Canada's 'housing bubble' deemed close to bursting

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by Pinion

I didn't name two, I named five, and offered to post more tower skylines within metro Vancouver. I could post another five.

Here's my suburb. How many single family homes can you count? Hint: you'll only see them in the small native reserve in the top right.



Also I didn't use Portland as "the bar for density." I said that's what cities of 2.5 million normally look like and Vancouver has an absurdly high amount of condos for its size, or even for a big city. Try to follow along.

This is getting legitimately funny now. You are now simply posting a narrow angle shot of the same density shot you did a few posts ago, just from a different angle. Keep going...

[lio45]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Largely a function of the cities ages. Vancouver received it's first streetcar line in 1890, just four years after incorporating. Residents were no longer tied by walking or horse distance to their workplace. A single family home, no matter how small the lot, was seen as more desirable than shared housing such as row housing or terraces.

Yeah, that's basically what I was saying in my second post:

Originally Posted by lio45

Looks like it's simply a symptom of the very rapid way the Western cities grew, and lagging zoning and NIMBYism. There are reasonable explanations for that situation, it's just something we out East aren't really used to because older cities that have been big for a long time have pushed such low-density housing progressively away from the core over the centuries. It's just... exotic, from my POV, to see little bungalows and the Bow tower in the same shot.

Vancouver was small enough back then that rowhouses weren't needed. People still prefer SFHs, generally... when they can. Rowhouses, then condos, have always been compromises. Still are.

However, with NIMBYism and zoning constraints, it's becoming harder for the urban fabric to change than it used to.

A downtown SFH in the 1600s would likely have ceded its spot to a larger building by the 1700s that would in turn have been replaced by an even larger one in the 1800s. Back then market pressure was the main factor by far: no heritage groups and no intervention by the City to decide what you can and can't do on your piece of land, so as soon as it made financial sense to densify, it would happen.

Nowadays, it doesn't work like that anymore.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

And this is what surrounds those 'couple' towers in Burnaby for a considerable area (and slowly being destroyed in the name of creating profit towers for foreigners)

I would generally agree towers are one of the worst forms and indicators of density, which is why all these narrow angle narrow lens shots showing Vancouver's extremely limited mid-rise density are very revealing of fundamental problems with Vancouver's urban housing strategy.

Tall towers tend to be extremely expensive, offer extremely limited options, especially for families, and are not really that important in a sustainable housing plan. Trump Tower and Shangri La do absolutely nothing for the general Vancouver population in terms of housing, and for the most part, these skytrain towers offer extremely limited housing options as well.

In regards to your "foreign buyer for profit towers" in Burnaby, the data was released already. City of Vancouver and Richmond show 20%+ ownership rates, but Burnaby is single digits - meaning, 90%+ of these units are owned by residents.

Originally Posted by GlassCity

Anyway, I'm not really sure what more you want from Vancouver. Our sprawl growth is extremely minimal, especially compared to Calgary.

Calgary is known as one of the worst sprawling municipalities in Canada, so the fact Vancouver is only doing slightly better than Calgary is embarrassing. I would again point to LeftCoaster's numbers that show Calgary's multifamily per capita numbers very much in line with Vancouver. That is absurd given Vancouver's size, not to mention Vancouver's longstanding land development constraints.

What do I want for Vancouver? A sustainable housing strategy that does right by it's residents. In normal cities like Calgary, that means redeveloping all land whose value exceeds about 600k, for the purposes of affordable multifamily (outside of a few luxury neighbourhoods of course, such as West Vancouver & maybe Point Grey). It is absurd for "average" neighbourhoods to reach these values without multifamily being rezoned everywhere.

There is a reason this needs to be done when land values exceed some number well under a million. By adding stock to the market to meet demand, you moderate housing prices, and limit the upside growth of prices. Once land values reach over a million, it is very hard to put that genie back in the bottle, because development costs mean the multifamily units being developed are already priced out of reach for the buyers they are meant to help.

whatnext & pinion are classic examples of Vancouver NIMBYs who will scream to high heavens that more supply is actually a problem, and parade around the few multi-family heavy neighbourhoods Vancouver has (using absurdly narrow angle pictures) to justify why no more supply is needed. I thought you were a bit better than that, but you seem to also be saying that Vancouver is done building multi-family, what they have is "good enough", and that there somehow hasn't been systematic failures in Vancouver's urban housing strategy going back decades.

