"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." Jane Austen spoken by Catherine Morland in 'Northanger Abbey'
The above sounds like it, but no, that's not a quote about Canada; but these are: Canadian real estate sales are feeling the pinch of higher interest rates, and consumer credit isn’t far behind. Bank of Canada (BoC) numbers show household debt printed a new record high. Despite the record high, the rate of growth continues to slow for consumer debt levels. The decelerating growth is yet another indicator that the credit cycle has peaked. Better Dwelling, July 2018 Market Rate Outlook: One more hike this year plus two more hikes next year. The market is not fully pricing in the next BoC rate increase until December... Canadians are now more sensitive to higher rates than ever before. That means consumption is slowing faster with every 1/4% BoC rate increase. RateSpy.com Sept 2018 Canada's economy is set to slow down even with a NAFTA deal, economists say: And as my long term chart study of Canadian Debt, GDP, Foreign Direct Investment and Balance of Trade shows, since the credit crash of 2009, Canadian's awesome consumption via debt has not led to higher wage employment production in Canada but to lower wage warehousing and transportation of goods and services that we import to maintain our lifestyles. "The one-million square foot Toronto centre will be Amazon’s sixth facility in Ontario and ninth in Canada." Financial Post, July 2018  CLICK INFO-GRAPHIC TO ENLARGE "Stabilization should not be interpreted as the start of another strong rally," they warned (TD Bank economists Derek Burleton and Rishi Sondhi). That's because mortgage rates are on the rise, and home affordability levels have reached their worst levels in a quarter century... in fact historical data shows that over the past half century, inflation-adjusted house prices in Toronto fell for about a third of the time. huffingtonpost.ca, Sept 2018  CLICK CHARTS TO ENLARGE
I have added in comparison on the chart, the rise in single family detached housing prices for Vancouver and Toronto as well as the increase in annual employment earnings all since 1999, the eve of the dot com tech crash. The result is a six and a half fold increase in housing cost relative to employment earnings. Some rental housing cost relief will occur with increases in minimum wages, but minimum wagers are not a source of buyers for detached houses in Canada's crazy towns. If the real estate bulls are correct in their projection that house prices are not going to drop in any meaningful way because of dearth of land, string pulling by government or money laundering then society is going to have to deal with the prospect of guaranteed incomes to offset housing unaffordability and we will have to provide better access to services and housing closer to employment.
In April 2006 it was 33bps away and narrowing until it was fully inverted in May, June and July of 2007, and then central banks panicked and goosed the spread to widening again and by November 2007 it was 31bps again.
A year and half later the wide reached 230 beeps in May 2009, 2 months after the pit of gloom crash bottom. We should start watching for further narrowing now especially with equity markets at their historical tops.
The Macro Model" chart below is from Crescat Capital with a few of my notations about Canadian debt levels which are at historical highs. NILS JENSON from Crescat Capital on January 27, 2018 made the observation that:
Market history is littered with downturns that followed new Republican presidents: Hoover (1929), Eisenhower (1953), Nixon (1969), Reagan (1981), and Bush (2001). The Trump bubble will likely prove to be the mother of all Republican presidential ebullience bubbles. Trade wars are not positive at all for the markets. They are what exacerbated the Great Depression and they should be one of the key triggers of the bursting of the China bubble. 
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Here's Who Could Lose the Most in a U.S.-China Trade War
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"While there is a lot of talk about how employment is becoming more temporary, this graph from joint work with Alex Thomson and Arthur Sweetman shows that the average time that the currently employed has been with the same employer has been almost constant at just over 100 months since 1976." Hat Tip to Macleans.ca |
And for those of you who are under 40 years of age, you might end up changing employers 6 more times before you reach 70 years old.
That’s why, when you finance a real estate purchase, you should double check both your debt AND income amortization to see if they support each other.
If you have to move to a new city to get that better job, make sure your real estate asset can produce a net revenue stream.
