Weekly Blog Round: Real Estate Downtrend

It’s clear that all the crystal balls from last year, or even the year before, predicting a housing crash were simply wrong. I don’t believe ever reading analysts predicting a crash but headlines from the media were sensational. I have said this more than once, when individuals interviewed about their finances all believe they are in control but they don’t think others are, the reality is that everyone thinks they are in control regardless of what the ratio of income to debt is. It doesn’t make it any better that the flock believes it is fine. In fact, some doomsday sayer around the real estate thought about shorting the biggest alternate mortgage company (Home Capital Group). So far, that strategy has not been a successful one so far. I should note that HCG is a Canadian Dividend Aristocrats too

Related: Shorting Mortgage Lenders

The CHMC Mortgage rules changed and the constant reminder that we are in over our head in debts appear to have finally re-enforced better habits: Equifax reported that Canadians have been paying off debt at a faster rate.

Related: CMHC Mortgage Rules Changed

The real underlying issue revolves around the ability for families to plan for retirement. With their current debt level, retirement takes a back seat and the worst retirement plans are formed such as relying on the appreciation in value of the property to retire. I hate to break it to them but your home as a retirement plan is not a good one … The earlier you make the adjustment the better off you will be. Your home as a retirement should be plan D – or a last resort.

Related: Is your principal residence your retirement plan?

Worthy Readings

Some weekend reading to share …

• Beating The Index with ‘PetroBakken Energy 2013 Outlook‘
• Boomer & Echo with ‘Chilton, Lang And O’Leary On Mutual Fund Costs‘
• Dividend Growth Investor with ‘ConocoPhillips (COP) Dividend Stock Analysis‘
• Dividend Ninja with ‘Why Canadians Should Avoid Mutual Funds‘
• Dividend Monk with ‘Costco Dividend Stock Analysis for 2013‘
• Dividend Guy Blog with ‘Dividend Investing Goals for 2013‘
• Freedome 35 with ‘Investing in the Daily Grind‘
• My Own Advisor with ‘3 Golden Rules to Rid Yourself of Debt‘
• Retire Happy Blog with ’What’s Your Financial Motivator?‘
• Retire by 40 with ‘Am I being too cheap?‘

Carnivals

Here are the carnivals I was present in the last two weeks.

• Carn. of Financial Camaraderie at Vanessa’s Money
• Carnival of MoneyPros at CashNetUSA Credit Resourc
• Carnival of Retirement at Good Financial Cents
• Carnival of Retirement at Simple Budget Blog
• Carnival of MoneyPros at Master the Art of Saving
• Finance Carn. for Young Adults at One Cent at a Time
• Yakezie Carnival at Narrow Bridge Finance
• Yakezie Carnival at Money Wise Pastor
• Carnival of MoneyPros at See Debt Run
• Carn. of Financial Camaraderie at Master the Art of Saving
• Finance Carn. for Young Adults at 20s Finances
• Carnival of Retirement at Master the Art of Saving

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