[to11mtm]

> I have a (admittedly unevidenced) hypothesis that the US took off from other economies after ‘08 because real estate became a spectacularly shit investment overnight and investors had to invest in productive things for returns.

There was also the Z/VLIRP to smooth things along.

On the other hand, poetry rhymes, and one could similarly draw a line from now-increasing interest rates to the tech layoffs, forced RTO (to help improve on some spreadsheet the property value they want to leverage) and general corporate-IT sector malaise.

[cmrdporcupine]

I think the point is that when zero % interest rates came along in 2008, Canadian investors piled their money into real estate -- because we hadn't suffered the same crash as the US and it was still a reasonable investment that was humming along at at least 6-7% a year (and often way way higher) in gains.

But in the US that was a "shit investment overnight" and it took many years to recover. So if you were looking for a place to park money, you maybe put it into more productive sectors, or tech, etc.

(Another factor is that for a few years around 2011, 2012 the Canadian dollar somehow hit parity with the USD. As a result many Canadians piled in hardcore into the US market and saw big gains from that when USD/CAD went back to its normal ratio)