Canada is having its own mortgage meltdown

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Canada is having its own mortgage meltdown

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 | Economics |

Macleans (Canada) - Real estate prices are falling, and a U.S.-style collapse could cost taxpayers plenty:

Christopher Judge is accustomed to turning heads in Vancouver. During the decade-long run of the cult hit TV show Stargate SG-1, which was filmed in and around the city, Judge starred as the muscle-bound alien Teal’c. But when the six-foot-three actor appeared in B.C. Supreme Court in mid-November, amid raised eyebrows from the galley, it was for a role he’d desperately hoped to avoid. Judge, who owns three luxury homes in B.C., faces foreclosure. He’d flown up from Los Angeles the night before to ask the court for time to get a new appraisal done on one of his properties, a West Vancouver home with stunning views of the city that he’d bought for $2 million in 2006. At the same time, one of Judge’s former co-stars on the show, Michael Shanks, is facing foreclosure on another sprawling West Vancouver home purchased in January for $4 million. “I was always told the safest place for your money is in the real estate market because it would never drop by 50 per cent, but that’s exactly what’s happened,” a congenial Judge said outside the court. “I watched the L.A. housing market fall and now I’m having to watch the B.C. market go down, too.”

According to the article Canada’s problems duplicate the U.S. problems almost exactly - government-backed mortgages, downpayments below conventional lending standards, liar loans based on undocumented incomes, and irrational gold rush pricing.

Previously:

- Is green energy the next market bubble?
- How irrational were California real estate prices?
- Chicago business school profs on the Paulson bailout
- What caused the global housing bubble?
- Intelligent software didn’t avert the current financial crisis
- Anna Schwartz on the financial crisis
- “Economics in One Lesson” on government loans and government-backed credit

1 Comment to Canada is having its own mortgage meltdown

Suz
December 4, 2008

Wow, that’s a sad piece of news for my two favourite actors. Seems everyone the world over is being hit hard by all this financial nonsense. Thanks for the info.