First of all, sorry for the lack of posts lately. Long story, but rest assured, I am back on track and the old ‘tourist regular postings have resumed.
Next up, today I will write about Canadian real estate. I know, many of you find that about as exciting as watching Winter Olympic curling, but give me a chance – after all, we Canadians have a way to make even curling entertaining.
The Canadian real estate bubble
As most everyone knows, over the past decade, Canada has experienced a massive real estate boom.
And for the past half dozen years, we have had to endure all the proclamations from hedge fund managers about the coming great Canadian housing market crash. Although there has also been some Canadian skeptics, the majority of these doomsdayers have been American managers who, after experiencing their own real estate crisis, can only imagine the next “big short” occurring in Canada.
These managers often simply took the US playbook and applied it to Canada, never considering that the US situation might be different. Nor did they factor in the possibility that Central Bank reaction functions might have changed since the Great Financial Crisis.
Don’t mistake me for some sort of unapologetic delusional Canadian housing bull. I think prices are nuts. But what I think is even more insane is the amount of balance sheet expansion from global Central Banks. We must always remember – the Canadian real estate bears are fighting against the authority that has the power to dictate the quantity of the asset in which we price all these other assets in.
Whether it be US or Canadian dollars, or Euros, or Yuan, do you really believe the supply of money will be suddenly throttled back? Or is it more likely that, given that 2008 is still relatively fresh in their minds, Central Banks will err on providing too much liquidity in the coming years? So yeah, maybe Canadian housing is stupidly overpriced, but so is almost every asset under the sun. Whether it is US equities, European bonds or crypto currencies, these are merely reflections of the absurd monetary policies that envelope the global financial system.
