<story><title>Canada&apos;s Housing Bubble Will Burst</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-21/canada-s-housing-bubble-will-burst</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cletus</author><text>So I have two issues with this post.&lt;p&gt;1. It needs to separate out Vancouver and the rest. Vancouver is its own bubble of self-perpetuating nonsense propagated by Chinese money.&lt;p&gt;2. The article states shares are better because companies can plow money back into the business, which completely misses the point because price rises aren&amp;#x27;t pure speculation. There is a HUGE labour cost in housing such that housing prices track inflation (particularly wage inflation).&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s the real value in property investment in periods like the 1970s that saw really high inflation.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s more land represents a largely non-renewable resource. Take Manhattan as a fairly extreme example. They&amp;#x27;re not making more land to put things on. Other cities like Chicago, LA and especially Atlanta can basically spread forever. But even in those cities, inner city land is irreplaceable and finite.&lt;p&gt;Now I&amp;#x27;m not saying Canada isn&amp;#x27;t in a bubble or that bubble won&amp;#x27;t burst. But the author takes a naive stock-centric view of things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alacombe</author><text>&amp;gt; It needs to separate out Vancouver and the rest. Vancouver is its own bubble of self-perpetuating nonsense propagated by Chinese money.&lt;p&gt;Not just Chinese money, see my comment below.&lt;p&gt;To summarize: 1) best climate for Canada, 2) bounded north, west, and south, 3) land already developed, 4) high immigration</text></comment>
<story><title>Canada&apos;s Housing Bubble Will Burst</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-21/canada-s-housing-bubble-will-burst</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cletus</author><text>So I have two issues with this post.&lt;p&gt;1. It needs to separate out Vancouver and the rest. Vancouver is its own bubble of self-perpetuating nonsense propagated by Chinese money.&lt;p&gt;2. The article states shares are better because companies can plow money back into the business, which completely misses the point because price rises aren&amp;#x27;t pure speculation. There is a HUGE labour cost in housing such that housing prices track inflation (particularly wage inflation).&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s the real value in property investment in periods like the 1970s that saw really high inflation.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s more land represents a largely non-renewable resource. Take Manhattan as a fairly extreme example. They&amp;#x27;re not making more land to put things on. Other cities like Chicago, LA and especially Atlanta can basically spread forever. But even in those cities, inner city land is irreplaceable and finite.&lt;p&gt;Now I&amp;#x27;m not saying Canada isn&amp;#x27;t in a bubble or that bubble won&amp;#x27;t burst. But the author takes a naive stock-centric view of things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bhouston</author><text>&amp;gt; There is a HUGE labour cost in housing&lt;p&gt;Not for cities like Vancouver.  The cost is land.  That is where the inflation is.  Whenever you price out a house in the far outskirts, it is crazy cheap in comparison.</text></comment>