'Horror Show’ In Housing: Market ‘Stagnates’, Is A Total Freeze Next? | Ron Butler
Summary
Market Outlook: War-driven energy disruptions are lifting bond yields and mortgage rates, dampening housing sentiment, with the U.S. 30-year near 6.46% and the 10-year yield in focus.
US Housing: Higher rates and weak hiring cool first-time buyers while low-rate lock-in limits supply, leading to slower purchases and pronounced regional disparities.
Florida Housing: Stricter condo regulations and costly engineering mandates are crushing prices of older units, dragging statewide averages and underscoring regulatory risk.
Texas Housing: Easy building and prior in-migration fueled overbuilding (notably Austin), and as growth slows, excess supply pressures rents and prices.
Canada Housing: Population decline and tighter immigration create renter’s market dynamics with falling rents and excess condo/townhome inventory; tenants are urged to negotiate reductions.
Policy and Rates: A ceasefire could ease energy prices, lower yields, and reduce mortgage rates; Canada’s variable-rate hikes look unlikely post-war, and lighter building regulation is a long-term positive.
Energy Theme: Energy remains pivotal; Canada’s path to growth is expanded petroleum and natural gas extraction, while high diesel and fertilizer costs stoke global food inflation.
Investment Angle: Homebuilder equities face pressure in high-rate, weak-demand phases but could rebound quickly on rate relief; timing and regional exposure are critical.
Transcript
When you renew your lease in Vancouver or Toronto, you only have one thing to say to your landlord. If you don't reduce the rent, I'm leaving. Period. End of story. No discussion. Energy still runs this world. Manufacturing continues on a steady, inexraable decline. And manufacturing is Ontario. I don't care. Your strata fees could have doubled. I don't care. I'm pleased to welcome back to the show Ron Butler, host of the Angry Mortgage podcast in the principal mortgage broker of Butler Mortgage. Ron has uh been working in the Canadian mortgage industry for more than 20 years, 30 years, and um he is wellspoken on both the Canadian and American housing markets. We'll talk about both today. Welcome back to the show, Ron. Good to see you. >> Great to have you back. I appreciate it. >> Happy to have you on. You were on the show four to five months ago, late last year, 2025. Some big changes obviously around the world. How have Well, let's just focus on two for now. How have the Iran war situation and the nomination of Wars as a new Fed chair? How have these two developments impacted the US housing market? First, let's talk about the US, then we'll talk about Canada, where we're both based. So you can clearly see the impact of the war on higher mortgage rates. So this is just a fundamental. If you do anything to disturb the price of energy, punch up the price of energy, you will attract inflation, bond traders will immediately react. Yields will increase and mortgage rates will go up. This is the most simplistic equation you could possibly know in our business. And we're just watching it unfold. And let's face it, higher mortgage rates at a time when there's very little new hiring going on in the US, it it really kind of knocks knocks down first-time home buyers. And I I think we're just going to watch that continue to play out for the next number of months. >> But do you think Kevin Worsh uh if he were the next Fed chair is going to immediately lower the Fed funds rate? >> I don't know whether he's going to have the votes. I don't think anybody knows if he has the votes. So, there's other It's a committee there. There's going to be voting. Uh I don't know if he can carry the day. I think he'd like to. Uh and let's face it, if the war ends next week, if it's over, uh we'll see some immediate reactions uh in bond trading. We'll see some immediate reactions in mortgage rates. not fully. It's not going to fully dial in where it could get back to, but it leaves some room. It does leave some room, but it has to be over. I mean, if as long as there's a disruption in energy prices, it'd be very hard for Kevin Worsh or anybody to step in and say, "Let's start cutting." >> So, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate in the US is currently at 6.46%. Generally speaking, does the mortgage rate follow the Fed funds rate more or uh the long end of the yield curve more? or in other words, a 10-year yield because that's been going up. >> Obviously, it's a mix, but the 10-year yield will rule and it will produce higher mortgage rates. And the higher oil goes, the more inflation seems to be unleashed. Um, I could I could see that that that top of the curve go higher. I could see it happening. >> Does that really matter for the American market though? The US uh market? Well, most US markets are on a fixed rate unlike Canada. And so just because it goes up a little bit, it doesn't mean homeowners can't afford their payments anymore. They've got to close down, shop, or sell their homes or foreclose. Right. True. But we have certainly observed in the last month uh a legitimate pullback in some regions on new home purchase. I mean, it it just there's sometimes there's a sentiment problem. There's an idea that hey, what's going to happen next? Not sure what to do. Fix our mortgage rates have gone up again. It was looking like they were going to come down and it would make it more easy easy more chance for me to get into the market, but it's just gone right back up again. Um, I I believe we will see some slowdown in purchase activity again. It's a big big country. There's all kinds of different markets, but I would suggest on average we will see a slowdown