I lived in Vancouver for close to a decade. I am intimately familiar with the fragile self constructed bubbles Vancouverites tend to live in. Those bubbles tend to have nothing to do with the housing market...

[Nouvellecosse]

Vancouver isn't nearly as dense in its central areas as the density-leading high-HDI cities such as Paris, NYC, Barcelona or even SF. However, it's far more dense both in terms of city and metro area than many similar high-HDI cities, particularly those in NA and Australia. Therefore, in its context as a new medium-sized city in NA, it's doing comparatively well and that should be recognized. But it's far from reaching absolutely maximum achievable - or even maximum desirable - density. And that should also be recognized. In no way do those two facts counter one another and there's no reason they can't be both recognized without conflict.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by geotag277

I would generally agree towers are one of the worst forms and indicators of density, which is why all these narrow angle narrow lens shots showing Vancouver's extremely limited mid-rise density are very revealing of fundamental problems with Vancouver's urban housing strategy.

Tall towers tend to be extremely expensive, offer extremely limited options, especially for families, and are not really that important in a sustainable housing plan. Trump Tower and Shangri La do absolutely nothing for the general Vancouver population in terms of housing, and for the most part, these skytrain towers offer extremely limited housing options as well.

In regards to your "foreign buyer for profit towers" in Burnaby, the data was released already. City of Vancouver and Richmond show 20%+ ownership rates, but Burnaby is single digits - meaning, 90%+ of these units are owned by residents.



Calgary is known as one of the worst sprawling municipalities in Canada, so the fact Vancouver is only doing slightly better than Calgary is embarrassing. I would again point to LeftCoaster's numbers that show Calgary's multifamily per capita numbers very much in line with Vancouver. That is absurd given Vancouver's size, not to mention Vancouver's longstanding land development constraints.

What do I want for Vancouver? A sustainable housing strategy that does right by it's residents. In normal cities like Calgary, that means redeveloping all land whose value exceeds about 600k, for the purposes of affordable multifamily (outside of a few luxury neighbourhoods of course, such as West Vancouver & maybe Point Grey). It is absurd for "average" neighbourhoods to reach these values without multifamily being rezoned everywhere.

There is a reason this needs to be done when land values exceed some number well under a million. By adding stock to the market to meet demand, you moderate housing prices, and limit the upside growth of prices. Once land values reach over a million, it is very hard to put that genie back in the bottle, because development costs mean the multifamily units being developed are already priced out of reach for the buyers they are meant to help.

whatnext & pinion are classic examples of Vancouver NIMBYs who will scream to high heavens that more supply is actually a problem, and parade around the few multi-family heavy neighbourhoods Vancouver has (using absurdly narrow angle pictures) to justify why no more supply is needed. I thought you were a bit better than that, but you seem to also be saying that Vancouver is done building multi-family, what they have is "good enough", and that there somehow hasn't been systematic failures in Vancouver's urban housing strategy going back decades.

I lived in Vancouver for close to a decade. I am intimately familiar with the fragile self constructed bubbles Vancouverites tend to live in. Those bubbles tend to have nothing to do with the housing market...

I just don't think Vancouver's only "slightly ahead" of Calgary. The numbers you or whoever provided showed Vancouver had double the multi-family housing starts compared to Calgary didn't it? And Vancouver's about twice the size of Calgary, but Calgary's also growing more than twice as fast which I think is important too.

I'm not saying that Vancouver doesn't maybe need to densify more, just it seemed weird to me to suggest that it wasn't doing as well as Calgary was in this regard.

And I personally would be all for densifying large swaths of the city the way you suggest. I just want to cut foreign demand off first, so if we do it, we're not left with thousands of empty units as the bubble pops. Let's see what the real local demand is, and then start densifying away.

Last, I'm sure this has been brought up on here before, but in the last Vancouver city council by-election, every major candidate running supported widespread rezoning of SFH neighbourhoods. This will be a mainstream position soon enough.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by geotag277

I would generally agree towers are one of the worst forms and indicators of density, which is why all these narrow angle narrow lens shots showing Vancouver's extremely limited mid-rise density are very revealing of fundamental problems with Vancouver's urban housing strategy.

