Western Standard columnist Myke Thomas urges caution for worried homeowners
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Summary
In this final episode of the year, we have a special guest on the show this week. We had a chance to catch up with one of our favourite real estate experts, to talk all things housing, inflation, real estate and the Canadian housing market.
Transcript
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how's it going mike it's sad oh i can't believe you're not going to be doing this anymore oh yeah
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your tears look as real as d's do you know it doesn't look very good oh well listen we'll be
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the last visit on this particular uh this particular format or show yeah we'll see
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keeping the door open things are just changing well they need to i mean i mean nothing but i
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don't think there was a need for them but things change they evolve and they move along yeah and
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uh no it's it's all good and uh i'm glad i could get you in on this this final week there's lots to
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cover it's always fun when we get you in studio and cover some of this well we'll see what we can
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talk about for you well yeah we'll start i guess with your specialty and that's the real estate world
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we're seeing some housing starts picking up uh yeah relative well um that's a go fish number that
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cmhc puts out i mean that's what they think is going to be by the end of the year could be more
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it could be less but in reality and i mean it's good that that we that it's that number it needs
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to be way more um even with prices and sales diminishing in the resale market uh there is a
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a huge need for new housing stock of all kinds but more particularly multi-family and more affordable
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product for lower income people um the rental market's getting crazy uh i saw i think yesterday
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i was reading that the the rent on a two-bedroom condor apartment in calgary is pushing i think was
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sixteen hundred dollars that's a lot of money yeah um the prices on on resale homes are
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very slowly very slowly coming down sales are really really down but getting back to see me
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seeing houses says they couldn't build enough i mean they need i think she went over they need a
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million houses in over the next two or three years so that's just it can't happen so yeah she can give
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you a shout out in that column actually yes that uh that he wrote recently that was on the western
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standard is that self-serving plug westernstandard.news and you'll find shane's column where
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he's talking about that as a home builder for people who aren't familiar with shane wenzel
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and pointing out that we have a supply issue i mean no matter what you do how much you middle
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in your market how well your interest rates are if you don't have enough supply it's going to get
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expensive yeah and you know because it's my favorite topic and that is slamming the government
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it is the government's fault government restricts new housing supply while at the same time
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hitting the talking button to recruit increase it it's it's camera jet which that's camera jam kids
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or something i can't oh cats and jam are kids that's getting i'm not old enough to remember at all
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exactly yeah uh but it on the resell market things are slowing down um as expected the i'm looking at
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calgary this morning and back in march which was a record sales month for calgary they sold something
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up 4 200 homes which is unbelievable and i think we're on pace in august to do close to 2000 so
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that's quite a dip um and it's got everything to do with with the rising mortgage rates um and the
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there was a phenomenon going on called fear of missing out where people people were getting
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qualifying qualifying for mortgages but supply wasn't very good so they'd rush out and buy whatever
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they could get and so that helped bring the sales up it's a phenomenon that probably wouldn't have
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happened have had the bank not bank of canada taking the rate down to 0.25 percent at the beginning
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of the of the pandemic but like everybody else nobody knew how to handle that pandemic you know if
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there ever was another one and there might be i hopefully hopefully we handled differently so now the
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bank is making up for lost ground well and the bank's probably going to be cranking interest rates
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further yet uh yeah september 7th is the next date um speculation there's some people who said oh
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inflation's done inflation's down 7.6 yeah i was saying that earlier in the show we're all popping
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champagne courts you know because it went down a half a percent in rise i mean it's just as i said
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the best way you put is less bad than it was last month but it's still bad no but i saw some
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chatter today on on the internet oh well the bank maybe will only raise it 2.5 percent then because
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things are looking so more positive no no it's going to be a minimum of 0.5 i think 0.75
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outside chance of raising it by one one percent i don't think they're going to do it at one nobody
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expected them to do it last time so i don't know but by the end of the year i think we're looking at 3.25
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percent um which is way above the bank of canada's uh normal comfortable rate but and and people have
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to understand what kind of chill i mean outside of the real estate market i mean that prime rate
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impacts capital expenditures a lot and we're talking about things like the energy sector mega
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projects they're planning out in 10 20 year uh you know segments and they didn't necessarily take
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into account that much more expenditure to get that thing rolling so i mean often they're going to
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contract or reduce the amount they were going to build right but the the thing that might cushion
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it well it should cushion it is the the lenders for the most part have already built in that 3.25
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because they're they're looking ahead for that very reason um so a lot of the money that people are
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borrowing right now is based on a bank rate of 3.25 so it's not going to go no but they're trying to
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prevent that it makes them reevaluate some of their uh budgets so at that point and it leads to things
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well we'll see what happens i mean you're still in for a rough ride for a while yeah yeah it's going
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to be i don't know how rough it's going to be it's not going to be real pleasant but i think it's going
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to be more slow than than like that i hope well yeah we'll keep hearing that uh recession word i i listen
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to one economist saying we need a recession it's natural it's the way to correct things i mean i i don't know
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if i can see it being natural in the cycle of economics unfortunately just with this borrow
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and contract sort of thing but saying we need it is if it's a positive development or outcome