in in new home purchase. >> This is an interesting uh statement. I'm going to show you this report by JP Morgan. It's from their um their housing market outlook dated early January. Let me just refresh this so I can get a clean screen. All right. Um why have house prices been so high? So more recently the impact of higher mortgage rates have been exacerbated by a labor market um labor market hiring rate that has slowed to near recession levels. This has restricted an important channel that typically spurs both supply and demand in the housing market as people with jobs and low mortgage rates are now further disincentivized from moving. Or further up in the article, it says um prices were thus kept high despite a fall in demand uh because uh American homeowners are reluctant to move. higher policy rates weigh down on not just demand but also supply as current homeowners were reluctant to move and sacrifice lower mortgage rates. So, ironically, a slowing labor market is keeping house prices high, says the author of this article. What do you think? >> It's reasonable because if you think about it, that that person with the 299 rate, they do not want to give it up in the face of new 609 rates. They just it just reinforces that fact that they don't want to change houses even if they wanted to, they are financially motivated not to. And then you combine the lack of hiring. So we have the young person in order for there to be a move up buyer. In order for somebody who owns a home now, he's got a double whammy. He has less firsttime home buyers that are interested and he really doesn't really really want to sell because he's got a 299 mortgage rate. So when you combine those two factors, where does the move up come from? It makes it much more difficult and therefore the whole market stagnates, but it tends to stay high because h if I don't want to sell, I have no reason to sell, I don't feel motivated to sell, then there's going to be no price reduction or particularly that missing firsttime home buyer. That's an affliction on a market like this. >> There's also a shortage. So, not only are people not moving out because of the reasons you just stated, but according to uh the National Mortgage Professional uh post here, housing shortage deepens as underbuilding persists, uh the US housing supply gap widened to an estimated 4.03 million homes in 2025 according to realtor.com. Tell us about the supply gap. The administration, the Trump administration has made inroads to try to close this gap somewhat. recently they've um passed a law that is supposed to forbid large institutional investors like Black Rockck from buying a lot of single family homes. We'll we'll see if that helps. But comment on the supply gap, please. >> The supply gap is is very much a function of builders saying, "Well, wait a second. If I've got a 609 uh mortgage rate and I've got a limited supply of firsttime uh home buyers, I'm I'm not going to build like I you the the first the home builder must feel that there is a genuine market for their product. So what am I going to do? I'm I I I know my I know that move up home buyers are restricted by this this 609 mortgage rate. I know that first-time buyers are in a bit of a funk. Why am I building? Why am I building? Why am I going to hold off have inventory on hand? Why am I going to finance it? Why? Why? What is my motivation? So, if you're a home builder, you are waiting for the rates to return to some kind of better position, mortgage rates to return to better position. They say, "Well, okay, now now I know I can build. I know I can build because I've got a more uh a better marketplace. I've got more sentiment in my favor." Because why would you do it now if sentiment's against you? it. You would just not build. You would just stay stick with your land, hold your land in place, and say, "Well, I'm gonna wait. See what happens to the market." Before we continue with the video, let's talk about your most important asset, your personal data and privacy. 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Take control of your privacy today. Now back to the video. Staying with the US for now. This is an article from long yield um long yield substack. So, Florida's housing market in early 2026 says the author is undergoing something more complex than a simple rate driven cool down statewide. Uh the FA FHFA house price index fell 2.3% year-over-year through Q3 2025. Um I know it it matters, jurisdiction matters in the US and anywhere you talk about. So talk to us about Florida in particular and other jurisdictions similar to Florida that are also going through cooldowns in home prices and why those particular places are experiencing these cool downs. >> Well, every jurisdiction is different. I mean, I think we can safely assume that the Florida market continues to be affected by the new regulations about condominiums, the new regulations about high-rise condominiums, the requirement to go in, do very substantial engineering studies and do things to make sure that the buildings don't fall down. And that is that has caused some older units to plummet. The prices have plummeted because they become virtually unsalable. And in that kind of an environment, it pulls the whole average for the state down. That is that's just going to happen that way. So other jurisdictions, there's been some overbuilding. Like let's take Texas for as an example. So when when people were flocking to Austin because it's so darn easy to build new housing in Austin, builders just go on hyperdrive and houses spring up like mushrooms. As soon as it starts to the population growth starts to slow, there's too many units and prices start to fall and activity starts