Bob Truman, First Place Realty

At first glance, it seems like condos were immune to price drops this past month, with both the median and average price showing virtually no movement.

But the 'average price per sq ft' stat really seems to jump out, as condos dropped from $290/sq ft to $278/sq ft, or a $12/sq ft drop.

This is no small fluctuation, from what I can see on Mike's site, even in dreaded 2008, the largest month to month decrease seems to have been $9/sq ft (November 08 to December 08).

Just wondering if anyone had any theories as to why the price per sq ft dropped about 5% for both condos and SFH, but only SFHs experienced a ~5% average/median price drop ?

While the SFH median price is up from July 2009, it looks like this is the biggest month over month decrease for SFH median prices since 2005.

Houses are still $200K over what they are worth in Calgary.  And there are still many morons willing to pay anything to get a crap shack.  Calgary's housing market is a laughing stock, fun to watch from a distance far far away.

Calgary is the new New York City where an apartment is $400K, with the attitude to match.

Stay tuned as the next moron buys yet another crap shack.

It is smart to be a realtor in Calgary.  You can rip people off easily.  And I will help save their life when they have a heart attack from the payments.  Go team!

Calgary Rip Off.

Houses are still $200k below what they are worth in Calgary. And there are still many morons willing to sit out and wait while suitable houses are going for bargain prices. Calgary's rental market is a laughing stock, fun to watch from my cooshie bargain house.

Stay tuned to the next moron who decides not to buy and gets priced out forever.

insert some random insult here that is targeted at a group of people i the poster blame for all my life problems.

BACK TO REALITY..

I think prices will continue there slow decline or perhaps flatten out for the forseable future.

Well Bob, you were right, we have just seen a median price below $398,000. Just a little before October though. What is the CCI telling you now?

Next scheduled update will be Aug 8. Stay tuned.

It won't go down in a straight line. Expect to see it rise above $398,000 a couple times before it settles down. -Bob

Hey Bob,

   Looks like my prediction of $398k before the end of August was bang on.  Considering it only took about 3 months and your prediction was for about 5 months, you were off by 40% with your prediction.  Come on man, only Squidly misses by that much :)  Joking aside, thanks again for the fantastic blog.  

Looks like the market this year is doing what everyone thought it would do last year.

Also we seem to be moving in lockstep with the US housing market. They are also seeing pending sales at record lows.

IE the predictions have come true so now we have to figure out how to deal with the new normal.

I have enjoyed Garth's blog (eventhough I take everything said there with a grain of salt) and it sounds like he's just getting pissy cause not everything is going his way. I remeber a year ago he said real estate would be worth 50% less, is it? Nope.

I am curious to see what the market will do in the next few months.

Thanks for the blog Bob!

It appears to me that Garth's only goal is to sell books.  The chances of selling books increases if he increases traffic to his site.  Traffic increases when his comments are extreme and sensational.  Therefore, I dislike his actions, but it makes sense to me why he does them.  I just get frustrated when someone appears like they are trying to provide advice, but really they are not.  I also wouldn't publish someone else's emails, but whenever you write an email, you must assume that it is available for recirculation, so if you are going to say something controversial, you must be willing to stand behind it.

Interestingly (to me anyway), I have a similar problem with the CREB.  Their goal is to increase the number of sales in the city, but they try to come off as some impartial body.  I don't know why other groups don't take their lead - lets create a Calgary automobile sellers association and ask them every month if it's a good time to buy a car.  Maybe APEGGA should put out a monthly report on whether or not it's a good time to hire an engineer.  When was the last time CREB said that someone would be better off waiting a month rather than buying today?  They have lost all credibility in my mind and I hope someone calls them on it.  Here is my favorite part of this month's report:

“We are seeing relative stability in our average and

median prices for the Calgary market,” says Stante.

“A gradual return to moderate interest rates will not

trigger any kind of steep decline in prices in our

housing market. Prices may soften in select markets

where inventory has bulked up, but for the most part

they will remain relatively sticky as the economy

improves.”

When was the lat time we saw this large of a 1 month drop in average and median prices?  Has it ever happened?  This is like that scene from Naked Gun where Frank is standing in front of the exploding fireworks store telling everyone that there is nothing to see here.  When your larges drop - possibly ever - is being called "relative stability" then your spin is just too much for me to handle.