Computer technology is already eating jobs and has been since 1990. To survive, get non-routine skill training. Thanks to Futurism.com for the chart below.
The Precarious Generation
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Canada is leading the way among OECD members in household debt measures. Also of note is that labour costs in Canada were negative at -0.4% Y/Y
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Debt has been fueling lifestyle especially in cities like Vancouver and Toronto where extreme speculation, serial flipping and inert local and federal officials stand by with failed policies and ineffective regulations. There is no cop on the beat; it's do unto others what you want.
In less than 2 decades we have gone from a country where the ability to easily change employment or one's residence has evaporated. Now we are pinned to our job and our postal code because leaving either results in lineups to fill our departure.
I suggest that both the opening of access to information via the internet and the collapse of bond yields sponsored and promoted by governments mirroring each other have left us with a country of over-consuming and under-producing populace.
My regularly updated Household Debt Chart includes the FDI-FDO plot which illustrates the point; we are a country of consumers highly prized by offshore producers, a situation that is now entrenched in our behaviour, modified by our regulations. Currently, for every $1.00 of Foreign Direct Investment into Canada, there is $1.27 of Canadian savings being invested offshore where the yield is greater.
The Paradise Papers underscores the problem; greater access to stealth information along with domiciled yield suppression has led to increasing capital flight by Canadians and Canadian corporations unwilling to invest in Canada. This and the vacuum created from interest rate suppression has turned a lot of us into serial house and condo flippers and the ease and return on investment has attracted a flood of offshore money wanting in on the fun.
Those of us who could not or did not participate in the mania have been left with the sorry reality that for the last 10 years, housing costs in the runaway markets have increased by 10-12% per year or more depending on location and product. Wages have not increased to the same degree but balance sheet debt to equity ratios have.
In less than 2 decades we have gone from a country where the ability to easily change employment or one's residence has evaporated. Now we are pinned to our job and our postal code because leaving either results in lineups to fill our departure.
I suggest that both the opening of access to information via the internet and the collapse of bond yields sponsored and promoted by governments mirroring each other have left us with a country of over-consuming and under-producing populace.
My regularly updated Household Debt Chart includes the FDI-FDO plot which illustrates the point; we are a country of consumers highly prized by offshore producers, a situation that is now entrenched in our behaviour, modified by our regulations. Currently, for every $1.00 of Foreign Direct Investment into Canada, there is $1.27 of Canadian savings being invested offshore where the yield is greater.
The Paradise Papers underscores the problem; greater access to stealth information along with domiciled yield suppression has led to increasing capital flight by Canadians and Canadian corporations unwilling to invest in Canada. This and the vacuum created from interest rate suppression has turned a lot of us into serial house and condo flippers and the ease and return on investment has attracted a flood of offshore money wanting in on the fun.
Those of us who could not or did not participate in the mania have been left with the sorry reality that for the last 10 years, housing costs in the runaway markets have increased by 10-12% per year or more depending on location and product. Wages have not increased to the same degree but balance sheet debt to equity ratios have.
- CBC News November 23, 2017 - Canadian households lead the world in terms of debt.
- Toronto Sun July 2, 2017 - Canada's middle class shrinks.
- Market Watch November 3, 2017 - Blame the Internet for your stingy paychecks.
- Stats Can November 11, 2017 - Housing prices, social ties and transfer payments may inhibit mobility.
- Stats Can March 24, 2017 - Canadian waste management revenues increased 11% in two years to 2014.
- CHPC.biz Ongoing Chart - Foreign Direct Investment OUT higher than IN over the last 20 years means Canadian companies are investing outside of Canada to get a better return on Capital and Labour.
- CBC News November 6, 2017 - More than 3,000 Canadian names in the Paradise Papers.
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Globe and Mail October 15, 2017 - The CRA is unable to identify the assignors who sell (flip) their contracts.