to reduce. So that's the real issue. It's such a in some states where there's a real dynamic market about building, there's a tendency to overbuild. In some states like Florida, they're a victim of some very localized um call it political regulatory problems. >> This is exactly what you're talking about on my screen. uh Texas U. Austin's rent has uh Austin's rents have been falling for 19 months straight according to Zillow. Uh the typical asking rent in the capital city now is at645 as of December. And uh is this is this specific to Austin or are you seeing this across a lot of big cities, Ron? >> Well, it's all about cities that have fallen out of favor and and and cities that just overbuilt. And as you started off at the very beginning of of talking about these regional disparities, there is tremendous regional disparity. I mean, like I think half of the jillionaires in in California have just left. They're going to they're going to move to Florida. There's probably going to be some real big estate. If you're at the very top end of the uh Florida real estate, you're probably doing okay. But there's implications. You know, we saw the growth of Salt Lake uh and that then that's kind of peaked out. uh we saw the growth in Denver that's kind of peaked out. There's just movements of phases of the e the economic environment in those particular jurisdictions that just attract and then cool. Uh and and I think that's what we're seeing right now. Um some of the other effects quite frankly are in some specific uh situations where there was previously some uh rentals by immigrants which are those some of those immigrants have been sent back home and that has an impact on very specific markets even right down to the neighborhood level. across the nation, layoffs are happening, especially in the tech sector. But more broadly, real wages have slowed down in terms of growth, especially if you consider now that uh oil is at uh uh multi-year highs since 2022, all-time highs since 2022. And so that eats into people's wallets and discretionary spending. How does less discretionary spending and ultimately less discretionary income affect the housing market? It just cools the entire um appetite for making a change. Um you know because look look housing is not like any other kind of investment. Buying a house thing is just it's there's too much friction. There's still a ton of cost associated with it. Um even though real estate commissions are just come down in the tiniest way there's still some cost associated with it. So you really need to have a this has been universally proven. You need to have some positive sentiment about the economy in your local area before you see some definite improvement in real estate. >> If let's say income start to improve dramatically, Nick, this year, I'm not saying it will, but let's say it does this year or next year, would that immediately trigger more buying activity? You think in today's current environment? >> It would trigger more buying activity as long as mortgage rates get back below six. It it it is required for those two things to happen at once because no matter who you are, when you see a rate that is still, you know, it was coming down, coming down, there was a bit of a bump in activity. Oh boy, it's right back up again. I mean, maybe I should just wait. I should just wait and see if that 609 rate comes back down to 569, 559. >> So, people aren't moving. They're not buying right now because the rates aren't where they need to be and the labor market's not great. On the other hand, people aren't moving either because of the reasons we talked about because ironically rates are not where it needs to be for people to move and accept a uh you know slightly higher rate, not six and above. So what's happening then? People aren't selling, they're not buying. Are we just going to see equilibrium for the next 12 to 18 months? >> I think we probably are certainly for the next little while, but never discount the idea that there is pent-up demand. pent-up demand does exist and it just needs that sort of mortgage rate breakthrough to get it unlocked a little bit. uh but certainly in a rising rate environment when there's a slowdown a distinct slowdown in hiring we observe that through almost all all regions if there's a distinct hiring slowdown combined with higher rates yeah I think you're going to have a pause >> for the investors watching in a higher rate environment especially like now would it be reasonable to be short homebuilder stocks >> bec could be temporary I mean there's one thing we know uh The minute that victory is declared and um there the war the yeah and the straight of war starts moving again and energy energy starts prices start to come off we could see some very very swift reaction we see it already we see massive swings in all markets whether it's bonds stocks you name it uh but once there is a true ceasefire and the ships start rolling again yeah you bet there's going to be some mortgage rates come down. I mean, it just they won't come down totally quickly. It won't be instantaneous to return to form, but once they start dropping, there's going to be a lot of improved sentiment. >> Higher gas prices and higher diesel prices. Will that impact raw materials for construction >> a little bit, but what it really will do is drive up food pricing. I mean, diesel has a huge impact on food. Every uh almost all farm equipment run off diesel. There's also been a tremendous shock in fertilizer costs. Uh they've driven dramatically. Um you know, we we will see some food inflation in all sides of the border. Every quite frankly everywhere across the world will see a return to higher food inflation. And nobody likes