I agree that “forcing” developers to build is “dumb.”. I was thinking more of “leveraging” what we have and what others want to help us get what we need. Negotiation. These are concepts which work well in business and there’s no real reason the city can’t use it’s discretion to improve the situation. I also agree that appropriate incentives could be used in those negotiations. The answer doesn’t always have to be a straight yes or no.

Then you’d get new housing stock being added to the old. Now, you just have a reduction in rental stock and a lot of elderly, badly built and badly renovated apartments being sold as condos.

Just to answer the wage question… I draw up construction drawings, architectural, and am getting paid the highest wage i can get in the city of saskatoon for doing so. I make 44,800 a year before taxes. By the mortgage calculators I can afford, for a 40 year mortgage @ 1200 a month, about a $120,000 house or condo.

In jobs that aren’t centered around hand over fist profit, tanking economies have little impact.

The businesses choose to exact retribution on the people during tough times rather than the upper crust which creates a very significant split in a short period of time.

Funny how the businesses choose not to pay out to the people when times are good either.

To me, a tanking market can open doors for some. I don’t like the idea of widespread suffering either so don’t misconstrue what I say to bash the leftie. But I don’t see anything wrong with clipping the wings of investment for a long time.

The opportunity to own your home shouldn’t be about wealth and competitive advantage. That just ensures that only the rich can play until eventually the supply is wrapped up in a very small portion of the population.

If you support that, I have nothing more to say to you.

Thanks for the props. You are quite a poet.

I have to agree on your comments about the poor quality of some of the “improvements” which have been undertaken in recent years. My 18 year old son can do a better job with a paint brush than many of the flippers we’ve hosted in Saskatoon, but then, he takes a little pride in his work and puts in the necessary time to do a job right.

callum,

No doubt, Saskatchewanians are famous for caring about how the people around them are being impacted. When the average family income falls 50% short of buying the average Saskatoon house we should all be suspicious about what’s going on and concerned about how the discrepancy will eventually be settled. Something ain’t right in boomtown.

I’m sorry but what exactly are you implying by saying “old-school socialists”. That statement hardly qualifies anything worth worrying about.

I think you are hard pressed to recognize the things that made Canada such a great country to plunder. It’s sad but the way of life that has made this country so strong has also become very vulnerable.

I hope the government can get all these holes plugged before the middle class is completely eradicated. Arbitrary costs, low wages and plummeting quality are running amok.

But of course your sentiment seems to imply that it’s wrong to want the best for others…

A little history lesson for you then: Saskatchewan is the birthplace of health care in Canada. Do you count yourself as one of the sanctimonious few who are above needing health care?

Do you think you are safe without the husk of socialist values our country is left with today? Most rich Americans still end up paying for some kind of coverage…

There are plenty of other reasons that social thinking isn’t a derogatory term on it’s own. It takes ignorance and a wild-eyed statement to act in aghast towards socialism. It’s so taboo!

“Oh my goodness, you value society? How un-moderate!”

We can always rely on the completely spoiled disconnect from reality socialism-haters exhibit. To their credit, the views certainly do apply within their wealthy sandboxes. Birds of a feather, right?

I’m curious as to what kind of red-bashing will ensue after I post this. Let’s climb into the time machine and find out – you will need it because I can assure you, this thinking won’t survive long in the wreckage growing throughout our economy.

Perhaps you should refrain from scratching any more surfaces.

Ya, the wage discussion.

That’s it, for sure. That’ll determine everything else.

What kind of money are people making in Saskatoon? What about on this board? I’m sure its already been discussed.

I’m in mining, the spouse is an academic, we’re around $125,000 combined, early 30′s, I think we’re pretty lucky, If you call hard work and foresight lucky.

We’re not too worried about being able to afford something, it’s more about the quality and value. No one wants to feel like they’re getting ripped off. And that’s what it looks like out there right now.

House poor is one thing, but house poor for a poor house is another. (Hmmm, that’s pretty catchy!)

I feel bad for those that have no hope of buying at these levels. At the risk of karma kicking my ass, I’d like to see the specs and flippers get burned bad. And the shady real estate agents too! (Not you, Norm!)

Oh ya, this site rocks, and all the work Norm and his people are putting into it. Very nice. I look around at some of the other Sask real estate agent sites, and it freakin’ embarrassing. These people want me to pay them for services and they’ve got a web presence that looks like it was built on a word processor in 1996. Weak, to say the least.

All right, enough rambling for now.

-Ez-

I’ve seen way too many decent houses that someone has “upgraded” with the standard laminate flooring, tacky linoleum, cheap fixtures, low end stainless steel appliances and lame ‘trading spaces’ colours.

I’d just end up ripping it all out and putting in something tasteful instead.

I think I prefer the dirty, uncared for properties that haven’t been updated since the “Devine Assistance” home improvement program 20 years ago.

Ah well, great site, keep up the good work.

It has to be understood that when investors and high prices force people to take out loans we are having one person serve the greed of another.

