Greater Fool – Authored by Garth Turner – The Troubled Future of Real Estate

   By Guest Blogger Ryan Lewenza .

It was a very solid first half of the year for the equity markets with the S&P 500 and TSX up roughly 9%. Small caps, tech stocks, emerging markets and Canadian div...

Pierre Poilievre is a landlord. Mark Carney is not. But the PM has a house and a cottage. (They both live in free homes in Ottawa.) Housing minister Gregor Roberston owns a multi-million dollar portfolio, including a Van penthouse and a Tofino estate. NDP leader Avi Lewis owns and uses two houses in BC. By last count, 40% of all MPs (132 of them) are landlords or real...

Yesterday this pathetic blog reminded us there are lots of affordable places to live in Canada. Major cities, actually. Places where a regular income and a modest downpayment can get a half-million-dollar house costing three grand a month.

Winnipeg, Edmonton, even Montreal – nicely affordable, yet all we do is complain about prices in the GTA and the LM. Weird....

A few hours away from the Big Smoke, the city of London is home to about 450,000 souls. Growth has been brisk, thanks in large part to GTA refugees.

While the average SFH in Toronto is $1,364,200, in London (on a bigger lot, with lots of trees and squirrels) it’s $613,800. Half off. And that price is 1.6% less than a year ago.

(The real estate industry ‘...

Yesterday we ragged on mutual funds and those who sell them.

As you may know, for the past (staggering) eighteen years this blog has existed, we have resolutely advocated ETFs as a far superior way to hold and grow your wealth. Exchange-traded funds are cheap, liquid, flexible, transparent and don’t come with an icky trailer fee or hidden penalty.

Of c...