Five years later Hilliard Macbeth is still wrong

There's a widespread belief that Canada's seemingly out-of-control real estate bubble is about to burst.

Hilliard Macbeth has seen it coming for at least five years. If you'd had the misfortune of heeding Hilliard five years ago, you'd have bailed out of the market and rented a place. After the collapse, you would have got your dream home at a massive discount!

Alas, the collapse has yet to happen. If you're one of those pathetic souls who acted on Hilliard's prognostications, you're now permanently doomed to rental, because the half-million-dollar house you gave up five years ago in anticipation of the imminent collapse of the real estate bubble, will now cost you a million to buy back.

Has Hilliard apologised? No. In fact he's got a revised edition out. Seems his theory was golden, just his timing was off...

Boy, can I ever identify with that! My theories on everything from oil futures to shorting Apple have been spot-on, but, more often than not, my timing was off.

But, I've apologized for my shitty advice and am doing penance, shooting spitballs of umbrage at the establishment in my role as the pot-addled hillbilly at Falling Downs, whereas Hilliard remains employed by a legit financial concern.

It's my impression that while real estate valuations seem grotesquely distorted, they remain tied to the basic laws of supply and demand. If you track population inflow from all sources, and compare it to new construction, it's obvious that we have a serious disconnect.


There is absolutely nothing on the horizon to indicate that this disconnect will be repaired in the foreseeable future.

Wynne and Tory discover Toronto housing bubble

And by golly, they're taking some serious steps to lance that beastly bubble!

What a pair of imbeciles!

Seems the Mayor of Toronto and the Premier of Ontario were pretty much the last two people in Canada to notice. It's been topic number one around office water-coolers and company picnics and at cocktail parties from Thornhill to The Beaches for the better part of the last decade. Hilliard Macbeth wrote a book about it three years ago. Alas, the market has ballooned at least another 50% since then.

Thank God our political masters are finally on top of this housing crisis!

Good things will surely follow...

Or not.

The myth of the one percenters

There's a great feel-good story on view at the CBC today claiming that the gap between rich and poor in Canada is closing up!

There is a massive flaw in the story. The "rich" are defined as the "1%."

Apparently the cut-off for being in the 1% in Canada is now a household income of $215 k/year.

Sorry, that ain't "rich" people. That's a high school principal who marries a high school teacher.

That's a welder in Cold Lake Alberta who marries another welder in Cold Lake Alberta.

That's two Toronto cops hooking up.

That's not rich people, and this article is complete bullshit.

We live in a country where the average home price just hit $420,000. The average household income languishes in the $40 k range. When the average home is not affordable to the average household, there's trouble brewing.