & Charts of Interest
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." George Santayana

• THE Most Important Chart of the CENTURY By Nathan Martin
  The latest U.S. Treasury Z1 Flow of Funds report was released on March 11, 2010, bringing the data current through the end of 2009. What follows is the most important chart of your lifetime. It relegates almost all modern economists and economic theory to the dustbin of history. Any economic theory, formula, or relationship that does not consider this non-linear relationship of DEBT and phase transition is destined to fail. It explains the “jobless” recoveries of the past and how each recent economic cycle produces higher money figures, yet lower employment. It explains why we are seeing debt driven events that circle the globe. It explains the psychological uneasiness that underpins this point in history, the elephant in the room that nobody sees or can describe. http://fedupusa.org/2010/03/20/the-most-important-chart-of-the-century/
   

• "Authoritarian Audacity is Going to Crash" by Bob Hoye www.institutionaladvisors.com
  Any impartial review of history would conclude that the notion that an economy is national and can be managed by manipulating interest rates has been some form of madness. More specifically, financial history itself is a "due diligence" on every wild scheme ever floated – that's in the markets as well as by financial adventurers in public policy.
  www.institutionaladvisors.com/pdf/091015-Authoritarian Audacity_is_going_to_Crash.pdf
   

• "The Dark Side of Dubai" by Johann Hari
  Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging.
  www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

  The above goes a long way in reporting how a fascist state can exist in a "modern" world and how good people are easily persuaded to do bad things. The collapsing real estate bubble in Dubai has the potential to spark a switch from global risk embrace to revulsion setting up a viral firestorm of credit markdowns and interest rate hikes. The following commentators elaborate:

  • DEC 6/09 Clive Maund: Dubai (is) a vast sinkhole into which western banks and governments unquestioningly poured not just billions but trillions of dollars which was then leveraged enormously by means of derivatives enabling Dubai to build itself up into a latter day Rome, with a level of opulence and extravagance that would have made Caesar green with envy. http://www.safehaven.com/article-15210.htm

  • DEC 9/09 Mike 'Mish' Shedlock: Many think the market reaction to the Dubai default was way overdone. I prefer to think of it as a huge warning shot. http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/12/eu-ready-to-bailout-greece-debt.html

   

• "The Slowest Asset" published by Grant's Interest Rate Advisor April 24th 1992
  Covers the post-1929 secular contraction in real estate and credit. It also highlights the history of the famous Equitable Building in New York City. CONTINUE READING
   

• Thanks to Fred Filskov http://home.earthlink.net/~intelligentbear/
  Long Term Dow/Gold Ratio http://home.earthlink.net/~intelligentbear/com-dow-au.htm
  Past Bubbles http://home.earthlink.net/~intelligentbear/com-past-bubbles.htm
   

• Thanks to Siegfried Duray-Bito www.bullandbearwise.com
  U.S Housing Market Index www.bullandbearwise.com/HousingMarketIndChart.asp
  Gold Fear Index www.bullandbearwise.com/GoldFearChart.asp
  Dow 1929 Comparison www.bullandbearwise.com/DJIA29Chart.asp
  Dollar vs Oil & Gold www.bullandbearwise.com/DollarOilGoldChart.asp

When the mother's milk of low interest rates fails to create meaningful employment but instead encourages the already employed to ratchet up their debt load with greater amounts of financing, eventually the government of the day will have to wean that sucker. The irony is that with "conservatives" at the helm and the "opposition" as wet nurse, the national policy of oversupplying mother's money is going to crush the tax payer with decades of debt to repay.

I continue to re-report the story of how CMHC has become a tax payer liability. If you don't already know it, the story is well reported here:

• http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/11/canadian-says-short-canada.html

• http://americacanada.blogspot.com/2009/07/cmhc-and-our-government.html

• http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2009/10/22/BubbleWillBurst/

NOTE: The Canadian Insured Mortgage Purchase Program stopped making purchases of qualifying insured mortgages at the end of March 2010. The result is that Banks have to price in risk and raise mortgage rates.

July 6/10 Interview of Brian Ripley and his "Fun Facts" with Michael Hainsworth of BNN. http://tinyurl.com/366c3bj

• Vancouver 9.3
• Toronto 5.2
• Montreal 4.9
• Calgary 4.6
• Edmonton 4.1
• Ottawa 3.8

"History, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in.... I read it a little as a duty; but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all - it is very tiresome." (spoken by Catherine Morland in 'Northanger Abbey') Jane Austen

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