[pcthrowaway]

> In an natural economy, mortgages would all be variable rate, or fixed rate but much higher than what is available today.

> This would also mean that the housing rush of 2021 would have been crushed by rate increases in 2022/23. In fact there probably wouldn't have been much of a rush at all.

Interestingly, you described almost exactly how mortgages work in Canada: you pay more for a fixed rate, and even then, you can only get a fixed rate for a term of up to 10 years. And the average term is more like 5 years. People's mortgages have been going up now that interest rates are up. This was not impossible to predict.

And that certainly didn't stop the housing rush of the last 15 years.

[bryanlarsen]

Canadian house prices are up 40% in the last 15 years. That's less than inflation.

Yes, they are super expensive, but they were even more super expensive 15 years ago. Canada didn't get the 2008 crash that the US did.

[office_drone]

That can't be right. GTA and Vancouver home prices are 3 times what they were in 2009.

[bryanlarsen]

Vancouver average detached was $1.2M in 2008, it's $1.8M now. That's not 3X.

[office_drone]

According to a realtor association site [0] the 'Residential - All Types' price for 'Greater Vancouver' went from $466,500 in March 2009 to $1,196,800 in March 2024. That is a 2.57x multiple.

[0] https://www.gvrealtors.ca/market-watch/MLS-HPI-home-price-co...

[bryanlarsen]

This is what I went from.

https://globalnews.ca/news/2531266/one-chart-shows-how-unpre...

Those numbers look a lot closer to my experience than yours.

All three lines show a ~50% price increase.