by the48thronin » Sun 19 Oct 2008, 22:41:47
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emeraldg40', 'T')here will be a huge sub prime bust in Canada. Spoke with a man in the finacial field in Toronto this summer. We had no idea that there was a secondary mortgage market gone amuck there. Hated to hear the news. McMansions are being built, and now the prices are sliding as they are in US. There are also 50 year notes being offered there. Didnt know about the 5 year note you are speaking of. Thats awful. We were there in July and we would have been told we were crazy, but we knew and here it goes. My bro in law trucking firm is flat out dead...steel hauling. Its hard to watch great men lose.
I have been working with several Canadian truckers both self employed and from small companies showing them how to develop less than truck load back hauls to Canada (it is illegal for them to haul something from one place to another here, they can only haul back across the border.)
There is this "cabotage" law that keeps their truck load rates depressed because shippers know Canadian trucks have to load all the way back north of the border. Rather than (as many do) illegally hauling loads that unload on this side of the border (which pay more), they can haul many small part loads and get better rates because no one I know wants to cross that border and freight forwarders are very expensive.
Many of my customers have small shipments they constantly offer me that go north of the border, and putting several of them on a trailer makes a good business for someone wanting to go that far north.
Back to the subject of the Canadian economy. in the non auto part world Canada makes many truckloads of product other than building materials (a dead industry right now), that can not compete if they have to pay the trucker to come all the way back to Canada empty.
My interest in the style of mortgages was sparked when several of my Canadian friends were talking together about their (yes 50 years) long mortgages that had to be refinanced every 5 years or their interest rates would rise based on the LIBOR rate, some prime rate, & etc. All of them have houses similar to mine that cost them $200K+
My house is on a 20 year fixed note, and I have 4 years to go. The interest rate (10%) is actually higher than rates most everyone else has, but my payments are lower because I paid less in the first place, and won't change. Of course I built my house at $68k 16 years ago with 20 percent down. (I furnished that in paid for land 2 acres).
My mortgage company tried to entice me into refinance several times with rates as low as 5% but they always wanted a 30 year note etc. I was never even tempted.
With home building almost a dead industry the next few years, I cannot imagine what those Canadian drivers hauling building materials south are going to do for a living.