I understand that the CREB has a job to do.  If they were to say - this is one of the few times in history where a prospective buyer would save money by waiting a month or two to see if the overall direction on housing changes - what would happen?  Nobody would buy a house for a month, this would exacerbate the problem of slowing sales and it would hurt their entire membership.  I get that.  I just am frustrated that the media seems to treat their comments as unbiased facts when clearly they are not unbiased.

As to the market direction, in a rising market, there are often short term decreases and huge spikes.  In decreasing markets, there are occasional massive drops and some short term rises.  I think the overall direction is down, but last month's drop was extreme and I don't think we can expect 1 month drops like this to be the norm.  That said, we will probably see a couple of rises before we see the ultimate bottom (maybe even in July), but that's not a sign that things have reversed course.  The flavor of the day seems to be overreaction.  After last month's stats were revealed, we are seeing a lot of bearish sentiment - and the ultra bears are screaming - told you so.  During the next up month, I expect to see the bulls yelling the same thing.  Interesting times.

That's enough rambling for today.  Once again, I love the site Bob.  I will admit that I'm not a fan of feuding with other bloggers, but I'm willing to take the good with the bad because the overall balance is positive.

Mabus

Sparky:

Predictions that the market will go up or down will always be true one day. Too bad there are a lot of people who ignore the times they are wrong and get giant egos when they are right again for even a month or two. It's even worse when those people sell financial advice to others - but I won't mention names

Garth is merely just another "drop in the bucket" for real estate & investments blogs and websites out there.

Should he have published that private e-mail? IMHO no.

Could it be considered confidential? Maybe.

I have visited Garth's blog a few times and I do enjoy his posts.  I believe that Garth offers sound advice and provides substantial evidence to back up his claims.  I agree with a lot of his conclusions.  Does he have a hard time admitting when he is wrong?  Yes.  Does he occasionally let his pride get the best of him?  Yes.  I think this was certainly the case with this latest posting regarding Edmonton realtor James Knull.  What probably set Garth off and led him to include excerpts from a private email was the disrespectful and ignorant tone James used to describe Garth.  James said or Mr. Turner,

“This guy seems like a bit of a yahoo....Based on his lack of real advice or prescriptive measures and total lack of a real resume in real estate in his ‘about author’, I’m guessing he earns a living selling soap box rants and not as an actual player in the real estate market.”  

I'm sure you would agree Bob that Garth is not lacking in "real" experience or knowledge regarding real estate.  James obviously had never heard of him before and ignorantly dismissed him to clients who had a clue.  The fact of the matter is, Garth Turner probably has a larger following than any other real estate commentator in this country.  He is extremely sharp and has a gift when it comes to expression.  He has a strong personality and won't back down from a fight......this is where James comes in.  The funny thing is, after perusing James' site, it is clear that he also has a rather inflated opinion of himself (self aggrandizement is a common theme on many realtor sites).  Sadly, it also became clear that James is the one devoid of "a real resume in real estate."  In this instance I have to agree with the posters that have asked James to walk away.  There are probably tens of thousands of people that agree with Garth and will be eager to dismantle any sort of explanations James may use to justify the advice he gave to his clients.  I would not be surprised if other realtors help to bring James, and the hot air balloon team he is a part of, down.  One thing we can all agree on is that watching this all play out will be interesting.  I personally enjoy watching two egos go at it.  The only downside to this particular battle is that it is hardly a fair fight.  Hopefully James' team will intervene and throw in the towel before this gets too messy.  James seems like a good kid but I do think he has had a bit too much of the koolaid.  Hopefully this will turn into a good learning experience for him.  

Making private info, public is a GT trademark. Why do you think he got booted from about every organization he was part of? Someone who can't understand that private info is called private for a reason, obviously can't be trusted and noone wants to get involved in any way with such individual.

Unfortunately GT got to the point where he'll say and do whatever it takes to capture some atention. Sad but legal, unless the courts rule otherwise.

The 30 day average price is plummeting, have not seen a drop this steep in years. May Garth is right, only a few years off. (Not a Garth Turner disciple).

Have been following your site for several years Bob, thanks, very helpful, appreciate your efforts.

Have you seen as steep a drop in average prices as we have seen in the past few months?

