B/c realtors are unaccomplished middle-men, sometimes they rig the game. It’s the American way! Nope, this is in Canada, where the gub’mint is threatening to cap their fees.
With a membership of more than 96,000, Ottawa-based CREA is the largest real estate organization in Canada and represents the majority of the nation’s realtors.
“The Bureau is concerned that CREA’s rules have restricted consumer choice and limited the scope of alternative business models,” says an internal memo by CREA president Dale Ripplinger. “Unfortunately, the Bureau seems to believe that CREA’s rules … create restrictions and barriers.”
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Housing is bankrupting families.
No matter how much money the government puts into the housing market to stimulate sales, a recovery won’t be on firm ground until people stop viewing homes as commodities, said Joe Carson, head of global economic research at AllianceBernstein LP in New York.
Say no more brother.
So let’s work our way up from the bottom. Buyers whether ignorant or wreckless overbought. They were given loans by banks who shouldn’t have been giving said loans because various regulatory agencies were either crippled or willfully ignorant. Bigger banks buy those crappy loans, bundle them with better loans for resale. Bond rating agencies take a look at them (not really) and grease the pig by giving them an A for effort. Bundles get sold, brokers skim off the top. Put that in the spin cycle about ten times for effect b/c once again regulating agencies weren’t paying attention or couldn’t. Prices spike b/c of the surplus of buyers. Who pays the piper?
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They haven’t found their bottom yet.
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And…it’s still a “crisis.”
“It’s just a very bad idea to expect home prices to bounce back and solve all these prices,” Emmons says. “There’s just no good reason to expect that.”
Because? They’re disconnected from wages. Tadaaaaa.
