Time to dump your Toronto real estate

Canadian media are filled with soothing stories about why the vastly over-heated Toronto real estate market is not in fact vastly over-heated.

In the long run, a stable market means that the average income can buy the average house.

Toronto's real estate market has made a lie of that since at least ten years ago.

So if we don't see a stable market, what exactly are we looking at?

A bubble.

A bubble nobody wants to call because all concerned have a vested interest in keeping the bubble bubbling.

I've been around long enough to see a few bubbles come and go, and believe me, this one's about ready to pop.

I recall a brief period about ten years ago, the pre Farm Manager era, when I was involved with a Toronto gal and we were semi-seriously looking at Toronto real estate.

Looked at a place on the perhiphery of Forest Hill that was available for a mere $300k. Thought it was extravagantly overpriced. That little cottage would go for well over a million in today's market.

Another place we looked at was a fixer-upper on Baby Point Road that was on offer for a mere $800k. That would get 3 millions today.

If that shit was overpriced ten years ago, what is it now?

I remember going to a family do at a place near mid-town, where my friend's dad had bought the two-story red brick home on the strength of his salesman's salary back in the '50s. Ten years ago it would have brought close to a million. Clearly outside the range of what a typical salesman could afford. Today it would trade for 3 and a half or four millions. The only salesmen buying in that neighbourhood today are guys at the bond desk at Goldman Sachs.

And there's not enough of them to keep these wacky prices where they are.

What goes up is gonna come down.

Get out before you get hurt.