that. Nobody likes gas prices to go up while the price of uh hamburger goes up. I mean that's a double whammy. Nobody wants >> on legislation. This is from the um Trump administration. Passed a couple weeks ago, Trump removes regulatory barriers to affordable home construction. The order directs the EPA administrator and the Secretary of the Army to review and revise storm water, wetlands, and other water related permitting requirements to reduce building and ownership costs. Uh what are the immediate impacts if any of this? >> Well, in the long run, very positive. I mean that has become an extremely overregulated area. Uh way overregulated and seeing that change is very beneficial but it just continues to need that little bit of sentiment improvement and that lower mortgage rate but on a long-term basis these are smart useful changes. Um it's absolutely necessary to reduce regulatory burden on all types of home building and this is one step. Another piece of news I want to draw your attention to is rising foreclosure filings. So, according to this article, foreclos uh foreclosure filings rose 32% um year-over-year. Delaware, Nevada, and Florida posted their highest state foreclosure rates in January as national filings were up 32% year-over-year. It's still the the rate is still below historical peaks, but the trend has been higher. Is it at a point yet where uh investors and I guess homeowners are alike to be worried? >> I think not. I think worry is is probably misplaced. But we also have to realize that some of these regions there's extreme employment focus in some of these regions particularly for mortgage delinquency. Uh like Vegas is having its probably its worst three quarters that you could imagine since co I mean it's just been a tremendously the whole Nevada gaming industry has been just struck hard. The entertainment industry it's been very bad and there are will be layoffs and then there will be foreclosures. There will be uh mortgage delinquency. Um, I can't tell you what's going on in Delaware, but I I think if we track back to all the specific hot regions where there's problems, I think we're going to be able to identify a local employment problem. >> Let's bring this closer to home. By home, I mean Canada for both of us. I'm in Vancouver right now. Let me just start with a question that I think a lot of people are thinking about. Should I be negotiating with my landlord for the same rate, if not the lower, even an even lower rate when it comes time to renew my lease later this year? When you renew your lease in Vancouver or Toronto, you only have one thing to say to your landlord. If you don't reduce the rent, I'm leaving. Period. End of story. No discussion. And you will get a respon. You may get the response, well, then you got to go. But I'm betting 80% of the time you're going to get the response, yeah, I think we can knock like 3 or 4% off it. No problem. Because that's universally what we're seeing. >> What if they say, "Oh, my strata fees have gone up this and that." >> I don't care. your strata fees could have doubled. I don't care. Uh I know that I can move to a similar unit, very very similar unit, if not a little nicer and get about a 5 to 8% reduction in my rent. So if you're not willing to do it, I'm going to I'm just going to move. >> When was the last time you saw this kind of market in Canada? And more broadly speaking, why is it happening now? >> Probably about 2008 in the world financial crisis. Wow. But uh because there was just that many people just there was job loss, there was extreme economic concern and some people just moved out and went back home to their parents or slept on their buddy's couch. Uh and that that also puts pressure. But today the most compelling problem for landlords in Canada is there's negative growth in the country's population for the first time in the history of history. I mean there's less people living in Canada now than there was a quarter ago and it would appear that that will continue. So when rent new Canadians are all renters, almost universally renters. So when that goes backwards, there's too many units and there's too many units anyway. There's too many dog crate condos that weren't that aren't being sold and are need to be rented. There's too many new rental projects stimulated by CHC that are coming to completion in the next two years. There's just this huge over burden of new inventory at a time when the population is actually shrinking. And I don't blame anybody for not thinking the population would shrink. Nobody would imagine it would happen. But it is statistically factual that it's happening. >> In an environment where the population of the entire country is shrinking overall or at least not even growing, which types of housing um will be affected the most? Are we talking about single family homes, multif family homes, condos, town homes? What will be go, you know, what's going to go down first? condos and town homes obviously because that's that's rental stock. You don't see too many single family rentals. That's a much lower percentage of single family are rented. So they are the most impacted. Condos absolutely like it's just it's it's it's a horror show out there. Uh but we have to anticipate that there's going to be some there could be some price improvement eventually. not now, not this year, maybe not even next year, but even with the stimulation measures that the government has put in place now in Ontario and soon to be in BC. Um there's going to be there's no construction. There's absolutely no new starts of anything. There hasn't been for a number of years. And that combined with lower population, I mean, that is a recipe for lower lower rents