Well if it makes you feel any better, I think Philly is the worst large city in America LOL. Just my opinion, no disrespect intended.
Every state has some crappy parts, no question. I’ve driven across about 30 states in the US and stand by the comment that NJ and DE on average are the worst I’ve personally seen. There’s probably an adverse selection bias at work because there probably aren’t a lot of small public companies in the areas higgmond mentioned (or at least I didn’t go to any of those).
It’s true, Bro. If you’re far-right neocon Christian conservative who wants suburbia without the amenities of the big city, ridiculously high house prices, no outdoors activities and very few single women, then Midland is certainly the place for you.
^ I don’t know much about US house prices in absolute terms, but I could live in a mansion in Midland for the value of my house here. And I live in mid-sized city Caanda in the suburbs. So to a guy coming from NYC, your homes would be dirt cheap!
My love of NJ notwithstanding, I would not encourage anyone to move there as there are enough people there already and the overall tax burden is among the highest in the country. I actually moved across the river to PA a little less than 3 years ago to reduce my taxes, but will be a Jersey boy for life.
I mostly agree. It’s funny when someone raised in Brooklyn talks about Jersey, but the hipster from Ohio who moved to Brooklyn? You’re from Ohio. Enough said. Only thing worse are the random internet people who haven’t been there. I just don’t agree the extension of NYC is shitty because I live there
Semantics, neither of those are even close to as large as Philly, and I wouldn’t call either one “large cities,” more like medium cities. They are both very crappy though.
Spent a lot of time in Philly when my son was in treatment, and regularly rode 95 from MD to CT. Not many of these places impressed me or made me want to live there. Philly has some of the most aggressive homeless I’ve ever seen and a lot of Hood. And there’s a section of I-95 just outside Newark that we’d have to go through that smells like a bag full of arseholes. I think it was a chemical plant of some kind. And a lot of Delaware seemed similar.
I don’t mean to pile into the jersey hate but newark is by far the shittiest airport I’ve ever been to. The place is just fucking grotty, and fir whatever reason, every single member of staff there couldn’t understand a fucking word I said and got really bloody cunty about it as well. Everyone else in the us can understand me but all the lazy, loping shitebags with bad attitude in newark didn’t have a fucking scoobie
i think every country in the world has a place that everyone loves to hate though.
Canada’s real estate bubble is crazy, and this statement is coming from a guy who lived in the US in the 2005-2007 insanity.
My dad’s company in Canada does subcontract work for home builders and I asked him a couple years ago - when I thought values were insane - who’s buying these places? His response was I have no idea. Our population isn’t growing fast enough to fill all these houses. Couple that with the 5 year ARMs that Canadian banks use and this party is going to come to a crashing halt eventually.
Some of the folks I’ve spoken to back in my hometown seem to have this holier than thou attitude vs the US and their view is the bad stuff that happened in the US like the real estate crash could never happen there. We’ll see.
Huh, so maybe everyone is watching out for “taper tantrum” in EM deficit countries but should really eyeing the Canada property bubble? What is the reference rate for Canadian ARMs? Libor?
Geo likely knows more about it, but Canadian banks don’t really do the US traditional 15/30 year fixed rate loans, its fixed for a short time like 5 years, then resets based on the market. Don’t know what the ref rate is.
That area of the state is horrible, there’s no getting around that, but there would have been no gas in your car to drive through it if it didn’t exist. If your car is imported, there’s a good chance you would have no car either. Unfortunately, it is exactly that section of the state that the vast majority of the people who visit NYC see because it’s on the ride from EWR to the city. And yes, EWR is kind of a crappy airport. I fly out of Philly (or now Trenton) whenever possible. The rail service to EWR is kind of nice though.
Philly’s homeless are very aggressive and there are sections of the city that are extremely dangerous (local news doesn’t even bother to report murders unless they involve little kids or senior citizens because murders are so common).
In terms of our mortgage market: the conventional approach for Canadians is a 5 year ARM with a 25 year amortization. You can no longer go beyond 30 years if requiring mortgage insurance (and I don’t think many banks do >30 for uninsured either). There is no reference rate for the reset… Yup. That’s right. Its a negotiated rate based on whatever you can get from whatever lender. Its fairly competitive with banks undercutting each other and offering incentives. Currently the going 5 year rate in Canada is about 2.99%. Personally, I have a monthly reset at “prime” minus 1% right now so I’m paying 2%. We are starting to see 7 and 10 year terms but they are unconventional and expensive relative to the 5 year. Any mortgage in Canada without 25% down requires CMHC (government) insurance and that comes with strict qualifying requirements. I think we have eliminated the zero down. The one factor that should make you hesitent to short Canadian mortgages is that our mortgages are recourse. You cannot walk away from your property without declaring bankruptcy. This is huge.