Millennials on Money: 'I am working two jobs right now’
CBC News - January 5, 2017
 CLICK CHART TO ENLARGE | The worsening of (housing) affordability in Q4 (2016) was the sixth quarterly deterioration in a row, the longest run in almost 20 years. National Bank of Canada FEB 8, 2017 Report My long term chart study of housing starts vs population growth currently projects a 7% Y/Y decrease for full year 2017. |
This suggests that indeed more starts could be consumed especially in this low interest rate environment.
Unfortunately the market place is skewed not to what is needed, eg: affordable family units close to appropriate services, but to what attracts non resident owners, flippers and FOMO driven investors who keep throwing greater amounts of leveraged capital at negative yielding and depreciating piles of steel, concrete and wood while governments at every level stand by in fear that they might lose this historic bonanza of property tax and transfer revenue.
My too-far-left radical idea of ending private fee simple land ownership is never going to happen in my lifetime as written. It is my expression of the frustration one feels at the polarity of choice:
Most people are at best only aware of two choices, two patterns, for land ownership – private ownership (which we associate with the industrial West) and state ownership (as in the Communist East).
The Idea of Owning Land by Robert Gilman 1984
But as Gilman points out in his piece, there are other examples of strategies between the two poles, ie: Landtrusts not only for conservation but for community purposes as well. Unfortunately:
"We don't have a national housing policy in this country and we should," "We're probably one of the few OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries that don't have one."
TheTyee.ca June 2013
But now we have some Federal money being directed at that lack of policy:
Budget 2017 includes new national housing strategy. Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau handed down a budget Wednesday, March 22 that includes a new $11.2 billion national housing strategy
Business Vancouver March 22, 2017
Meanwhile the market grinds on. I suggest that individuals should consider investment in themselves rather than negative yielding real estate because there is no guarantee that the debt positions currently being created will be transformed into equity. What is more enduring is the ability to leverage one's skill set into cash flow as the OECD studies show:
The evidence on how well countries are prepared for the digital economy is rather disturbing. The OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) suggests that more than 50% of the adult population on average in 28 OECD countries can only carry out the simplest set of computer tasks, such as writing an email and browsing the web, or have no ICT (Information and communication technologies) skills at all. Only around a third of workers have more advanced cognitive skills that enable them to evaluate problems and find solutions (OECD, 2013). As a result, many workers use ICTs regularly without adequate ICT skills: on average, over 40% of those using software at work every day do not have the skills required to use digital technologies effectively (OECD, 2016a). Skills for a Digital World OECD December 2016
CLICK CHART TO ENLARGE
CLICK CHART TO ENLARGE
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50 Shades of Real Estate
Canada Edition Facing staggering debt loads, hundreds of Alberta post-secondary students are logging on to seekingarrangement.com connecting them to "sugar daddies" who can provide them a monthly allowance and gifts in exchange for negotiated relationships. Calgary Sun January 14, 2017 |
The chart above shows the number of students pimping themselves out to pay for education, room and board in some selected Universities.
The red notations show the latest Demographia unaffordability rank of each University location. It's not surprising to see Toronto, the biggest metro in Canada as a destination for pussy grabbers. If we had the data, I would imagine Vancouver, the most unaffordable city in Canada and the 3rd most unaffordable out of 404 global cities, would also incent young men and women into prostitution. In 2011, the Vancouver city council estimated there were +/- 10,000 sex workers in the city. (Vancouver Sun, Sept 30, 2016). Note that Victoria BC is listed on the chart above; you know, that nice little tourist town and retirement village that promotes itself as "a little bit of Britain". The study chart claims 361 Victorians use SeekingArrangement.com which amounts to 0.5% of Victoria's 2006 census. Tea, crumpet, hair pie anyone?