Tall towers tend to be extremely expensive, offer extremely limited options, especially for families, and are not really that important in a sustainable housing plan. Trump Tower and Shangri La do absolutely nothing for the general Vancouver population in terms of housing, and for the most part, these skytrain towers offer extremely limited housing options as well.

In regards to your "foreign buyer for profit towers" in Burnaby, the data was released already. City of Vancouver and Richmond show 20%+ ownership rates, but Burnaby is single digits - meaning, 90%+ of these units are owned by residents.



Calgary is known as one of the worst sprawling municipalities in Canada, so the fact Vancouver is only doing slightly better than Calgary is embarrassing. I would again point to LeftCoaster's numbers that show Calgary's multifamily per capita numbers very much in line with Vancouver. That is absurd given Vancouver's size, not to mention Vancouver's longstanding land development constraints.

What do I want for Vancouver? A sustainable housing strategy that does right by it's residents. In normal cities like Calgary, that means redeveloping all land whose value exceeds about 600k, for the purposes of affordable multifamily (outside of a few luxury neighbourhoods of course, such as West Vancouver & maybe Point Grey). It is absurd for "average" neighbourhoods to reach these values without multifamily being rezoned everywhere.

There is a reason this needs to be done when land values exceed some number well under a million. By adding stock to the market to meet demand, you moderate housing prices, and limit the upside growth of prices. Once land values reach over a million, it is very hard to put that genie back in the bottle, because development costs mean the multifamily units being developed are already priced out of reach for the buyers they are meant to help.

whatnext & pinion are classic examples of Vancouver NIMBYs who will scream to high heavens that more supply is actually a problem, and parade around the few multi-family heavy neighbourhoods Vancouver has (using absurdly narrow angle pictures) to justify why no more supply is needed. I thought you were a bit better than that, but you seem to also be saying that Vancouver is done building multi-family, what they have is "good enough", and that there somehow hasn't been systematic failures in Vancouver's urban housing strategy going back decades.

I lived in Vancouver for close to a decade. I am intimately familiar with the fragile self constructed bubbles Vancouverites tend to live in. Those bubbles tend to have nothing to do with the housing market...

LOL, you just don't get it. It's not even worth trying to explain to you. Enjoy your oh-so-dense frozen Calgary.

[Pinion]

.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

I just don't think Vancouver's only "slightly ahead" of Calgary. The numbers you or whoever provided showed Vancouver had double the multi-family housing starts compared to Calgary didn't it? And Vancouver's about twice the size of Calgary, but Calgary's also growing more than twice as fast which I think is important too.

I'm not saying that Vancouver doesn't maybe need to densify more, just it seemed weird to me to suggest that it wasn't doing as well as Calgary was in this regard.

The thing is multifamily development should not be a linear relationship with population. Multifamily should grow a bit faster than that, as population increases, to account for broadening density needs.

The fact that Vancouver is roughly linear in multifamily compared to Calgary is embarrassing for Vancouver for a number of reasons - Vancouver's double population, Vancouver's land constraints, and Calgary's well known reputation as sprawl city. Calgary is putting Vancouver to shame here along many dimensions.

Originally Posted by GlassCity

And I personally would be all for densifying large swaths of the city the way you suggest. I just want to cut foreign demand off first, so if we do it, we're not left with thousands of empty units as the bubble pops. Let's see what the real local demand is, and then start densifying away.

IMO they should be done all at once, at the same time, yesterday. Vancouver's situation is such that they need to be throwing everything at the problem immediately because Vancouver sat on their hands for so long until literally everybody has to say "we're boned".

Originally Posted by GlassCity

Last, I'm sure this has been brought up on here before, but in the last Vancouver city council by-election, every major candidate running supported widespread rezoning of SFH neighbourhoods. This will be a mainstream position soon enough.

Very good progress, let's see the results on the ground now. Shiny towers around skytrain stations won't solve this problem. It's going to take some real tough choices about driving single family homes out of the equation - which will somewhat paradoxically drive up land values even further.

Restricting foreign capital is another key piece of the puzzle, and hopefully the new NDP/Green coalition moves quickly on that front. IMO they have been suspiciously silent on these front ever since the election (especially David Eby, who in my opinion, turned from a roaring lion about this issue into a little mouse).

