Housing Doom Housing Bubble Blog

Thanks again to Jan-Martin for picking up this one. We at Doom were stunned when we saw this 12 minute video [1] about the Billings Montana housing market. There is really excellent use of footage of the houses, Geographical Info System (GIS) style maps placing the houses in context, and charts detailing trends in affordability, cash flow, inventory and much more. Kudos to blogger Doug Armknecht. More info on this Montana bubble blogger is here.[2]

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Maclean’s is Canada’s leading weekly news magazine, and yesterday the Ms received the double-week Christmas edition. It wasn’t long before Mrs. M was directing my attention to the editorial "Buy if you love Canada" on page 2.[1] It reads more like Realtor promotional literature than editorial comment. There is no doubt that this effort would have raised a few eyebrows in the US had it had been published as an editorial in Time or U.S. News & World Report.

The column was headed by a summery, full color (I should say "colour") shot of a raised 1 1/2 story SFH with two car garage, a Re/Max "For Sale" sign clearly visible at the bottom. The caption?

MORTGAGE debt may be high, but the social benefits of home ownership are undeniable

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