and potentially lower prices. >> So, I've got some cash. I want to buy a home and I want it to be obviously someplace that I want to live in, but also I'm thinking about long-term appreciation as well. Now, here's my logic and walk me through this, Ron. I don't know what's going to do better uh in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal uh 10, 15 years down the line, but I I know for a fact, like we talked about, the population shrinking. Organic births in Canada have been declining for years. That's not new. But more recently, they've been cracking down on immigration, which is why the population is down. So, people are having fewer children, uh, lower household formation. That makes me think, Ron, maybe people are less inclined to move out of their condos into homes because if you don't have a family, why do you need a big house, right? So, maybe single family homes aren't the place to go to park my cash. What do you think? >> I would have to say that there there's such a limited number. This is this is the really important part to understand in in British Columbia and in Ontario. in those two in those two localities. The switch flipped to all high-rise in 2018, like seriously, like the the the ratio of high-rise to low-rise building, new builds, uh was 8020. It's been 8020 from uh 2018 onwards, like we're going to be heading into 8th to 9th year of this kind of well, we just stopped building these those promises now. That's really important to understand like when there's very very little new product being built like hardly any there has to be some natural appreciation to the old product that is all that there is provided that we finally go back to some population growth because I think you and I would agree it's not going to be zero population growth forever eventually whether it's 28 or 29 um immigration will restart. Well, you see, I'm not sure about that because across developed countries around the world, people are having fewer children. The fertility rate is below two. Uh, so you're right. It really depends on how immigration policies are going to change. Ron, how do you see this playing out? >> Well, we have to believe that in the near future, it will continue to be a liberal federal government. The the prime minister's numbers are very good. His polling is very good. Uh, if he chose to have an election today, he would probably win with a majority. you'll probably have a majority in a few weeks when the bi-elections are finished. Uh and it it there is a basic tenant of that federal government's beliefs that they believe in immigration and for that matter I believe in immigration but the reality is they had to fix a mistake when you were letting 1.3 million people come in in one year. It was just unmanageable and it put too much stress on the country. But I am absolutely certain that by 2028 we will see a return to reduced immigration numbers something like 325 to 375,000. And once that tap gets turned on again then we'll see the impact of it. Let me show you this chart here. This is the uh a chart of a mortgage uh 1, three, five and 10 year fixed mortgage rates in Canada. I remember 2022 very well. I know people personally who um either had to move out of their homes uh sell their homes because they just couldn't afford their uh their mortgage payments literally doubling. We we in Canada, unlike the Americans, uh we have to renew our uh mortgage rates every couple years depending on what the term is, but we don't have a 30-year here. So, uh are we about to see a repeat of 2022 is what's on people's minds. What do you think? >> I don't think so. And that's only because I I have a pretty rational belief that the war in Iran will end whether it ends in two weeks or whether it ends in a month and a half. Um with the midterms looming in the United States, I believe that eventually we'll see an end to that war. And then we'll see a correction in energy pricing, not instantaneous and not massive initially, but a gradual improvement in energy pricing. and that will more quickly transfer into bond yields and which will then transfer into mortgage rates. Uh it going down not immediately not instantly but the general belief that they'll be coming down and variable no longer once the war is over there's no chance that variable rate mortgages will go up in Canada that goes off the table. It's priced in now but that's only because of the war. As soon as the war ends um there will be no no chance of an increase in variable rate this year. So that is positive and that that will bring some uh measure of um security to the the people who are buying. Uh but right now we don't have it. >> Well, let's say I can afford to wait a year or two to buy a home. I'm comfortable renting. Should I do that? Should I wait? >> Well, right now the math favors renters. I mean, rents are falling. They'll continue to fall. They'll continue to fall all this year. They'll probably continue to fall into next year. Math favors renters. And until pricesi prices prices must continue to drop for anyone to beat that formula. If you can rent for substantially less than you would pay in a mortgage payment, you've got to think that that's uh going to be an advantage. And if you're sure that the rent's not going to skyrocket, which it won't. It's not going to go up this year, probably not next year, why would you feel motivated to buy a house? Because you might even become a lifetime renter. I mean, it's possible that that's going to be a financial benefit to people u if the prices in Canada continue to stay high. >> How significant were the tariffs on the Canadian economy, the US tariffs on the Canadian economy? Uh was that an overblown issue? Was the Canadian