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by whatnext

LOL, you just don't get it. It's not even worth trying to explain to you. Enjoy your oh-so-dense frozen Calgary.

Just FYI, according to Environment Canada, it is currently 6.3 and sunny in Calgary compared to 6.2 and drizzle in Vancouver

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by Pinion

Oh and I just noticed you called me a NIMBY. hahahahaha. On the Vancouver subforum I'm the "condos are not the problem, insufficient road and transit infrastructure is" guy but to you I'm a NIMBY?!?

I agree with you here too. Transit is a disaster in Vancouver. It is somewhat bearable if you live on/near a skytrain station (rush hour is still overcrowded), but otherwise things get ridiculous quickly. Last time I was in Vancouver it took about an hour to drive from New West to Burnaby - outside of rush hour. This is like downtown Manhattan gridlock. I'm not sure what the answer is - clearly the skytrain can't go everywhere - but perhaps given the relatively mild climate and relative lack of snow, Vancouver should be pushing hard for being Canada's signature fully automated driving city. Perhaps be working towards a ban on traditional cars, congestion taxes, tolls and so on. Maybe ban ICE vehicles while you are at it.

also, for the record, I'm not trying to ignore anyone. I tend to have more free time on the weekend and sometimes go a few days without reading these threads. The conversation tends to evolve pretty quickly, as we go from talking about housing in the politics thread, to talking about weather in the housing thread, to talking about bitcoin-driven island fiefdoms protected by mercenaries for hire in the economics thread. It's a bit hard to keep track where we were after a few days away...

[ssiguy]

Vancouver has done a good jobs at building transit and the idea of creating density around a transit station is a good one as opposed to building them all over the damn place.

The problem is that so many of these condo towers have no one living in them and many were built on old apt sites but the apts were destroyed thru "renovictions" where rent increases are far higher than the rate of inflation and buildings are not properly maintained. A Chinese investor will buy the building an apply pressure to get everyone to move out and when they do they will not get anyone to move in emptying out the building.

They then proceed to build a tall condo that is first advertised in China and most of the units go to foreigne Chinese or the ones who have already bought their passports and buy many units at once but leave them empty waiting to flip to the next Chinese investor and on it goes. This is why you have all the condos along Vancouver's Burrard Waterfront half empty and why there are very few businesses...............there are not near enough people in the huge developments to sustain any small business.

[ssiguy]

Do you guys remember my comments about my brother's house he sold in South Surrey. The house wasn't much but was on a large piece of land in a very coveted area about 18 months ago?

Well needless to say the buyer was a Chinese foreigner and naturally he didn't live there, nobody did. Well he turned around and sold it about 6 months ago to another Chinese person and no one lived in it {he knows this due to his realtor who sold it originally} and now guess what, it's up for sale again. It will obviously be sold to another Chinese house flipper/money launderer and then will keep it empty and sell it etc, etc, etc.

This is the kind of economy Vancouver has built............a money laundering haven to sustain the economy and one that views it's resulting housing crisis with supreme indifference.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by geotag277

The thing is multifamily development should not be a linear relationship with population. Multifamily should grow a bit faster than that, as population increases, to account for broadening density needs.

The fact that Vancouver is roughly linear in multifamily compared to Calgary is embarrassing for Vancouver for a number of reasons - Vancouver's double population, Vancouver's land constraints, and Calgary's well known reputation as sprawl city. Calgary is putting Vancouver to shame here along many dimensions.




IMO they should be done all at once, at the same time, yesterday. Vancouver's situation is such that they need to be throwing everything at the problem immediately because Vancouver sat on their hands for so long until literally everybody has to say "we're boned".



Very good progress, let's see the results on the ground now. Shiny towers around skytrain stations won't solve this problem. It's going to take some real tough choices about driving single family homes out of the equation - which will somewhat paradoxically drive up land values even further.

Restricting foreign capital is another key piece of the puzzle, and hopefully the new NDP/Green coalition moves quickly on that front. IMO they have been suspiciously silent on these front ever since the election (especially David Eby, who in my opinion, turned from a roaring lion about this issue into a little mouse).

Agreed about David Eby. It's been disappointingly quiet from him. Hope the budget coming out in February has something better in store.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by geotag277

The thing is multifamily development should not be a linear relationship with population. Multifamily should grow a bit faster than that, as population increases, to account for broadening density needs.