The red notations show the latest Demographia unaffordability rank of each University location. It's not surprising to see Toronto, the biggest metro in Canada as a destination for pussy grabbers. If we had the data, I would imagine Vancouver, the most unaffordable city in Canada and the 3rd most unaffordable out of 404 global cities, would also incent young men and women into prostitution. In 2011, the Vancouver city council estimated there were +/- 10,000 sex workers in the city. (Vancouver Sun, Sept 30, 2016). Note that Victoria BC is listed on the chart above; you know, that nice little tourist town and retirement village that promotes itself as "a little bit of Britain". The study chart claims 361 Victorians use SeekingArrangement.com which amounts to 0.5% of Victoria's 2006 census. Tea, crumpet, hair pie anyone?
"Students from 20 British universities are joining dating Web sites matching young women with older men, in an attempt to raise money to pay off student loans and other debts." IBTimes.co.uk 2012.
Housing unaffordability and income disparity is a result of a patchwork policy by government that has failed to get capital investment into productive employment. Instead we have metro land valuations promoted as if in a casino in a country that has an excess of land and resources. We encourage our citizens to flip real estate to satisfy state revenue needs with the collection of gross consumption taxes on every trade.
Meanwhile new generations of young inheritors of our social contract enter the culture as a rank commodity to be exploited by daddy.
Canada could use an overhaul of its collective aspirations.
Meanwhile new generations of young inheritors of our social contract enter the culture as a rank commodity to be exploited by daddy.
Canada could use an overhaul of its collective aspirations.
CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE
Vancouver Named Sugar Daddy Capital of Canada 2013
Here’s a look at the top 10 Sugar Daddy destinations:
- Paris, France
- Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
- Palm Springs, California
- San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Chicago, Illinois
- Seattle, Washington
- Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
- *Vancouver, Canada
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- Barcelona, Spain
*Vancouver Sugar Daddies spent $4,307 monthly on their younger counterparts on average, more than anywhere else in the country.
Vancouver Sugar Daddies are 40 years old and make $292,506 annually, on average. CTV NEWS 2014
CLICK CHART TO ENLARGE PRICED OUT OR PRICED IN?
Are you worried about being PRICED OUT of real estate because interest rates are going to zoom?
Or are you anxious about being PRICED IN because the commodity bust is widening?
A solution to these stressful thoughts is to move more to cash.
If rates do zoom you will be able to move cash into higher rates of return or if the asset value bust continues, you will be able to buy more value.
The charts above show the ongoing DEFLATION in consumption prices and wage earnings. The top panel is the MIT Billion Prices Project which tracks online in real time the high-frequency price data, as well as the US inflation index (CPI). The lower panel is the U.S. FRED chart of Y/Y total private average hourly earnings of all employees with the data plotted year over year to gauge the momentum. Both series are clearly down since the 2009 Pit of Gloom.
Without wage inflation, price inflation evaporates with every actor's change in sentiment from bull to bear.
Are you worried about being PRICED OUT of real estate because interest rates are going to zoom?
Or are you anxious about being PRICED IN because the commodity bust is widening?
A solution to these stressful thoughts is to move more to cash.
If rates do zoom you will be able to move cash into higher rates of return or if the asset value bust continues, you will be able to buy more value.
The charts above show the ongoing DEFLATION in consumption prices and wage earnings. The top panel is the MIT Billion Prices Project which tracks online in real time the high-frequency price data, as well as the US inflation index (CPI). The lower panel is the U.S. FRED chart of Y/Y total private average hourly earnings of all employees with the data plotted year over year to gauge the momentum. Both series are clearly down since the 2009 Pit of Gloom.
Without wage inflation, price inflation evaporates with every actor's change in sentiment from bull to bear.
