Canada’s Housing Bubble : An Accident Waiting to Happen. Report by the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives. Some interesting data on migration, income, and GDP for Toronto and Vancouver.

Detroit homes sell for $1 amid mortgage and car industry crisis | The Guardian. Some interesting stuff about community groups that are just tearing down homes without permits to get rid of the blight. Michigan is such a crazy place.

Some See a Housing Bubble Down Under – NYTimes.com. The median housing price in all of Australia is $450K USD? That’s beyond insane. The median in Sydney is twice that. via adam.

Crack Shack or Mansion?. try to tell the difference between certified crack houses and houses that cost over $1M in vancouver. hilarious.

Ala Moana | CoolBoom. not everybody gets a 5-bedroom luxury home on the great barrier reef. insane.

The Split-Level House by Qb Design » CONTEMPORIST. very nice.

The Way We Live Now – Walk Away From Your Mortgage! – NYTimes.com. about people and companies “strategically defaulting”. via amr.

Choy 1 Residence by Cary Bernstein Architect » CONTEMPORIST. some pretty live pretty darn well. and in san francisco none the less.

In Vancouver, camping out for condos is the norm once more – The Globe and Mail. “Phew, what a relief. Insanity is back in the real estate market.”

Slim Fit – Homes – Dwell. a gorgeous narrow home in roncesvalles. accompanying slideshow. via wes.

Euclid Avenue House by Levitt Goodman Architects » CONTEMPORIST. here in toronto. pretty cool roof.

The Butler Residence by PATH Architecture » CONTEMPORIST. house in portland, oregon. holy crap.

Real estate fees could be slashed – Yourhome.ca. the Competition Bureau might be making the CREA has to list homes on MLS without a listing agent.

Mortgage rate hike could cool housing rebound – The Globe and Mail “But although rates are on the rise from April, when they hovered at 5.25 per cent, they are still far below the 7.25 per cent reached in 2000. (They were as high as 21.75 per cent in August, 1981.)”

fed talk

Kevin Warsh, who is a Governor of the US Federal Reserve did a speech last week in Chicago that had one very interesting sentence…

“I would hazard the view that prudent risk management indicates that policy likely will need to begin normalization before it is obvious that it is necessary, possibly with greater force than is customary”

Oh snap! That was fed-speak for “nice fuck up Greenspan“. But why is this interesting? Well, as someone who thinks they might be obtaining a mortgage in the next year it definitely hammers home that if you can lock down a low fixed rate mortgage, now is the time to do it. There’s no deals to be had on variable rate mortgages at the moment and this announcement really means that the Fed might raise rates faster and sooner than we’ve become accustomed too. I realize that Bank of Canada bank rates aren’t in perfect lock-step with the Fed but, if you exclude the early 90s, you’ll definitely see a pattern.

On this note, The Canadian Capitalist blog had a great post (and follow-up) about how the historic savings of variable over fixed rate might not apply in this time of historically low interest rates.

Solar panels shaped like clay roof tiles – Springwise. not a bad idea.

Before & After – A Contemporary Remodel in Utah » CONTEMPORIST. here’s the before photos. lots of nice dark wood.

The Paraty House by Marcio Kogan Architects » CONTEMPORIST. absolutely. mind. blowing.

One Bloor condo project sold to mystery buyer – The Globe and Mail. i can’t wait for someone to write a comprehensive article covering the insanity of this project.

Big Deal – Brooklyn’s Most Expensive Apartment Is In a Clock Tower – NYTimes.com. $25 million. the photos from the deck of the brooklyn bridge are nuts.