Bank of Canada Cuts Overnight Rate

(Tuesday April 22, 2008) - The Bank of Canada cut the overnight rate by 50 basis points this morning, bringing the target rate to 3.00%. The overnight rate is the rate at which major participants in the money markets borrow and lend one-day funds to each other. This is the second 50 bps rate cut in a row, and marks the first time since the 2001 US recession that the Bank has cut rates by a full percentage point in just six weeks time.

In their communiqué, the Bank notes that “buoyant growth in domestic demand…has been substantially offset by the fall in net exports.” Due to a “deeper and more protracted slowdown in the U.S. economy,” this drag from trade is expected to remain. And, in spite of financial conditions…

Crude Oil Hits $100/bbl

History was made on February 19, 2008 as NYMEX Crude Oil closed above $100 per barrel for the first time in history. While crude oil futures had traded above $100/bbl twice before earlier in this year, today marked the first day the futures contract actually closed the day above the $100/bbl mark. The front-month (March '08) contract for west Texas light crude oil was up $4.51 to close at $100.01 per barrel.

OPEC To Cut Production?

Today's run-up came after comments by the Iranian oil minister suggesting it was normal for OPEC to cut production in March, as US demand shrinks as the winter heating season comes to an end. Springtime and fall are known as "shoulder seasons" in the industry - oil demand shrinks as heating / cooling…

Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World Contest

The Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World contest has now gone viral - webmasters and bloggers around the world have joined the competition to be awarded the coveted "Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World" award.

The phrase "Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World" currently shows 956,000 results when doing a search for the term on Google (see Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World). We now invite all REALTORs (and their webmasters) to show their SEO stuff by trying to rank for this term.

Here's how it works - optimize a page on your websites / blogs for the term Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World, and on May 1st (2008), the highest ranking website/blog for this term (as averaged across…

Alberta Oilsands Sales Drop

(February 12, 2008) Sales of Alberta oilsands leases and licenses are down dramatically this year as compared with the same time the past two years. Results from last weeks sales saw only $150,000 worth of oilsand leases sold, the lowest amount generated in over two years.

To date in 2008, oilsand landsales have generated the province of Alberta only $25-million, versus $138-million the same time last year and over $846-million the same time in 2006. Peter Tertzakian of ARC Financial Corp commented "There's a lot of uncertainty about the environmental legislation that's coming at us . . . rising costs are an issue. Put all those things together and there's no question that the excitement that was there in '06 seems to have…

Power Cut To South Calgary

(Feb 11, 2008) Power is off in most of South Calgary this morning as Enmax crews attempt to diagnose the cause of the disruption. There was a minor power bump around 7:15 this morning due to an outage in a single substation near the SE community of Douglasdale, but a cascading failure at 10:15 took an additional 5 substations offline.

Enmax crews are working on the problem and hope to have power restored before 1PM today. Let's hope that's the case, as even though it's warmer out today (currently about -10C), we've already resorted to sweaters (and battery power for computers). Close to 70,000 customers have been affected by the outage.

*11:45AM Update* While power has been restored to a number of communities in SW Calgary,…

Interest Rates Will Continue to Drop

(February 05, 2008) Since August 2007 the Fed cut rates by no less than 225 basis points. This is the most aggressive easing since the early 1980s when the Fed was targeting money supply growth and not inflation. But the market is expecting more. Note that the bond market is already pricing in a recession. And in every recession the inflation-adjusted fed funds rate was negative.

Today at 3%, the fed funds rate is about one percentage point above inflation. So it’s hardly a surprise that the market is now pricing in another 100 basis points rate cut by the Fed. At the minimum, the market will get 50 basis points. And if we are indeed in a recession, the Fed will cut by additional 50 basis points.

Libor Rate Down

The…

Calgary Real Estate Stats

Calgary’s MLS® Sales and Listings for the month of January 2008, show a steady and more stabilized market, according to figures released by the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB®).

Calgary SF Homes Stats

Single family Calgary metro new listings added for the month of January totaled, 3,023, an increase of 30.02 per cent over the 2,325 new listings added in January 2007. Single family Calgary metro properties changing hands in January 2008 were 1,083, a decrease of 27.66 per cent from the 1,497 recorded in January 2007 and an increase of 28.01 per cent over the 846 sales recorded in December.

The median price of a single family Calgary metro home in January 2008 was $410,000 showing an 7.89 per cent increase over January 2007,…

(Feb 04, 2008)  Lets all take a moment to say a prayer for family and friends of 24 yr old Lindsay Buziak, who's body was found Saturday in a home listed for sale in the Gordon Head neighbourhood of Saanich (Victoria). Ms Buziak had worked as a REALTOR in Vancouver prior to her position with Re/Max Camosun in Victoria B.C.

She was found dead in a vacant house which was listed by another REALTOR. Police are investigating and are seeking the person who called 911 asking them to check on the person inside the property on Saturday afternoon. It is unclear who the person Buziak had arranged the showing for was.

Buziak's father Jeff, a commercial REALTOR in Calgary, said "someone phoned Lindsay to show a house and they killed her."

Buziak was born in Victoria…