I'd be interested to see how prices actually correlate to your crash / confidence indicator.  It seems like a flawed too but I could be convinced with a chart.

12 months from now when sales are up 5% and listings are flat from 2010 I'd expect prices to continue to decline if inventory is high - despite your metric being positive.

I'd use inventory and sales and ignore listings in trying to predict future price trends.

It's not positive. A negative number, such as it is now, forecasts a lower median price than it is today. If we take July's end-of-month numbers of $400,000, the median price in nine months(April) should be lower than $400,000. Disclaimer: The CC index has not been proven through years of accurate results. In any event, it will be fun to follow-up and see how it eventually turns out. -Bob

From a Canadian perspective anyone who buys a house now is going to suffer later. The affordability index of housing in Canada is through the roof; it is currently cheaper to rent than buy.

Add to this that Canada is in the middle of the deepest recession since the great depression;  Canadians are not receiving cost of living salary increases;  Canadians are carrying record debt loads;  increase in the perceived value of the Canadian dollar is damaging our manufacturing and commodities exporting businesses;  our largest trading partner to the south is heaving its financial guts out and is no longer buying our exports due to the increase in the Loonie, which means higher unemployment in Canada, as seen in the last employment report;  the Euro Zone is in the beginnings of its own credit crisis; the unwinding of the baby boomers assets has begun, of which housing is the largest asset; the increase of value added taxes (HST) and the beginning of  the increases to the mortgage rates, which will continue into next year.    

All this points to the making of a depressed / buyer’s real estate market.  Housing will be coming down in price within the next two years; real estate pundits say somewhere between 17% (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) and 35% (David Rosenberg).   As to the rich Asians buying in Canada, there is no data to support that argument and it is only presented by realtors to pressure Canadians into buying.   Canadian’s can’t trust CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association) for an honest view of the housing market.

Don't listen to realtors if you’re thinking of buying a house in Canada, they want to make a commission and if they aren't selling they don't make any money.   So rent for a couple of years and wait for the housing prices to come down and you will be rewarded when you purchase your home.  

For those of you who currently own a house in Canada and are thinking of selling put it on the market now, before the correction occurs.  Be prepared to take a lower price than you want, but you’ll still be profiting IF you can sell it.  Buy low and sell high…now is the time to sell.

"Don't listen to realtors"

1. Generalizing like that doesn't lend much credibility to your words. Can you give me an example where I've said to anyone that they should buy real estate? It's not part of our job description to advise whether someone should buy or sell. That's entirely up to the individual.

2. Would you have told people to buy or sell in Jan 2009? The popular sentiment was that the world was about to end, but look what happened.

"Canadian’s can’t trust CREA"

Did you know that CREB's price prediction for 2009 was only 2% off, while Garth Turner was off by 31%? See more bad predictions of bubble bloggers here The biggest loser -Bob

In today's post (09 August), Garth - yet again -  changes his tune about interest rates:

"Interest rate increases will obviously moderate or stall for a while (after the two we’ve already had), which means bond prices are probably going up".

Just sayin'... And there are folks out there that actually make life changing financial decisions in accordance to Garth' gospel.

Of course, the BOC will not increase their rates as long as the economy is flat: their last increase was a mistake, making all economists look shaky. In fact, most banks have lowered their mtg rates a few times since, the 5 year close rates again very low. So why the low sales? Is this the tip of a double dip recession or those new lending rules have crushed all potential buyers?

Who's Garth Turner?  My information comes directly for respected news sources such as the Globe and Mail.  Can we trust them?

Garth will be disappointed to hear this. -Bob

Bob, I seriously don't know why you keep quoting those 2009 numbers over and over and over.  This must be the 5th time I've heard the same story about CREB being most accurate in 2009.  

The key to me is whether or not there is a consistent bias in their numbers.  It doesn't matter if Fox news polling was most accurate during the presidential election (they were not), but what matters is that their results consistently indicate a bias towards the republicans.

The CREB 2009 predictions may have been the most accurate, but it seems likely to me that they exerted a strong bias towards positive price change, then something happened that was completely outside of everyone's predictions skewing the results towards the bias.  It's a cliche, but even a broken clock is correct twice a day.  CREB being closest on the 2009 prediction says nothing about whether or not there is a reporting bias.  A reporting bias leads to whether or not their information can be trusted - not the accuracy of one prediction.

