Another Day Another Bank Consolidation: Canada With Few Banks Wants To Have Fewer
Just a couple of days after the Fairstone purchase of Laurentian Bank, Equitable Bank aquires PC Financial from Loblaws
It's a smaller transaction but meaningful
It shows a pattern
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PC Financial was a good idea 25 years ago
Loblaws had millions of people moving through it's stores every month: why not sell them Financial Services & roll those services into a Loyalty Plan using a brand Loblaws had already spent millions to establish
No Brainer?
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At the time it did seem like a great idea
And it sorta worked for awhile
Then it started to whither
Because banking went all digital
Those kiosks in Loblaws weren't convenient anymore
Your phone is convenient
Other problems of being a small bank plagued PC
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Brampton House Prices Down 31% From Peak: Will It Go Lower? Why Did It Happen?
The TRREB system says Brampton house prices have fallen 31% from Feb 2022 to October 2025
$1.346M to $934K
That's a shit ton of losses, likely another 10% to 15% more to go
WTF Happened?
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Power Of Sales Happened
Lenders are taking alot of homes from Borrowers who cannot make mortgage payments & those homes need to be sold FAST
Why so fast?
Because lenders, half of them Private or Alternative Lenders (not banks) need the money back
And don't have a choice
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Once you are in the process of Court Ordered Power of Sale proceedings, the rule is you sell it, no changing your mind & rent for a year: the lender must sell
And most Lenders also realize the prices will NOT recover in 2026: so just SELL
New Home Construction Collapses In GTA: Very Simple Reason
If every New Construction Home on offer is substantially more expensive than similar Resale Homes so who the hell is buying the New Construction Home
Not just a bit more expensive: 10%, 15% or 20% more expensive
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And not just the GTA, all across Ontario
Who is going to pay $1075 a sqft for a Pre-construction Condo if there is massive supply of almost new Resale Condos at $900 a sqft & if you just want until 2026 it's $850 a sqft
And that's just 416
Let's check out other cities
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In Kitchener some folks paid $1000 a sqft Pre-construction for Condos by a local Developer
Currently lots of similar resale Condos at $550 a sqft
Can you spell SCREWED?
There are just no new housing projects starting in Ontario (Thunder Bay excepted but who cares)
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Ontario Real Estate Market Gets Better Next Year? NOPE Time For A History Lesson
I was around for the last Ontario RE Bubble
History doesn't really repeat itself & nothing is ever a perfect duplicate
But... Similarities are startling
1990 the raging Ontario Market STOPPED
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House prices fell & kept falling for years 1996 is generally agreed as the year prices stopped falling
The Ontario Real Estate Market peaked in February 2022
Apply the same calculations: recovery begins 2028
NOT 2026
Let's consider the key factors that continue to drag RE
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- The absence of Real Estate Investors: Mom & Pop amateur landlord Rental Buyers are an extinct species in Ontario (please don't talk about Tri-plex opportunities in Russell ON)
- Move Up Buyers are very limited: the value of the existing home is way off peak
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We Will See More Aboriginal Land Claims: An Ontario Claim For A Massive River Valley Is Reaching Court Soon
And it's totally insane
Main thing to understand: First Nations don't want the land, they want MONEY
Same in Richmond BC: it's about the money
But it creates havoc
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I have posted previously that these Court decisions which create any question regarding the clean Title of any property are damaging to the value of a person's home, impairing lending options & generally disrupting something that should be rock solid: who owns what
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But in the end all of these claims are a money grab: the First Nations & their lawyers all understand that they will never be see the land in question turned over to them
They want monetary compensation
And that makes us a stupid country governed by fools