before

after

There was a conference of real estate heavies in Toronto on Wednesday. The shocking conclusion reached by Scotiabank economist Adrienne Warren and Royal LePage CEO Phil Soper, as reported in this Toronto Star headline:

Real estate boom over, experts agree.

Ya think?

This, of course, is why we have a professional media. Well, maybe we used to. I see that CanWest Global is on the ropes and has TV stations for sale nobody wants. This week CTV said it would let two of its television stations in Ontario just die. The CBC asked Ottawa for $60 million more to make up for lost ad revenues (mercifully the feds told the corp to twirl). And in the US, the San Francisco Inquirer was the latest big newspaper to announce its own death.

But back to real estate. Yes, Adrienne and Phil, the boom is not breathing. Once again buyers are drivers. They can ask for, and get, conditions for financing, insurance, home inspections and even the sale of another home. As the faux Spring market arrives, sellers will get still more vexed as the number of competing listings zooms skyward, and prices drop as supply overwhelms demand.

So, if you do not need to sell your house now, don’t. If you’ve been waiting to buy, start sniffing. But be advised you’ll certainly do better in August or September than you will in May or June.

Meanwhile this week there’s a big honking hole in the heart of Vancouver to provide graphic evidence of the housing collapse about to beset that lovely, unaffordable city. The $500-million Ritz-Carlton hotel-condorama downtown has died a death forecast on this blog months ago. The 60-storey soaring glass monument to bad judgment on West Georgia will remain a soggy excavation until somebody fills it in for a parking lot.

The developer is blaming everyone’s favourite villain, ‘worldwide economic turmoil’, for the demise. The real culprits, however, are our old friends Greed and Stupidity, since even they could not convince enough Vanbots to spend between $1.4 million and $28 million for a box in the sky. It’s also a loss for local legendary condo shill Bob Rennie who was marketing the project and will now have to return to feasting on the few first-time homebuyers left washing ashore.

Vancouver, of course, has major problems because of the big pile of rocks which prevents common sense from blowing west. Average house prices have come down by over $125,000, and there’s an equal amount yet to be peeled away. Even then, the city’s housing stock will still be unaffordable to most of the people living there. The trip back, once the 2010 Olympics are over, will take at least a decade.

Meanwhile, shall we start the death watch on the Toronto Ritz-Carlton?

GTA house prices in the first half of February were down a few hundred from the same month last year – which was a disaster because of Toronto’s bone-headed gouging real estate tax. Prices dipped marginally in the last few weeks, and in some areas of the city where the snow has vanished, buyers have been cruising around in small packs. These are the delusionals who now think it’s a great time to buy since the average home price has dipped 18.3% from the peak.

I guess they haven’t heard about the other 18%.

Let’s wait for the headline.