I'd love it if some stat geek out there would investigate if a reporting bias is present.  I believe one is present, but don't have the time to investigate further.  If one isn't present, it would be nice to know.

Mabus

"something happened that was completely outside of everyone's predictions"

That could happen again, too.

In all seriousness, I agree with most of what you're saying, but I wouldn't expect CREB and CREA to say anything different. The relevant information that will allow any intelligent person to make an informed decision is right here on this website(and Mike's). There's more than enough data, thoughtful comments, and well-researched predictions for the average person to decide for themselves. When I got into this business, I saw the need for transparency and that's why I was the first realtor in Calgary(maybe Alberta, or even Canada) to give out this previously-guarded information for free over the internet. Give the common man and woman some credit for intelligence. If people are too lazy to do their due diligence, and they want to believe whatever any organization tells them, let them have that freedom. The freedom to make our own decisions - that's the double-edged sword of living in a free society.

As far as quoting CREB's accurate prediction, I think it's only fair in light of all the criticism. Most of the self-righteous hypocrites who love to slam CREB are the very ones who have made inaccurate predictions (which they conveniently ignore thereafter). They should be more humble. -Bob

Bob makes a good point regarding predictions.  It's interesting as we all want to know what is going to happen and all we really have is a bunch of "best guesses" and resulting actions.

I haven't gone back to look at previous periods where predictions have been made - making my thoughts a bit speculative - but one thing I wonder (and wish to put up for discussion) is whether CREB has such an influence in the media that, out of the gates, they are more likely to have closer predictions than most anyone else.

Of course, it is an organization steeped in experience in RE market evaluation etc etc and this undoubtedly helps them perform informed analysis and predictions.  Just to be clear - I'm not knocking CREB predictions.  But at the same time they have non-partisan agendas as the representative of a group that relies on healthy market conditions (i.e. good sales and rising prices)

However, I wonder what the psychological effect is of having this one prediction as the most published to the Calgarian public?

A thought for discussion:

If the CREB came out and predicted a 20% decline in prices, even if it was erroneus and disconnected from market conditions, does the market tend to move in that direction because that is what most people hear and are influenced by...more so than individual predictions such as Turner and others?

The overall economy is so gargantuan, any press release from CREB will have minimal influence. There was a time when bubble bloggers thought that little insignificant moi could influence the real estate market simply by posting information about recent sales on this website. While I appreciated the compliment, that is nothing but delusional. -Bob

Garth Turner is obliviously now running a censored blog.

I posted a few very legit posts, without being rude, etc.

I merely questioned why his turnabout on his interest rate assessment. He never published my questioning him.

Sad.

Reminds me of squidly77 in a way...

So are you trying to tell us that the market will go down until it goes up?

Sparky:

Predictions that the market will go up or down will always be true one day. Too bad there are a lot of people who ignore the times they are wrong and get giant egos when they are right again for even a month or two. It's even worse when those people sell financial advice to others - but I won't mention names

Calgary No. 1 real estate investment,

The 30 day average price is dropping daily.

"The Real Estate Investment Network, a national organization of investors" - I would think these guys would be ahead of the curve, and they would not advertise where they are about to put their money. That would be like Warren Buffet saying I going to buy a certain company before he buys it - to clarify - he would then pay more than if he buys then announces it.

Seems to me the "The Real Estate Investment Network, a national organization of investors" - need the market in Calgary to move and the drop in the 30day average price drop of 6.5% since the end of June 2010 is certainly getting some people nervous.

Yes Sparky the price will go down until it goes up again (to quote GT : "Duh").

Incomes are up in Alberta 4-6% year-on-year the last couple of months. Unemployment in Calgary dropped 0.6% last month. Fixed rates are going down. These factors suggest an increase in prices but probably a few months away at least. It's notable that house prices have lagged wage increases the last couple of months in Alberta - that suggests houses are even more affordable.

More immediately, sales:new listings is trending up which generally predicts a change in price direction in the next couple of months. Inventory is also declining where it is on average flat over the last few Augusts. It's high enough that prices should continue to drop. The big drop in 30 day mean recently was when the 4 million sale dropped off that data.

So based on these factors, not what Garth or some realtor or permabear pundit told me, I am guessing prices to hit bottom in the next 2-3 months. Too many oracles on these sites are just "Me too" folks who don't actually look into the data that is staring them in the face. That's why so many have been so wrong.

