the rapture

(or, signs of the end times)



Yeah, I say unto You, my Brethren and Sistren, Ye True Believers,

The Rapture is upon Us, and I have seen the Signs. The End is nigh. Tremble, and feel The Rapture. Witness the Apocalypse.

(*I hope that any perceived heresy is forgiven in the spirit of poetic license.)

So, what are the signs?

1) The Globular and Morons had an article last Friday in which they dragged out a scenario of a couple who bought five years ago, and how they won the bidding war.

When Frances Fitzgerald and Sean Deasy searched for their first home in the up-and-coming Leslieville neighbourhood five years ago, they were not aware that properties were often priced below market value to attract a large group of potential buyers.

The piece goes on to recommend bidding at least $10k above asking, without conditions, and a large deposit in the form of a certified cheque. For every offer on the property that you know of, add $10K to your own.

'"My motto is that if you outbid the next guy by $10,000, then you haven't overpaid."'

Did the Globular writer not know that sales in T.O. are off by 26%, and that the Ontario economy is tanking? Oh. Yes. Right. They do know that, but they are trying to suck the last dollars out of the pockets of fools - at the behest of their RE advertising clients - by dragging out very old news. What a bunch of crap.

2) The Pope (and some of his readers) caught the Vancouver Sun deleting (at first) all the negative comments on a bullshite article about the top 15 real estate myths and realities. digi wrested the archives from Google, and posted them in the pope's forum. It's a laugh, in a twisted kind of way. The spin is getting desperate.

3) Statscan released a report (as reported on CBC, and filtered by my memory) that said between 1980-2005, the top wage earners in Canada saw their wages increase by 16%. Middle earners stagnated, and lower earners lost 20% (adjusted for inflation).

And how about those rich immigrants? In 1980, they earned 85 cents for every dollar a Canadian born worker did. Well, there was all sorts of hullabaloo over the years about pay equity and such, but by 2005 male immigrants were down to 65 cents, and female immigrants were down to 56 cents for every dollar a Canadian raised worker earned.

Over all this time, housing has risen considerably.

4) Paul B. has inventory reported at over 15,000, and Rob Chipman reports over 14,000. Chipman has also been reporting a sales/list in the low 40% range a fair bit lately (by my restricted reading).

Oh yeah, and there are a lot of motivated sellers and price reductions from what I see.

I feel a mighty wind blowing, but I foresee little joy for us common folks in the near future. The gas prices must be killing those who were "priced out" to the valley. By the time the Liberals stick us with 2.8 cents a litre more in July, they might have been just as well off to buy in Vancouver - especially if they put a dollar value to the commute time.

It's come undone.

Got ammo?

Blogging the Apocalypse since 2006