The fact that Vancouver is roughly linear in multifamily compared to Calgary is embarrassing for Vancouver for a number of reasons - Vancouver's double population, Vancouver's land constraints, and Calgary's well known reputation as sprawl city. Calgary is putting Vancouver to shame here along many dimensions.

But it is. Metro Vancouver is slightly less than double the population of metro Calgary but it has A LOT more than twice the multi family under construction.

Those numbers I have quoted are 3 years old back when the boom as ending in Calgary and just picking up in Vancouver. Since then multifamily starts in Calgary have plunged and skyrocketed in Vancouver.

Since my brain hurts from reading all your nonsense over the last 2 or 3 pages I'll just post the current numbers from CMHC.

Vancouver multifamily U/C: 32,650
Calgary multifamily U/C: 6,606

In case your math is a bit rusty, that's A LOT more than double.

Fun little stat, at 5,008 the little suburb of Burnaby has almost as many multifamily U/C as all of Calgary

But ya, you keep trying to convince yourself Calgary is putting Vancouver to shame...

[geotag277]

As an aside it's funny how you can make a statement on this forum, like "Vancouver isn't building enough multifamily" and I am sure LeftCoaster would never have even entered the conversation. But as soon as I compare Calgary - a sprawling anti-urban mecca - to Vancouver - once but no longer a leader in Canadian urban development - LeftCoaster is immediately offended. People like Pinion, whatnext, and GlassCity are also absurdly offended.

It's a theme that runs through this forums blood. You say that Victoria is relatively cold for a coastal city, and compare it to other coastal cities, and people get offended. "Why are you so against Victoria?" they say, as if that statement means anything.

It's so bad that people don't even listen to your words, it's all a **** measuring contest to "disprove" things that were not even said. So what if I think Calgary is putting Vancouver to shame? Consider the context. Consider the nuance. Calgary is in the middle of an unprecedented recession, that is why multifamily development has dropped off a cliff these last few years. Vancouver on the other hand, has unprecedentedly low unemployment, and demand for condos is so red-hot that condo prices are escalating faster than single family.

In these conditions, one would expect quite a divergence in multifamily construction between the two places.

Why is Calgary putting Vancouver to shame generally? Because when Calgary was doing quite well, Vancouver was only building 2x the multifamily compared to Calgary. Vancouver has been behind on multifamily development for generations. Calgary is known across Canada as a suburb car-centric waste land, so that Vancouver at twice the size barely kept up with Calgary (when it was growing) is embarrassing for Vancouver.

Calgary is putting Vancouver to shame. If this statement causes you to have an irrational rage brew inside of you like the incredible hulk, take a step back and understand what I'm trying to say. If you can't, and are going to respond with more hyper-defensive passive aggressive internet angry man rhetoric (which seems to be rather a specialty of Vancouverites lately), don't bother.

The biggest reason Calgary is putting Vancouver to shame, is that Calgary has a sustainable urban development model, which moderates price increases and allows it's residents to actually afford housing. Much of Calgary's growth over the past 3 years has been babies being born, which has allowed multi-family development to cool down and still keep up with demand. When Calgary's economy does poorly, housing prices go down. When Calgary's economy does well, housing prices go up. Calgary's development is sustainable, urban focused, is moderating price increases, allows individuals to rent affordably without living in a basement suite, and so on.

Vancouver is embarrassing by contrast.

If you can't understand the nuance, don't respond. Pulling random numbers out of the air and pretending like you "disproved" any of this is absurd.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by geotag277

Pulling random numbers out of the air and pretending like you "disproved" any of this is absurd.

Sorry I used stats to prove you wrong.

Strange you seemed OK referencing me and those 'random numbers' when you felt they benefited you.

I think the only thing people get generally pissy about on this forum is someone making an remark about their hometown being 'put to shame' and then refusing to admit they are wrong when it is just so painfully obvious.

But you keep hitting your head against the wall trying to manipulate the argument so you don't feel wrong. Who knows maybe we'll all get lucky and you'll knock some sense into yourself.

I'm not holding my breath though.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by geotag277

As an aside it's funny how you can make a statement on this forum, like "Vancouver isn't building enough multifamily" and I am sure LeftCoaster would never have even entered the conversation. But as soon as I compare Calgary - a sprawling anti-urban mecca - to Vancouver - once but no longer a leader in Canadian urban development - LeftCoaster is immediately offended. People like Pinion, whatnext, and GlassCity are also absurdly offended.

