Bob Truman, First Place Realty

Maybe the frustration is rising because Garth is constantly censoring posts and people feel their opinions are being stifled.  I have tried to make four posts on his site.  All have had the same tone and level of respect I use when posting to this site, and yet every one has been moderated.  

I'm not sure if they don't like posts that point out potential errors in logic, fact or just present other arguments.  The only way our own arguments get better is when we are challenged by solid opposing arguments and we refine our ideas.  

It appears that he is unwilling to listen to arguments that might make his case stronger, so, I've stopped reading his site.  The most frustrating thing is that most of my ideas are consistent with Garth's ideas, but there is nothing worse for your cause than someone making fallacious arguments on your behalf.  

If Garth wants to end the frustration, he needs to stop the censorship.  Someone let me know if this happens, and maybe I'll return to reading his site again.

Bob - that's one of the great things about this site - as long as people are respectful, they are free to post opposing viewpoints.  This is the key to a successful blog.

Mabus

I used to be quite a regular at Garth's site, but since I decided to rent for a while, I really haven't had the need to visit as often. Local stats are far more interesting anyway.

I also found that there is a lot of repetition in terms of content and discussion - very little new to add after a while.

At the end of the day, a blogger, much like a newspaper, or a broadcast, chooses his/her content, and chooses which comments to allow and which ones to ban. If you've ever tried to post a comment at cbc.ca you'll also notice that they filter the comments. That's all fair - as long as the guidelines are clear.

More relevantly - the sales numbers seem incredibly soft so far. If you look at Mike Fotiou's site you can see that the pending prices have been much lower for a couple of days now, too.

Is June the month in which the predicted downturn will begin, or will the market still end up "on top" like it ended up doing in May? It will be interesting to see, that's for sure.

Mabus I stopped checking Garth's echo chamber a while back for the same reasons.

I'd also have more respect if he called his detractors "idiots" less

There's a big trend toward "hit-whore" online journalism right now. It's all over the blogs and even the major news sites - you get a columnist or commentator who just says the most extreme, controversial things so that they get the most comments/thumbs and therefore hits

Since most people on the internet who check these sites are at the lower end of the economic spectrum, they feed off the pessimist news and can't wait to hear about some other folks losing money in the future.

Just check out Paul Farrell on Marketwatch.com to see this in action. He regularly gets the most attention but has the most consistently inaccurate and wrong things to say... He's still taking credit for calling the market crash every day for the last decade or so.

This trend will pass in time as the media reforms itself but at least he's entertaining as long as you don't take Garth seriously.

Thanks for the mention Bob!  I did say something very similar to that back in the later months of 2009 when talking about neighborhoods like Altadore.

One thing I'd like to add to that is that people are still building these mansions all over the inner-city.  While they look nice, I sure hope that all the tight bungalows are not wiped out over time to make room for these energy sucking mansions.  There is a lot of good to be said about the newly renovated urban bungalow.  If you are one of few, you're sitting pretty.  Especially if your street is all mini-mansion mc-happy.

Good point about the Chinese Menu Effect but overstated. At times when inventory is climbing, a rational buyer waits to see it get higher. I don't think they give up, and if they did, they would pull their house off the market too unless they were a first time buyer.

I know it's radical to say a bullish thing about the market here these days but I wonder if inventory has peaked. I say this because new listings are dropping off - almost 5% lower over the last 7 days alone.

Without a recent holiday, that's a pretty big move down. A lot of these "new listings" are going to turn into re-listings at some point too. We recently had a couple of weekday drops in inventory which were the first of this year (except the usual end of month drops)

While the sales numbers are decling at a similar rate, the absolute difference is much greater for listings (a drop of 150 listings vs 70 sales in a week) - the result is that inventory declines even though sales are still crappy.

The only way for inventory to get much higher is for the sales:new listings to drop considerably (it's not) or for general market volume to pick up and I don't see that happening at all.

I'm with you on the listings Jimmy. I think we'd be hard pressed to see them go over 6,500.

Yep, I think you're right Jimmy, the inventory growth seems to be sputtering. Doesn't seem like we'll hit 7k for SFH.

@Jimmy: three days don't a trend make... listings climbing again...

Three days do not make a trend but week-to-week numbers are consistently much lower. Look a bit more closely.

Of course the inventory is still climbing today but you can't deny listings are dropping off.

Still climbing...

The rise in listings to date has largely been seasonal.  The fall in sales relates to demand being brought forward over the last year + when already too many people owned homes.  

The next leg up in listings will relate more to the shift in buyer/seller psychology.  That I'll predict will take us over 9000 SF.

ALE