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uh i mean i i think a better way to say is just it's probably inevitable well it is inevitable
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and i guess you want to look at it as a need to be it's kind of like a medicine you got a fever now you
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got to get something to get rid of it um so is it is it a terrible terrible thing no you know and are
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we going to be in a recession i don't know um depends on your definition of what a recession
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then they start dancing with what a recession is i was watching that game going on in the states
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already yeah well that's funny down there it's not a recession yeah it is um there's been no
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announcement here though uh in terms of officially in a recession i think we have to look at the gd numbers
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what they were in july and we'll see that yeah we are in a recession yeah
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well let's see what some of the other stuff you've been talking about you know you put
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out some neat things some of the dream homes luxury homes i see you had an airbnb site that's
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curved into a california mountain yeah that's in uh the joshua tree national park about
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as close as i can figure an hour an hour and a half northeast of palm springs uh where joshua park is
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the joshua tree park but they uh this house took 20 years to build and it's pure there's there's no
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timber in the thing there's no drywall it's all natural rock and it's built right into the rocks
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um it's it's an amazing uh house and is it expensive the bedroom the bed in the bedroom costs
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five hundred thousand dollars oh wow well ten thousand a night to stay in yeah you can't buy the
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house you could air and be and be it a three night minimum that's a pretty limited uh audience
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obvi's talking about going down next week actually so i think oh yeah so he well he he's you know the
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the standards flush with money now that they'll have me reducing that's right yeah so in the flush
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oh wow well yeah you know what's funny because jane and i uh we have an extra suite uh attached to our
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place so you know for this area and it's been going very well jane's you know fantastic host it's
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an independent suite and airbnb's been fantastic to us out that way and i i can see more of that with
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homeowners not so much on the 10 000 a night scale but that's another uh income generating
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thing people can do is as the cost of housing goes up is if you've got that spare space you're
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an empty nester and i keep those damn kids from moving in too long anyways well sorry it's rented
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out you get the spare bedroom over there but you aren't getting the suite yeah um you know it's kind
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of a growth area i saw a new story where they're fighting about that of course in toronto it's kind of
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like the uber versus taxi and of course the hotels really hate airbnb oh totally and why wouldn't
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it yeah but i don't know it's a good deal so you know if you got 30 grand and can get down there it's
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probably once in a lifetime opportunity yeah i would think yes i'll keep uh an eye on the uh
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lottery tickets and see if my chance comes about or maybe i'll just find a cliff and start carving my
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own it'll probably happen faster than being able to spend 10 000 you just head out to brag creek and
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do something out there maybe yeah well they used to let me work with dynamite in the past if i could get
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a hold of you no no no no no no more dynamite for you i'm even sober now i barely blew anything up
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last time okay so uh oh well we're gonna back a little i like reviewing the stories you know and
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as i just to remind everybody you write about a lot of things real estate and so on but you
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dive into the others with the uh trump under investigation for a violation of the espionage
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act i mean this has been making a lot of news this this whole raid on the mar-a-lago uh mansion
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and people all wonder what the hell's going on well you know i i envision the pinata you know
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at the kids parties where they got the sticks and they're banging away at the
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pinata full of candy and they're waiting for so trump is the is the pinata up there it's all
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the little democrats running around with their sticks russian collusion this that the other thing
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and so i think this is just you know another part of that they need to get something on this guy
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uh trump uh we're only i think 80 days away from the midterms and they're sweating bullets
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uh it looks like the democrats are going to get wiped out which i think is an overstatement i don't
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think they're not going to be wiped out but they could lose control of the congress it's not looking
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good for them in the middle not looking and um it's not that joe biden is a very useful president as
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it is but should the republicans take the house down there he's he's lame duck he's done totally
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done well and you start getting into that that stalemate going on i mean it's it's the american
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politics is such a hornet's nest and the thing that always strikes me too is their elections as
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much as they're so polarized and fight so hard they're still usually it's like 51 to 49 i mean it's
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just such a microscopic line that they're moving on in that country well you know that's a good point
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i was thinking about that the other day they're talking about the great division in the country
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but it's like like you say 51 this 49 the other it's not really a great divide you know it's it's
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the extremists on either end it's the same thing here it's the extremists on either end of the
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political spectrum who get all the ink to get it make the most noise they get the most attention but
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they're not really the ones uh that we should be focusing on now well it's so heated though i mean
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trump i mean you know you see he was a bombastic uh i'm not a big fan of his to be honest i mean i
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i still would vote republican if i was in the states i'm a conservative but boy i would have
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hoped that oh couldn't our party come up with somebody better well you know there's good and
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bad i i'm not i'm not real fond of his style the bombastic thing where the greatest always has been
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i mean he's sending out uh on his social media uh true site uh things today that are like okay don
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just back off a bit but i mean that we're canadians we're a little more laid back so maybe
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but you've got to admit at least i this is the way i see it is that he did some pretty good things for
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that country well he shook the establishment yeah and it was an establishment that needed to be shaken
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up that's part of what the amount of this loathing is i mean they are still ticked off at how he rattled