It's a theme that runs through this forums blood. You say that Victoria is relatively cold for a coastal city, and compare it to other coastal cities, and people get offended. "Why are you so against Victoria?" they say, as if that statement means anything.

It's so bad that people don't even listen to your words, it's all a **** measuring contest to "disprove" things that were not even said. So what if I think Calgary is putting Vancouver to shame? Consider the context. Consider the nuance. Calgary is in the middle of an unprecedented recession, that is why multifamily development has dropped off a cliff these last few years. Vancouver on the other hand, has unprecedentedly low unemployment, and demand for condos is so red-hot that condo prices are escalating faster than single family.

In these conditions, one would expect quite a divergence in multifamily construction between the two places.

Why is Calgary putting Vancouver to shame generally? Because when Calgary was doing quite well, Vancouver was only building 2x the multifamily compared to Calgary. Vancouver has been behind on multifamily development for generations. Calgary is known across Canada as a suburb car-centric waste land, so that Vancouver at twice the size barely kept up with Calgary (when it was growing) is embarrassing for Vancouver.

Calgary is putting Vancouver to shame. If this statement causes you to have an irrational rage brew inside of you like the incredible hulk, take a step back and understand what I'm trying to say. If you can't, and are going to respond with more hyper-defensive passive aggressive internet angry man rhetoric (which seems to be rather a specialty of Vancouverites lately), don't bother.

The biggest reason Calgary is putting Vancouver to shame, is that Calgary has a sustainable urban development model, which moderates price increases and allows it's residents to actually afford housing. Much of Calgary's growth over the past 3 years has been babies being born, which has allowed multi-family development to cool down and still keep up with demand. When Calgary's economy does poorly, housing prices go down. When Calgary's economy does well, housing prices go up. Calgary's development is sustainable, urban focused, is moderating price increases, allows individuals to rent affordably without living in a basement suite, and so on.

Vancouver is embarrassing by contrast.

If you can't understand the nuance, don't respond. Pulling random numbers out of the air and pretending like you "disproved" any of this is absurd.

Its because in your argument you actually claim that Victoria (metro 360) is lager than Portland Maine (metro 500 000) so therefore in your argument Portland, Maine's record cold doesn't count for comparison, and neither does Seattle because to you it is not a coastal city... (without every defining how Victoria is a coastal city, despite also not being on the exposed coast, but Seattle isn't).

You also cherry picked the coldest possible record low for the area (other stations have record lows a few degrees warmer in the area) and you fail to note that the station with that record low has been recording data since the 1870's while many other cities only show data during a far more recent period. I am also actually suspect of the reading since i was unable to find it yesterday searching through the raw data available that extends back to the 1890s. (raw data on Environment Canada seems to only go back to 1898, yet the record is said to be in 1893. Doesn't mean it is wrong, just odd)

You have a pattern of trying to downplay and perceived positive Metro-Van / BC may have with warping / cherry picking stats to fit our narrative.

[geotag277]

Echoes of Chadillac. Anyway, he was a great Calgary booster, if that's what you're in to.

[geotag277]

Getting back on topic and away from **** measuring:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...-housing-starts-fall-14-to-216-980-units

Choice quote:

The increased activity mostly sidestepped land-constrained Toronto and Vancouver, the country’s two most expensive markets, but was robust in the suburbs and less pricey surrounding cities. Starts in Toronto fell 1 percent to 38,738 in 2017, while declining 6 percent in Vancouver to 26,204 units. In Montreal, Canada’s second most populous city, starts jumped 39 percent to 24,756.

Things really picking up in Montreal, which is good to see. Hopefully they can balance their strong economy with housing prices, which is something Canada's other large metro's have struggled to do effectively.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by geotag277

Getting back on topic and away from **** measuring:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...-housing-starts-fall-14-to-216-980-units

Choice quote:



Things really picking up in Montreal, which is good to see. Hopefully they can balance their strong economy with housing prices, which is something Canada's other large metro's have struggled to do effectively.

You mean, time to escape because I no longer have a leg to stand on after LeftCoaster destroyed my argument?