That one person is leveraging their future-money and giving it in WHOLE to the seller.

If we’re trying to identify why the country is increasing it’s debt we should take a look at the cannibalistic nonsense going on inside our borders. We are allowing the rich to plunder one of the last hopes of wealth the middle class has.

Overall it turns into a scheme where one person can get another to go into severe debt. And for what? There is no benefit and the prices being paid for houses are outrageous. Not justified by demand or activity, but simply out of line.

That then takes us to the wage discussion…

Without any prompting, my fiancee’s sister started mentioning the same kinds of things that I do. It was very rewarding as we don’t talk much and yet here was someone parroting my same sentiment.

The two most noteworthy were reduced quality and decay of neighborhoods.

Nobody is waking up to the heartless reality we are creating for ourselves. Canadians are letting themselves be robbed by the special interests of the rich.

At this rate, any kind of control would be helpful to buy time for decisions to be made. The longer we wait, the more investors are going to scramble to dominate the market. It doesn’t help that with each sale they get more buying power…

I’d like to see the government stop people from using houses for profit. The builders can make and renovate without the help of investors. It just means we inject a little sanity back into the market by eliminating the sponges.

Build communities and empower the people with their own self-made wealth.

Of course, it’s complicated. Someone would always be crying foul. It would be a shame to see rules designed to stop speculators getting in the way of honest deals. I don’t have a solution, just some ideas. One way or another, the fast profits have to be stopped and longer-term investing encouraged.

Some good points.

I suspect that the Menke building you lived in was built at a time when building standards were very low. These issues are pretty much resolved with new construction, and even in condo conversions. This is a great example of how conversions can sometimes be a good thing. These people will not likely ever address the problem so tenants are left to suffer it out. If it were converted, it would have to be brought up to code and a building which is wasting away might be saved. Anyway, that’s a side note. I know it’s not the discussion we’re having.

There’s always the issue of some kind of balance so that investing in real estate is at least somewhat desirable. Otherwise, you end up with a group of homeowners and a group of public housing recipients. If everyone decides that real estate is just a bad investment you have other housing issues which are equally tough on the most vulnerable in our society. We can’t chase them away entirely but we could stand to get rid of the pure takers.

There’s no disagreeing though that everyone should be entitled to a safe, warm, and clean home. I have no love for any “business” that can rest comfortably at night as someone freezes in one of their crap can apartments.

It is a very risky thing to force a kind of repentance on businesses for taking lucrative opportunities. This lives along the lines of “you want it, you subsidize it” and private investment.

Private investment is a tricky beast because it is great in print and as a sound byte. You can have a news release with lots of people smiling, a ribbon cutting ceremony and a few kissed babies…But what develops with all private investments is that they are either rolled back, legitimately shut down or given the off-hand treatment.

Moderate ideas have no place at a time like this because they recreate the same loopholes and opportunities that got us into this mess in the first place. You can always rest assured that businesses will follow an undocumented (?) rule of inertia.

The only reason it seems acceptable to think this way is because everyone’s reputation hinges on seeming “moderate”. Look at the Americans as they figure out who to vote for! Social concern has been tabooed by a smear campaign that has been going on for decades!

To address the idea specifically: Thinking that selling condos can be balanced with a relief creation of rental units jeopardizes those who become involved with the rental units.

How?

The laws surrounding rental units in Saskatchewan are about a good 20 years out of date. The rules that would come to be to require the creation of these units would also have to imply a degree of quality. Even without condo sales to line their pockets, landlords are freely interpreting “quality” at the lowest levels possible today!

When I was renting in Saskatoon, Menke holdings (avoid these guys!) had my fiancee and I freezing in fall and even winter. Our baseboard heaters were at best lukewarm throughout the coldest days.

When we confronted them about this we were given a dismissive, ornery and obvious troubleshooting process to check the ONE control in the entire apartment which obviously we had already turned up.

The truth was that they didn’t want to put out any more money than they had to heating their buildings. The claim that their suites offered heating was interpreted in their favor at best. If they can get away with any low degree of service you can bet they do it.

So that I’m not accused of being un-moderate: This pales in comparison to our prior apartment in Winnipeg where each individual room in our home had thermostat controls that could be adjusted to be hot to the touch.

These swerve-left-but-keep-right ideas are what keep the gap growing. They are what keep the businesses steadily eroding at the quality of life every day.

When are we going to be brave enough to accuse them of what they are undeniably doing?

It’s pretty clear that right now, and through the past year, real estate speculators have played a huge role in driving the price of Saskatoon homes higher.

It’s such a complex issue which I’m sure is beyond my full understanding. If such a rule existed everywhere, people in some American cities, like Phoenix for instance, would have little hope of selling their homes and that’s certainly not ideal either.

