This is the first in something of an intermittent series I’m going to do on mortgages. Despite often being a persons single biggest monthly expense, all too often people really do not understand how they work. And since I also get all geeked up doing this sort of stuff… behold.Continue Reading
Some days the mind wanders… you ponder such things as, if the Canwest media outlets pumped their own stock as much as they did real estate maybe their shares wouldn’t be trading at three for a dollar four for a dollar. Read moreMore Odds and EndsOkay, that was a low blow… butContinue Reading
Seems we have a fair number of readers on Twitter that are linking to us, so I figured I’d give you all another way to follow the blog. http://twitter.com/edmontonbust I’m thinking of using it to link to various news stories and other blogs of interest that I might not getContinue Reading
Had actually written another entry for today, but came across this article from Macleans, and decided to do a write up on it instead. I highly recommend everyone take the time to read it in full, as it is a very interesting piece and gives some great insights on the inner workingsContinue Reading
The CMHC pumped out their latest forecast this past week. Cutting through the b.s. and bravado, here’s the pertinent Edmonton prognostications, tabular form for your viewing pleasure. 2008 2009 Projected 2010 Actual Forecast +/- % Forecast——————————————————Price $332,852 $315,000 -5.4% $325,000——————————————————Sales 17,369 16,000 -7.9% 17,000——————————————————Vacancy 2.4% 3.5% +0.9%——————————————————Avg Rent $1,034 $1,070 +3.5%—————————————————— AContinue Reading
Don’t really feel like running numbers today, and there were a lot of housing relevant stories coming out this week, so we’ll look at those. Mike Fotiou wrote up an interesting piece on the CREA forecast for 2009, and their past fortunetelling exploits. Their predictions for Alberta are not going to make sellers anyContinue Reading
When I first started looking at the litany of stats released every month by the various outlets, it was kind of overwhelming. There are dozens of different measures, examining things from just as many angles. Even with my background in accounting and statistics, it was kind of wild. But asContinue Reading
It seems a lot of realtor blogs out there like to label anyone that doesn’t encourage everyone to run out and buy a house as purveyors of “Doom and Gloom.” Seemingly we are advising everyone to just give up, stock up on ammo, and start working on recipes for rockContinue Reading
Those that follow the stats released by their local real estate boards may have noticed that their inventories don’t seem to add up. For example, at the end of December in Edmonton there were 6,316 units in inventory. Then in January there were 2,443 new listings, and 730 sales. DoingContinue Reading
The EREB hasn’t put the January numbers up on their site yet, but the Journal had an article quoting most of the pertinent numbers for January, so I’ll work with those, and when the EREB put up the full set I’ll include those then. EDIT: They updated their site the next morning,Continue Reading