Posted today over at MSNBC – sometimes viewed as a source of “news”, I found this tidbit. It looks like we’re gonna get bailed out by the Canucks! Phew
As loonie surges, Canadians snap up US homes
Snowbirds bring checkbooks to grab properties at deep discountCHANDLER, Ariz. – Two hours after his flight landed in Phoenix, Calgary resident Doug Farley already was cruising the city’s vast stuccoed suburbs in search of the one attraction Canadians cannot seem to get enough of these days: cheap homes.
There are thousands of them here: almost new, unoccupied and dropping in value. The mortgage meltdown, combined with a surging Canadian currency, has Farley — and many of his countrymen — dreaming of winter golf on grass that’s always green.
“My dollar’s the same as your dollar, finally,” Farley said, grinning as he peered through a pool fence at a sparsely populated condominium complex in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb
For moderate-income Canadians like Farley, the race is on to take advantage of the “loonie,” which in September reached parity with the U.S. dollar for the first time since 1976. Many are combing the Internet for anxious American home sellers and looking with an investor’s eye at the condos they rented while on vacation in sunbelt states.
and guess what.. they’re nice too, cuz they’re Canadians! (note, I am not making fun of Canadians here. Just the writer)
“Fifteen of my friends are on buying trips down here, and we’re all cheap,” Sirockman said. He brought his family to Scottsdale this month while he submitted a lowball all-cash offer for a three-bedroom home.
“I don’t want to take advantage of a guy who’s having trouble in the market and is losing his shorts,” Sirockman said. “But I have no problem with a guy from California who bought on spec and has five houses in Arizona and never lived in them.”
The reporter must have been working on this story for, oh say a month or so. Might not have noticed what’s been going on with the loonie the past couple of weeks. If they’re going to save us, they better hurry!
US Dollar to Canadian Dollar