When sales are low as they are now, a $4.2 million sale can make a big difference to the mean(average). The day after that house dropped out of the 30-day stats, the average price fell $6,116.

The highest price in the pendings right now is $2.4 million. 28 homes sold over $1 million in Aug 2009. Only five so far this month, with the highest being $2.6 million. -Bob

Investors don't just purchase SFH's. Condo's avg and median are staying pretty much the same with minor fluctuations normal for this time of year. I'd say they are speaking more to our ability to rebound from the job losses.

I don't know why people bother making predictions in a globalized economy. One day you're working a job and the next you're laid off because you found out Greeks don't do shit but sit around waiting for their fat pension the government can no longer afford. Who saw that coming?

Bernake and CO couldn't see that by letting Lehman Brothers fail, the whole economy was going to go belly up. Assets are hidden, books are cooked, people are crooks, and it's all interconnected to everything else. Nobody knows where it all starts and ends.

'My prediction was well on it's way to coming true before we found out that the President of Zimbabwe was actually a majority stockholder in BankoBusto and sold his shares to the Spanish Government who just imposed a 2% tariff on lemons thereby crashing the Florida economy.'

Joe Winnipeg that made me laugh. I think the economy in Calgary is completely unaffected by Greece. The market and the price of oil fluctuate daily on those things because of large speculative volume. It's dramatized everyday on the press, but if you look at the actual price of oil and gas which is what drives our economy, the prices have been quite stable all year. A slow global recovery is still playing out and that was always the most likely scenario.

Next year could be a lot more volatile - Iran is very close to nuclear weapons and there is a good chance of an Israeli/US air strike. Lord knows what will happen to oil and the global economy then. This article is an eye opener to say the least

http://bit.ly/cHBk0p

The inventory of homes on RentFaster has continued to climb quite significantly throughout the summer months.

It's now about 20% higher than the average level in 2009, which is fairly notable, because it was about 25-30% lower than 2009 levels in winter/spring of 2010.  This is the highest I've ever seen it on RentFaster.

Of course one can't discount the fact that maybe RentFaster has increased in popularity since 2009.  

Median rent has since dropped about $50, to $1650/month for a SFH.  That's still higher than it was in 2009, when it was down to $1550 at one point (although most of the year it hovered at $1600).

2 bedroom apartments still have a median asking price of $1100/month in Calgary, and they have been that way since fall of 2009.

I appreciate getting those stats every month, thanks. -Bob

Crescent Heights C/S.

Bob,

Good properties that are priced right will always sell fast whether the market is good or not. That property is nicely renovated and in a good location.

bhd1975

Only three days on the market tells you there are still motivated buyers out there. We have to wait for conditions to be removed for it to be a firm sale.

If anyone has an updated character home they're thinking of selling, let me tell you, there are lots of buyers out there for such a property. -Bob

Bob,

I really appreciate you tracking the stats.  THANK YOU! If I ever decide to buy a property in the Calgary area, I'll certainly give you a call.

Anyway, a couple of comments regarding your Crash/Confidence index.  It seems to me that it is likely to underestimate the downside of the current market for at least five reasons.

1. Lending standards have recently tightened significantly. Down payments need to be bigger and borrowers need to be better qualified.  This cuts a large number of first-time low-end buyers out of the market.  Effectively lowering the price floor.

2. Unemployment (while trending slightly lower) is significantly higher than it was during the lead up to the 2005-2007 price increases. This takes buyers out of the market at all price ranges. Additionally,because Alberta's economy is commodity based, unemployment will likely trend higher again once the winter hits.

3. People are no longer immigrating to Alberta in large numbers. Again, this takes buyers out of the market at all price ranges.

4. Oil prices have dropped significantly. Although oil companies are still profitable, they can't be throwing money around like they could when it was $110+ a barrel. This removes spending power from the market and exerts downward preassure on prices.

5. Throughout the recession, Candians have continued to spend on credit.  Canadian families now have one of the highest levels of household debt in the G8 (depending on how the number is calculated, they may have the HIGHEST level of debt). Because of these spending habits, folks now have less credit available to them.  Again, this puts downward preassure on prices.

