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Originally posted by tamilkuravan

and Canadians now canot take advantage of the border and shop from USA since the exchange rate now makes the price even.
I guess Canadian retailers are taking revenge for 4 to 5 years of lost revenue.

I clearly remember going to Buffallo when the rate was CDN $ 1 = US $ 1.09 and taking full advantage. I even went to Wendy's there which was offering 5 items for US $ 5 and had all the 5 items. The same would have cost me CDN $ 9 to 11 in Canada at that time.

Blessings to all Cd's who went to USA during those times and got Cars, computers, laptops, I phone's, LED TV's etc..

Murali

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very Good article and well researched.

In GTA, house market is way over price.... it is scary, people are still buying houses even can not afford condo....

how the bank is approving mortgage? New home buyers even not thinking twice that what will happen if bank mortgage rate go around 3 to 4%..

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/why-canadas-economy-may-be-headed-off-the-cliff/

Target has closed / is closing all stores in Canada by April 2015..... Target kind of cushioned the Zellers closure in 2013.

Future shop is winding up as well owing to online sales ...Stores will close , others will be renamed as Best Buy.

Sears has already starting restructuring earlier .

A couple of more chains jump on the restructuring wagon and the economy might be in a guessing phase .Wait & watch.

Though I am sure for the GTA house prices and trends to beat retreat , it would take the economy to downsize by a good 25% or more before people start defaulting on their mortgages here and there.

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Fido.

Very good and relevant article with the steps to uplift the country in these trying times:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/we-are-no-longer-a-prosperous-country-1.2870526

On a side note, FutureShop's demise was forthcoming. I strongly believe, Best Buy would even close some more stores in the next two years. The business and prices are not sustainable in this online shopping era.

I am even suprised to see 'The Source' is still open. May be, next in line.

As for the house prices in Toronto and Vancouver (sigh...), I don't think they would subsided anytime soon. $600k is the new norm. Even if the slowdown prevails, don't hold your breath for the prices to steep downwards. In the event, they will stay there at $600k and then move up in a few years from that threshold.

As far as interest rates, I don't think it would rise that significantly. May be, quarter a point to the most. But, I can see the rates would rather go even further down.

Spring is just in but the bloody bidding war is already through the roof already. GTA real estate has challenged all the odds.

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The cowards never started,
The weak died on the way,
Only the strong arrived.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yK1i9cLAMM

people comparing any housing market with the US is simply wrong....its just the recent example so the bears always try to play that card but they never understand the real play. I could dig up 5-6 year old post & articles by same people telling same things over & over again.....All they do is give bears a sense of satisfaction for their decisions of staying out of the game & loose market equity.

People here are mostly first time home buyers & they look the market with those perception. They never look into the fact that Toronto & most part of GTA has second/third generation of families searching for their 3-4 house. They already have lots of equity under their belt & their mortgages are way smaller percentage of those million dollar homes they are buying. This is the cycle which happens when a developed city gets 60-70 years old. Have to face the truth........same thing happens in India/Mumbai too. But that does not mean Indian RE is going to crash !!!

Interest rate going up never has crashed RE market in the history. Give me an proof that US RE market crashed because interest rates went up....& then we would debate on that. Until then keep on dreaming....

Maybe if the interest rate rises by 5% in a year then it would effect people, but that is never going to happen with current inflation conditions. Canada would have to wait years to actually raise interest rate above 2%.....

Don't forget US didn't had any tools when the RE crashed, whereas Canada has lots of tools under its belt which can in fact boost RE. 25 years mortgage rule which came in 2012 for people with less than 20% down payment is one of the lethal one. If they turn it back to 30 years, it can give more boost to RE. But they are saving it for rainy days just in case.... that's how conservative Canada works.

CAD is expected to rise steadily for 5-6 years after first quarter of 2016 along with crude oil. Expect lots of foreign investors to buy low CAD this year probably in RE through out this summer...... CAD is at the buy of this decade point this year around investment professionals. Anybody with good knowledge of US Dollar index would back this up....

And again all this written is for GTA & not for Alberta & Calgary... Each scenario is different. People are fleeing those oil province in search for jobs (& homes) around Ontario & other service offering provinces....

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i..........rock........!!!!!

House prices are going over the roof. Just saw a house listed in my neighborhood for 1 mils. A month ago, in the same neighborhood you could've bought for 700k. There are no bells and whistles.

Bad news is the Townhome prices haven't increased a single dime.

Mind it. It's just in Surrey, which is a distant suburb. Even with the budget of 600k, I am out of market already. No hope left.

Just checked Mississauga and Brampton and the same madness hitting the roof there as well. Can't just pack my bags and dream about home ownership in GTA anymore.

Should've bought a few years ago. Darn!