The Greater Fool

Outlet metrics

Domain Authority

Ranking

Global

#193339

Canada

#5457

Finance/Finance

#78

Traffic sources

Monthly visitors

Articles

The Troubled Future of Real Estate

1 day ago | greaterfool.ca | Garth Turner

Anne and her squeeze had a deer fence built at their summer place this past winter. The job was fine. Paying for it turned controversial. “I received a price for completion by text,” she tells me. “I asked for a proper invoice, and was refused…. Along with the explanation ‘If you get my drift’”. Yes, the fencing guy wanted to be paid in cash. With no record the work had ever been done. “I was shocked and wanted to correct the situation… My husband said, “Don’t rock the boat, just pay the bill”.
The Troubled Future of Real Estate

2 days ago | greaterfool.ca | Garth Turner

As this post is being written (Tuesday morning) the wait time to cross from Canada to the US on the Peace Bridge at Buffalo/Niagara Falls is… 0 minutes. As in, ‘zero’, according to the US Customs and Border Protection Agency. Car traffic between Windsor and Detroit has fallen by 83,000, compared to last year. Stats Can says the number of Canadians crossing back home in March fell 32%.
Capitulation Day

3 days ago | greaterfool.ca | Garth Turner

Now, aren’t you glad you didn’t panic, sell and bury your cash in the backyard after Liberation Day? Sure. Because here we be. On Capitulation Day. Tariff Man has flipped another flop, and Mr. Market can now see the beginning of the end of a failed 19th Century economic policy that made sense when robber barons had side whiskers, side wenches and side arms. As investors awoke today they learned the US had blinked and China winked.
The Troubled Future of Real Estate

4 days ago | greaterfool.ca | Garth Turner

Will a new cabinet make houses cheaper? We’ll see. The shiny new PM unveils his team this week. Choices for finance minister and the housing czar will be interesting. The Carney plan to rescue real estate is based on lower building costs and whipping up a mess of pre-fab affordable stuff. But as with the last plan (and the one the Cons proposed) it’s all dependant on whether or not the buyers show up. Lately they’re turtling. Looks like that will continue.
The Troubled Future of Real Estate

6 days ago | greaterfool.ca | Garth Turner

An historic mid-town rowhouse, 17 feet wide, sweetly reno’d, two-car parking and a one-minute walk to the Toronto subway emerged at $1.9 million. Hoping for a bidding war the agent set an ‘offer date’ of this past Tuesday. It came and went. No sale. Now it’s listed again, for $2.1 million. A more veteran agent says while the market overall is in choke mode, there are still deals flying around in the more affordable range of $1.7 to $1.9 million.
Selling herself - Greater Fool - Authored by Garth Turner - The Troubled Future of Real Estate

1 week ago | greaterfool.ca | Garth Turner

Jen wrote me this week. Her letter signed off with this: “From a single mom who never ever imagined selling herself on the internet just to make it in this world.”Now 32, she’s been through a ‘toxic’ divorce. The house was sold. They fought in court. “In the end, the judge awarded me everything he could because he knew this was my ex’s doing. Although I was awarded everything, I owed my lawyer so much money I ended up walking away with nothing.
The safe haven? - Greater Fool - Authored by Garth Turner - The Troubled Future of Real Estate

1 week ago | greaterfool.ca | Garth Turner

Sam says she’s had it. “Trump crashed my portfolio. He’s stressing me totally. I’m retiring in three years. I’m out of here.”So three weeks ago Samantha got rad. She went downtown and bought two kilos of gold. “Can’t tell you how nervous I was driving home,” she says. “I took some towels to wrap the bars in and hid them under the back seat. But when I got there, I couldn’t stop touching them.”Seriously. She’s smitten. And reckless. Gold has advanced in price by close to 30% this year.
Waiting out the storm

1 week ago | greaterfool.ca | Garth Turner

How bad does it get? This week the big real estate cartels report dismal spring sales – as the gloom spreads. GM is slashing a third of its workforce at the company’s biggest Canadian assembly plant. Trump just announced a 100% tariff on movies made outside the US – horrible news for Toronto, Halifax and the Lower Mainland. On NBC yesterday he repeated that Canada should be a state and the USA has no need for our “energy, lumber or cars”.
The Troubled Future of Real Estate

1 week ago | greaterfool.ca | Garth Turner

“Long time reader and enthusiastic proponent of sharing the wisdom you have preached for years,” writes Stephanie in her MSU. “I have always touted the benefit of RRSPs as a great vehicle to force the savings for the future, however, I somehow missed the tax implications upon one’s death.”Bummer. Seems like mom is equally uninformed. “My father passed away 20 years ago, so my mom naturally had his RRSPs transferred to hers without any tax implications.
Slipping into fantasy

1 week ago | greaterfool.ca | Garth Turner

April is prime rutting season when hormones flow and the nesting is serious. But 2025 ain’t normal. So many reasons for that, of course, from mortgage rates to Trump and tariffs, to election uncertainty, a looming recession, employment and lenders more seized with risk. There’s no spring housing market this year. Early next week we’ll have more data to support this, but stats from two major markets tell the tale today.