[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by Claeren

If commodity prices surge in the short-medium term (which seems very possible, whether by demand or by inflation of the USD it is priced in) then it is possible.

But what no one around here seems to want to acknowledge is that a surge now could mean a full stall of any 'recovery' and a likely multi-decade depression.

It all gets pretty complicated, but the world will not pay $200/barrel for long before they simply change their usage habits and demand new technologies which are cheaper relative $200 oil than $50 oil, etc etc).

In the medium+ term I really don't think you will gain anything on your condo, or loss anything on the house. I guess the safest option if you neeed to act now is.... sell the condo (which is more likely to go down/stay same than it is to go up) to buy the house (which is marginally more likely to go up than the condo). In leveraged dollars, any scenario is better than going down...




Claeren.

Totally agree. One thing I would add is that very few people look at the price of Natural Gas. That is a huge factor in this town, arguably more than Oil. NG has been in the dumps for 3 years now. I really feel that until NG is back up to near $10 you will not see any crazy times in Calgary. People need to remember that in 2005, NG was $15, it is around $3-$4 today.

With that said, all bets are that NG will be low for the next few years still. So with the insane real estate jumps in prices in late 2009 - early 2010, I think the market here has stalled. I really do not think anyone is about to take on more debt post-recession, with low NG prices.

Also, the deep suburbs are the most volatile to boom/bust in Calgary. Inner city is always going to cost more, but maintain value better. That is partly why we moved to Sunnyside.