economy on a slowdown anyway, or did that really put things uh on on on pause? >> It's very regional. Uh you know, in Alberta right now, they probably are saying, "What tariffs?" I mean they're making so much money from the price of oil. But in Ontario, this is really important to understand in the last number of uh reports both on employment and on GDP manufacturing continues on a steady inexraable decline and manufacturing is Ontario. Um the the I think 50% of all manufactured goods uh come out of Ontario. So, if that downline, if that downs slope continues, it's nothing but bad news. >> What do you think of uh Carney's recent deal with China? At least making inroads into making deals with China. I'm talking about reducing the tariffs on Chinese EVs from 100% to 6% and in turn uh the Chinese have made it easier for Canadians to visit China without a visa. So, inroads into a thawed relationship under Trudeau. Long-term, where do you see this headed? So, you know, if you go back into the history of Mark Carney, the Liberal Party, uh, Brookfield, they have a tremendous affinity for China. Um, that's been established. It's real. It's not going to change. And by the way, the removal of the tariffs on agricultural goods was a major win. I mean, that is a tremendous positive impact for our farming sector. U, all that said, the the fact of the matter is simply this. The president doesn't President Trump does not want to see a bunch of EVs manufactured in Canada. Even if they're just manufactured like they take the BYYD uh car apart and put it into three pieces and then reassemble it here. So that's it's not really manufacturing. But he's opposed. We have I don't I I think we're all going to find out that this government has not done a great job about getting some progress on Koozma before the July deadline. Uh it looks like Mexico is doing a lot better job. And look, if if there's just plain, hey, we're going to cancel Kuzzma and renegotiate, if we get that message in July, all the tariffs problems will come back to life. They just will. >> What Well, what what is Canada's long-term survival strategy? If you were in parliament and you had to kind of think about the future of the country here, should we be making more deals with China? We're trying to get on America's good side. And by that I mean basically agree with Trump's demands. >> Look, you know, presidents come and go. Um Donald Trump has three years left to his term. If the midterms go against him, he'll be crippled in the things he could do. Um the reality is that we are tied to the United States. Canada can't escape that. Canada can't just say, "Well, we're going to make deals everywhere else in the world and we'll just export our way out of this problem." Uh the chance of that happening and the amount of time that that would take to happen, it's very unlikely. Canada should try to recapture a positive trade relationship with the United States. No question about that. Uh it's going to be good for Canada. It's going to be good for everybody in North America. But the reality is this. With a rupture in trade continuing, we're going to see some problems in Ontario and Quebec. Uh, Western Canada will probably be okay. Uh, but we are going to see continued recessionary problems in both of those provinces. It's just unavoidable. >> What needs to happen to turn these recessionary pressures around, Ron? >> There's only there's a threepart solution. It's energy, energy, and energy. It's resource extraction, resource extraction, resource extraction. I mean, that's what we're good at. That that's what we've got a lot of and that's what supplies a tremendous amount of revenue to our governments if we doubled or tripled our output of petroleum products and natural gas. Not only would it help in terms of our economy, it would be a tremendous impact on reducing our deficit and improving our lives. I mean, if you've got the world's third or fourth largest reserves, you need to sell it. I mean it there's no if if anything has become perfectly clear from this war in with Iran. Energy still runs this world. Uh every you know we're lucky we don't have uh every we don't have all our restaurants closing at 9:00 at night like they do in Egypt or half of them being closed all the time in Pakistan or lineups for gasoline in Australia, New Zealand. We don't have any of those problems. uh but other countries do and there's going to be no misunderstanding anymore. The idea that the world is going to suddenly convert to alternative energy in a decade is now dead. There's there's no one going to no rational person is going to talk about it anymore. So we have our time. It's our time to shine and develop resources like we've never done it before. We have to. It's necessary. And it is the answer. It's the answer to Canada's economic stagnation. >> Okay. Thank you, Ron. Where can we find your work and tell us about what you're covering on your podcast? >> Butler mortgage.ca is uh if you want to find our company. Uh right now we're focused on this endless um rent reduction, the population issues, the uh we've we've got almost weekly to bi-weekly updates on rates, where they're going. Uh so by all means uh tune in. We're on all kinds of media. We're out in Tik Tok. We're in uh Instagram. We're everywhere. Uh and uh just put Ron Butler into any search engine and something will come up. He's all over the internet, folks. Ron Butler. Google him. Thank you so much, Ron. We'll put the links down below. Make sure to follow his website as well as his YouTube channel. He's got great stuff. Thank you so much. We'll speak again soon. >> Thanks for having me. >> Thank you for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe.