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their their perch uh you know including some of the republic republicans absolutely but again his style
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yeah i don't know um that's like having the best hockey player in the world who just likes going
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around slashing people with a stick but he scores the most goals but i mean i think maybe it'll come
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to some ease if people get to the point of accepting or if he would ever say but there's nothing
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much to expect him to say that he's not running again that you know you're you're finished you're
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going to retire you're going to kick back there's nothing to hold trump once more than to be the
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president of the united states again and uh whether or not it's going to happen i don't know i don't
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either it's such a because uh again i'm sure the the the dems have got to be sweating because biden
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isn't exactly what you'd call strong uh so he's most definitely vulnerable uh to a strong run but i mean
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another term of trump and i can see a civil war breaking out well you might get one anyway well you
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know so maybe maybe it's in the cards isn't it that can be i don't i don't know it's just so
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bizarre and it just doesn't stop you know as i said it's just the headlines and and uh did he take
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things from the office does he have cases of sensitive materials i mean he invoked the fifth
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uh and they're quick to point out one of his own speeches when he said anybody invoking the fifth is
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clearly guilty and then you know so now he's invoking well that's donald that's him i i know he's a
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showman he's barnum bailey he's totally you you put a reality star in in the office and you got what
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you're gonna get let's get back to housing for just a sure of talking about canada the united states um
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i just want to say to the people out there that you're going to see things continue to go down a
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bit you don't panic do not panic um everybody's situation is is different in terms of whether or not
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you get to keep the house or you have to sell it stuff like that uh and i mentioned this because
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you might start seeing things get even worse in the united states you have to understand down there
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the rules are different buy a house you get a 30-year mortgage down there plus if you get into a
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situation where you can't make the payments you go to the bank and say here's the keys see you walk away
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and there's nothing they can do in canada that's not going to happen it can't happen because we've
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got uh cmhc insurance uh the qualification stress test and stuff like that uh so don't if you see this
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happening in the united states do not for a moment think it's going to happen here uh people people
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panicking and putting their houses on the on the market for sale when they don't really need to
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it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy that everything will go down the ditch a lot quicker
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yeah well and that's advice that uh financial advisors give on just about everything anyways
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with any portfolios look at the long game don't don't panic respond in reacting we've had andrew
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rulin from integrated wealth management talking about that you know okay markets are dipping this
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hang on don't don't rush out there i mean when you get a panic sell as you said with self-fulfilling well
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then you it snowballs and you can get a collapse and then everybody gets kind of scared yeah i think to
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figure everybody looks at understandably is value what perceived value of the house and somebody's
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going to have bought a house at 350 that probably in in april rocketed up to 425 and now it's moving
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back down to 350 and they think they're losing money but they're not that's what you bought it for
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you know it's little things like that you've got to keep in mind and and don't take financial advice
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from uncle ernie unless uncle ernie's a financial guy yeah a lot of people do that well i mean that's
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part of uh you know i had i can't remember was a guest on a while back just on how things change
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again it's not so much in the housing but in stocks i mean not that long ago you used to have
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to go through a stock broker you'd have to talk to somebody who was licensed and ostensibly i mean
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a lot of corruption among them and incompetency but for the most part had some degree of knowledge of it
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and they would counsel a person you know don't jump in and out on this like that don't move around but
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now a person can just get online click trade stocks and it added to the volatility of trade in ways
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that they never imagined uh would happen and uh it still makes for a difficult to rely on a lot of
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things in that market yeah completely so people don't buy and sell houses that quickly well so that's
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in a world that i don't live in and i don't even want to think about we're still working on paying the
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one we got now yeah no i know i know some people who were in that business they uh they do quite
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well they're not then they're not shy students or anything like that they'll buy they'll buy a house
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uh nine times out of ten the house needs renovations anyway so they go in fix it up
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uh add ten or twelve thousand dollars to the sales price and go so it's not a bad deal for some people
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there's a lot of reality shows about that i mean the flippers and things like that yeah why not i
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mean pick it up you're taking you're assuming the risk i mean if you fix it up poorly or the market
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collapses on you you're stuck in a house that you bought for more than it's worth that's not
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that's you're like anything else like walking into a casino a lot of money walking out broke
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your choice yeah no i've managed to do that already i know
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right on okay well before i let you get running here what else are you working on what do you
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get to look forward to uh i think maybe a patio in my future oh you mean for the rest of the week
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i was thinking on your columns unless you're going to do a how-to or something on patio construction
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i should do something on patios um i got a lot of things in in the in the mix right now
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i was talking to nailer things are pretty slow right now so it's it mouth dog days of summer
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middle of august things are going to pick up i think there's going to be a lot of things happening
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right after labor day that are things are going to start moving pretty fast yeah things are going to
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pop up right on well it was good to have you on one more time mike very appreciate it and i always
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enjoyed coming on yeah and like to say we'll uh we'll see you around oh yeah i'm not vanishing
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things are just changing all right all right i'll talk to you later you got it