CLICK CHART TO ENLARGE Gallup Poll January 12, 2015
45% (U.S.) say it's a good time to find a quality job (the highest since 2007 prior to the bust and the Pit of Gloom)
The Low point on this measure was 8% in 2009 (after the pit of Gloom) and in 2011 (after the top in Commodities)
45% (U.S.) say it's a good time to find a quality job (the highest since 2007 prior to the bust and the Pit of Gloom)
The Low point on this measure was 8% in 2009 (after the pit of Gloom) and in 2011 (after the top in Commodities)
Ukulele Orchestra - Should I Stay Or Should I Go
CLICK CHART TO ENLARGE What are you doing?
"GDP growth continues to be low in the U.S. and real total household wealth has stagnated and real median household income has actually been declining." Jeff Gundlach (DoubleLine Funds).
And yet the NYSE Investor Margin Debt is at historic highs. Is this really a good time to be getting levered up? Or is it a better time to unload a burden of debt?
"GDP growth continues to be low in the U.S. and real total household wealth has stagnated and real median household income has actually been declining." Jeff Gundlach (DoubleLine Funds).
And yet the NYSE Investor Margin Debt is at historic highs. Is this really a good time to be getting levered up? Or is it a better time to unload a burden of debt?
On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, "The ides of March have come," meaning to say that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied "Aye, Caesar; but not gone." (Wikipedia)
CLICK CHART TO ENLARGE The 2 Sided Loonie
The chart mashup shows the difference in labour unit cost between Canada and the U.S. in the top panel and the steady drop in the CAD relative to the USD since 2011 (middle panel) and the Canadian balance of trade in the bottom panel.
Only about 30% of Canada's GDP is derived from exporting and most Canadian exporters will enjoy the CAD falling against the USD because most of their export trade (75%) is to the U.S.
But the Loonie remained relatively high against the USD for 5 years (2002-05) and that led to purchasers of Canadian exports to look for alternative sources and that led to more layoffs in Canadian production plants (Bombardier cut 1700 jobs, Kellogg cut 500, Heinz cut 740, Blackberry cut 4500 - Bloomberg).
Layoffs are not easily reversed, and as the top panel of the mashup shows, the Canadian unit labour cost is 14-15% above the U.S. making it that much harder to sell into the U.S. or anywhere else (IMF via Reuters).
As a consumer society, disposable income is also shrinking in Canada as the price of everything we import goes up against the falling CAD and a falling safe haven status compounded by the end of the Canadian Immigrant Investor Program this month which only attracted 130,000 people since the 1986 inception (Globe & Mail).
The foreign investor class has good reasons to look at their Canadian asset portfolios and high on the list will be negative yielding real estate bought in the last 10 years. We could see some drama on the MAR-MOI charts this year if real estate inventory for sale surprises to the upside.
The chart mashup shows the difference in labour unit cost between Canada and the U.S. in the top panel and the steady drop in the CAD relative to the USD since 2011 (middle panel) and the Canadian balance of trade in the bottom panel.
Only about 30% of Canada's GDP is derived from exporting and most Canadian exporters will enjoy the CAD falling against the USD because most of their export trade (75%) is to the U.S.
But the Loonie remained relatively high against the USD for 5 years (2002-05) and that led to purchasers of Canadian exports to look for alternative sources and that led to more layoffs in Canadian production plants (Bombardier cut 1700 jobs, Kellogg cut 500, Heinz cut 740, Blackberry cut 4500 - Bloomberg).
Layoffs are not easily reversed, and as the top panel of the mashup shows, the Canadian unit labour cost is 14-15% above the U.S. making it that much harder to sell into the U.S. or anywhere else (IMF via Reuters).
As a consumer society, disposable income is also shrinking in Canada as the price of everything we import goes up against the falling CAD and a falling safe haven status compounded by the end of the Canadian Immigrant Investor Program this month which only attracted 130,000 people since the 1986 inception (Globe & Mail).
The foreign investor class has good reasons to look at their Canadian asset portfolios and high on the list will be negative yielding real estate bought in the last 10 years. We could see some drama on the MAR-MOI charts this year if real estate inventory for sale surprises to the upside.
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"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement; and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense
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