Weekend Open Thread

Please post links, comments and other relevant thoughts. Some contributions from my side:

• The blog is almost one year old now. Thanks for your support and valuable comments. Hopefully we have saved at least a few people from seeking advice from the new 'Aunt Abby' about 'approaches to deal with falling prices if you bought last year'. I suspect that in the not so distant future, the readership of such columns will be expanded to include buyers from year 2006.
  
• 'Shoe box' starter homes in Edmonton suburbs are now selling for less than $300k. Of course, it would have been preposterous to even suggest such a price last year. My take is that these homes are overpriced by at least 50 per cent. So over time, either the rents will have to rise quite a bit, prices have to fall or inflation has to do the work. We can probably get a clue from how things are going in the US-a simple and steep decline across most of the US.
  
• The typical $300-$400k property has lost close to $50k or so, if it has sold, from the peak prices. Of course, the median and average numbers are fairly close to this, but some properties have done worse than others. Have you seen anything in particular? The two bedroom condo that was mentioned last July has shed around $20k and has still not sold. Perhaps, it needs to go below $300k to get some more interest.