Anyway, it seems to me that something fundamental will have to change for prices to stabalize or move higher.  That "something" will have to do one of the following: increase avaialble credit for current residents, increase income of current residents, or increase immigration of high income individuals.  

Prof:

1. Down payments have only changed for investment properties. The lending standards changes have slightly cut the amount of money first-time buyers can borrow not the number of first time buyers.

2. No doubt unemployment is higher, but %3.5 unemployment as we used to have was clearly unsustainable. Is hard for any business to pay $60k/year for someone who can barely spell his/her own names. %5.5 unemployment (give or take %.5) is a healthy unemployment rate. Not sure where you got that unemployment will trend higher again once the winter hits. If you follow the business news I'm sure you've noticed some promising developments recently, just to mention one here: <a href=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/alberta-land-sale-nets-record-prices/article1632184/?cmpid=rss1>Alberta land sale nets record prices </a>

The "removed buyers" by higher unemp should not be in the business of buying houses in the first place.

3. With less work in the province, people don't come here in high numbers as they used to, that does not necessary remove buyers from the market, it is just that it does not add extra ones. Well, that can always change quickly one way or the other.

4. Indeed oil prices have dropped significantly, if you report to 2007/2008 prices. However if you report to winter/spring 2008/2009 prices, what you see is an oil price explosion. Again this does not remove spending power from the market, but rather cools the existing spending power.

5. Of course Canadians have continued to spend on credit throughout the recession. Money was/is free, what's so hard to understand. If you have $200k cash, why would you spend a dime to buy a car, furnish your house, or buy a house, when you can buy a car with %0 financing for 5+years, same with household goods, furniture/appliances/electronics ... you name it.

Get the cash invested (just like GT tells ya) and let the proceeds pay for all your purchases.

Debt is bad only if you can't pay it back.

In conclusion, IMO house prices in Calgary are not going up significantly (if at all), any time soon, but they are not going down American style either. If you buy a house to live in, you should be good mid/long term.

@ Zorro

I suspect that our opinions are actually quite similar: that the market is returning to a healthy balance.  The billion dollar question is: What is a healthy balance. My guess, as to what a healthy balance is, is probably just a bit lower than yours.  Now just seems like a reasonable time to expect prices to drop to the point (or slightly below) what they would be if they had followed the average historical increase. Anyway, here are a couple of additional points to consider:

In regards to changes in mortgage lending practices, there have been at least three recent major changes to lending standards that I am aware of. You mention the one relating to the purchase of properties other than ones primary residence.  The second change is that buyers must now qualify at the 5 year fixed rate, not the variable rate. If I go to the RBC mortgage calculator, a person with no other debt and an income of 100,000, can afford a 35 year mortgage of between 466,000 and 571,000 at the current variable rate (2.65%).  This used to be an option, now it is not. Now, I have to qualify for the five year fixed rate which is currently 4.19.  My current purchasing power has been reduced to about 376,000 and 460,000.  I’ve lost about 100,000 in purchasing power in the last year (I know, I’m approximating). The third change was relates to who is approved for a loan.  A little while ago, the Canadian government had instructed CHMC to approve a larger numbers of borrowers as a form of short term economic stimulus.  This was done so people who could not previously get a mortgage would qualify.  This short term program has now run out, and people now need higher credit scores to even be approved. Granted, these people should never have been buying houses.  But they were (upward price pressure) and now they are not.

In regards to unemployment, the reason why I suggested that unemployment would soon trend higher is that winter will soon be upon us and a lot of agriculture and building trades folks will have a couple of months off. I recognize that this is a short term thing and it won’t show up in the seasonally adjusted numbers. So what about longer term? Consider that the strength of the Canadian dollar makes Canadian exports more expensive. Unfortunately, Canada’s productivity leaves something to be desired, so Canadian companies are going to have a very hard time competing on the international stage as we go forward. At best, I think were in a realm where 6%+ seasonally adjusted unemployment is likely to be the norm.

On another note, it will be interesting to see whether the slight upswing in sales that Bob is noticing continues. That would prove me wrong, but it would also be a very good thing because life is just more pleasant when the economy is thriving.  An alternate hypothesis is that these sales are short term blip caused by a small group of people who really wanted to buy, but who have recently been priced back into the market by the drops in median price and price/sqft.

Hooray for armchair economics!