'Horror Show’ In Housing: Market ‘Stagnates’, Is A Total Freeze Next? | Ron Butler
Summary
Transcript
When you renew your lease in Vancouver or Toronto, you only have one thing to say to your landlord. If you don't reduce the rent, I'm leaving. Period. End of story. No discussion. Energy still runs this world. Manufacturing continues on a steady, inexraable decline. And manufacturing is Ontario. I don't care. Your strata fees could have doubled. I don't care. I'm pleased to welcome back to the show Ron Butler, host of the Angry Mortgage podcast in the principal mortgage broker of Butler Mortgage. Ron has uh been working in the Canadian mortgage industry for more than 20 years, 30 years, and um he is wellspoken on both the Canadian and American housing markets. We'll talk about both today. Welcome back to the show, Ron. Good to see you. >> Great to have you back. I appreciate it. >> Happy to have you on. You were on the show four to five months ago, late last year, 2025. Some big changes obviously around the world. How have Well, let's just focus on two for now. How have the Iran war situation and the nomination of Wars as a new Fed chair? How have these two developments impacted the US housing market? First, let's talk about the US, then we'll talk about Canada, where we're both based. So you can clearly see the impact of the war on higher mortgage rates. So this is just a fundamental. If you do anything to disturb the price of energy, punch up the price of energy, you will attract inflation, bond traders will immediately react. Yields will increase and mortgage rates will go up. This is the most simplistic equation you could possibly know in our business. And we're just watching it unfold. And let's face it, higher mortgage rates at a time when there's very little new hiring going on in the US, it it really kind of knocks knocks down first-time home buyers. And I I think we're just going to watch that continue to play out for the next number of months. >> But do you think Kevin Worsh uh if he were the next Fed chair is going to immediately lower the Fed funds rate? >> I don't know whether he's going to have the votes. I don't think anybody knows if he has the votes. So, there's other It's a committee there. There's going to be voting. Uh I don't know if he can carry the day. I think he'd like to. Uh and let's face it, if the war ends next week, if it's over, uh we'll see some immediate reactions uh in bond trading. We'll see some immediate reactions in mortgage rates. not fully. It's not going to fully dial in where it could get back to, but it leaves some room. It does leave some room, but it has to be over. I mean, if as long as there's a disruption in energy prices, it'd be very hard for Kevin Worsh or anybody to step in and say, "Let's start cutting." >> So, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate in the US is currently at 6.46%. Generally speaking, does the mortgage rate follow the Fed funds rate more or uh the long end of the yield curve more? or in other words, a 10-year yield because that's been going up. >> Obviously, it's a mix, but the 10-year yield will rule and it will produce higher mortgage rates. And the higher oil goes, the more inflation seems to be unleashed. Um, I could I could see that that that top of the curve go higher. I could see it happening. >> Does that really matter for the American market though? The US uh market? Well, most US markets are on a fixed rate unlike Canada. And so just because it goes up a little bit, it doesn't mean homeowners can't afford their payments anymore. They've got to close down, shop, or sell their homes or foreclose. Right. True. But we have certainly observed in the last month uh a legitimate pullback in some regions on new home purchase. I mean, it it just there's sometimes there's a sentiment problem. There's an idea that hey, what's going to happen next? Not sure what to do. Fix our mortgage rates have gone up again. It was looking like they were going to come down and it would make it more easy easy more chance for me to get into the market, but it's just gone right back up again. Um, I I believe we will see some slowdown in purchase activity again. It's a big big country. There's all kinds of different markets, but I would suggest on average we will see a slowdown in in new home purchase. >> This is an interesting uh statement. I'm going to show you this report by JP Morgan. It's from their um their housing market outlook dated early January. Let me just refresh this so I can get a clean screen. All right. Um why have house prices been so high? So more recently the impact of higher mortgage rates have been exacerbated by a labor market um labor market hiring rate that has slowed to near recession levels. This has restricted an important channel that typically spurs both supply and demand in the housing market as people with jobs and low mortgage rates are now further disincentivized from moving. Or further up in the article, it says um prices were thus kept high despite a fall in demand uh because uh American homeowners