Having said that, I could see implementing some kind of “rules” which are somewhat fluid given market conditions. Take condo conversions as an example. You have the West Edmonton Mall guys who claim to have picked up about 1,000 (maybe it was 2,000) apartments in Saskatoon. Someone suggested in another thread that the city should negotiate with investors like this and have them bring something to the city in exchange for an opportunity to make money. Build an affordable housing project, or a new rental building to accommodate people who are being displaced. It’s frustrating seeing our city being looted and it would be nice if everyone who took had a responsibility to give something back. It would be nice if people still had enough community spirit to come to these kinds of conclusions on their own, but sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Something like this may have been a great solution in the case of the Milroy where the city actually had a bylaw that they could have used to prevent the conversion. As the other poster suggested, “here’s some free land. Build 150 rental units and move forward with your condo conversion.”

I think placing a straight no buy policy would eventually come back to bite us but if we truly have something attractive to offer here then there’s no reason why we shouldn’t expect something in return from those who wish to enjoy the benefits of it.

If you take this to its extreme its not hard to imagine a world where only the rich own property unless its been passed down from past generations. The social implications are obvious but so is the economic ineficiency if a huge proportion of average income must go into housing instead of other sectors of the economy. There is of course a limit even for that when options like civil disobediance and anarchy push for an equelibrium.

The thing is, all of this can only happen if supply is limited. If you can build enough extra houses/condos to satisfy extra investment demand then there is no price change. In fact, the extra construction is an economic boost as it creates more jobs and there will always be people in society who will want to rent. In theory, this is an ideal scenario.

This might seem extreme, but I think the real estate rules should be severely restrictive.

Out of province buyers MUST buy a primary residence , switch health-care, drivers permit etc. In short, you have to move here and live here for 6mos?..1 year?

If you don’t have primary residence, then you can’t register any other titles in your name, or your spouse, friend etc.

To defraud this system would be a serious thing, not a wrist-slap. They could seize the properties, including your so-called primary, and sell them at auction and send you the cheque. Good deals at that auction.

This law would apply to all provinces. Until you buy primary residence, you can’t do a damn thing. Exceptions for recreational property, perhaps.

Speculators are getting it pretty bad in Calgary right now, so sometimes the market does turn on them. Lots and lots of 300K 400K condos that are sitting on the market, brand new. It’s getting harder to find the buyers for all those.

I expect prices to increase up to June during this period of undersupply. Once people are listing more houses, price should stabalize over the summer and by fall we may hit a period of oversupply with new houses/lots coming on stream. At that point we should reach a period of oversupply and prices will either come down or stabalize and the cycle will repeat again.

I don’t think the market can handle inflation beyond average prices of 300k and the market could really tumble in the fall if prices climb that high in the spring. All in all, its a bit of a risky time to buy for the medium term but I have little doubt that prices are increasing in the short term.

I have been saying this since day one and the investors are partly to blame.

It’s all a quick buck because something as precious as a home has been turned into something the wealthy can hold over the heads of those less so.

Politicians? Stop electing rich people and problems like these may actually get attention when there’s still a chance to do something about it.

It’s a tough call knowing what to do. If you buy now, I think your certainly buying a high. As I’ve often said, one must take into account the costs of rent, affordability and how long you plan to live in Saskatoon.

Will always prove right over the long term. This market will correct itself eventually. Back in September, I think I recall me saying something about flat through December, then start the increases again in January

Norm,

The stock market is a good buy right now and it was a great buy 2 weeks ago. It’ll be a great buy about a month or so from now as well. The C-fail pivot should plot soon which should take the Dow back down under 12,000. That’s only an opinion though.

When I read some web-based advices, most expert-like people always suggest saving instead of spending. I am hesitating to make a desicion. Any suggestion from your guys is appreciated.

At least they’re predicting “moderate increases.”

I agree with your assessment on the condo market. It seems to be going through another little surge with lots of units trading and prices pushing forward. I was surprised to see 3 condos in a City Park conversion sell at 120-130 this week. What’s sad is that they are only 420 square feet bachelor suites. Is this an entry level home in Saskatoon. Sad indeed.

It seems to me that prices in general have once again seen a pretty big surge through December and January. I think that the average is skewed down by a larger number of condo sales. It now costs $300K for a run of the mill, 900 square foot bungalow in area 2, close to $400K for a thousand square feet in an area like Erindale or Silverspring.

We are at a point now where no amount of hype or “red hot” talk can change the reality that affordability is pretty much gone and there are few viable options for entry level buyers. This year, I expect (I hope) that the “fundamentals” will play a much greater role in pricing of Saskatoon homes.

If the “average family income” in Saskatoon is $70,000, they qualify for a whopping purchase of $217,000, assuming they have 5% to put down and wish to pay for the little box over 25 years (5 year posted rate at RBC today). You can’t buy a family home for that. It’s all but impossible to buy a decent house for that, so throw some condo fees into the equation and this “family” is living in a 3 storey walk-up apartment with two bedrooms, and walls so thin you can listen in on your neighbour’s conversations.

I can only say I’m disgusted. Something needs to change here, real fast.

This is a dangerous time for real estate speculators and if they continue to swarm into this market they should ultimately pay the price.

Sell, sell, sell! The stock market is a steal right now.