Oil Shocker

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Lookout Suburbia

While we wait for the various Canadian real estate boards to report their most recent data sets over the next 10 days, I noticed a tweet today from SoberLook.com Two myths about the Ukrainian conflict reminding us that:

"Russia may retaliate with a cut in oil and gas exports to undermine Europe’s resolve." and "To investors at least, events in Ukraine could matter very much."

March 2014 is the 5th year anniversary of an important bull market fraught with peril especially in real estate markets where sentiment can flip to no-bid very quickly as market participants review their positions especially at the periphery where equity evaporation cannot be easily defended by income. In the suburbs and less populated markets, employment can dry up unexpectedly forcing commuters to become more competitive. 

As oil spikes go, the last one was August 2013, and before that it was May 2011, and before that, the biggie... July 2008 (Chart). We all know what happened to real estate prices in Canada, they plunged and the cash market, the TSX Real Estate Index, dropped 51% in 10 mos (Correction Tables).

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