are reluctant to move. higher policy rates weigh down on not just demand but also supply as current homeowners were reluctant to move and sacrifice lower mortgage rates. So, ironically, a slowing labor market is keeping house prices high, says the author of this article. What do you think? >> It's reasonable because if you think about it, that that person with the 299 rate, they do not want to give it up in the face of new 609 rates. They just it just reinforces that fact that they don't want to change houses even if they wanted to, they are financially motivated not to. And then you combine the lack of hiring. So we have the young person in order for there to be a move up buyer. In order for somebody who owns a home now, he's got a double whammy. He has less firsttime home buyers that are interested and he really doesn't really really want to sell because he's got a 299 mortgage rate. So when you combine those two factors, where does the move up come from? It makes it much more difficult and therefore the whole market stagnates, but it tends to stay high because h if I don't want to sell, I have no reason to sell, I don't feel motivated to sell, then there's going to be no price reduction or particularly that missing firsttime home buyer. That's an affliction on a market like this. >> There's also a shortage. So, not only are people not moving out because of the reasons you just stated, but according to uh the National Mortgage Professional uh post here, housing shortage deepens as underbuilding persists, uh the US housing supply gap widened to an estimated 4.03 million homes in 2025 according to realtor.com. Tell us about the supply gap. The administration, the Trump administration has made inroads to try to close this gap somewhat. recently they've um passed a law that is supposed to forbid large institutional investors like Black Rockck from buying a lot of single family homes. We'll we'll see if that helps. But comment on the supply gap, please. >> The supply gap is is very much a function of builders saying, "Well, wait a second. If I've got a 609 uh mortgage rate and I've got a limited supply of firsttime uh home buyers, I'm I'm not going to build like I you the the first the home builder must feel that there is a genuine market for their product. So what am I going to do? I'm I I I know my I know that move up home buyers are restricted by this this 609 mortgage rate. I know that first-time buyers are in a bit of a funk. Why am I building? Why am I building? Why am I going to hold off have inventory on hand? Why am I going to finance it? Why? Why? What is my motivation? So, if you're a home builder, you are waiting for the rates to return to some kind of better position, mortgage rates to return to better position. They say, "Well, okay, now now I know I can build. I know I can build because I've got a more uh a better marketplace. I've got more sentiment in my favor." Because why would you do it now if sentiment's against you? it. You would just not build. You would just stay stick with your land, hold your land in place, and say, "Well, I'm gonna wait. See what happens to the market." Before we continue with the video, let's talk about your most important asset, your personal data and privacy. 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Take control of your privacy today. Now back to the video. Staying with the US for now. This is an article from long yield um long yield substack. So, Florida's housing market in early 2026 says the author is undergoing something more complex than a simple rate driven cool down statewide. Uh the FA FHFA house price index fell 2.3% year-over-year through Q3 2025. Um I know it it matters, jurisdiction matters in the US and anywhere you talk about. So talk to us about Florida in particular and other jurisdictions similar to Florida that are also going through cooldowns in home prices and why those particular places are experiencing these cool downs. >> Well, every jurisdiction is different. I mean, I think we can safely assume that the Florida market continues to be affected by the new regulations about condominiums, the new regulations about high-rise condominiums, the requirement to go in, do very substantial engineering studies and do things to make sure that the buildings don't fall down. And that is that has caused some older units to plummet. The prices have plummeted because they become virtually unsalable. And in that kind of an environment, it pulls the whole average for the state down. That is that's just going to happen that way. So other jurisdictions, there's been some overbuilding. Like let's take Texas for as an example. So when when people were flocking to Austin because it's so darn easy to build new housing in Austin, builders just go on hyperdrive and houses spring up like mushrooms. As soon as it starts to the population growth starts to slow, there's too many units and prices start to fall and activity starts to reduce. So that's the real issue. It's such a in some states where there's a real dynamic market about building, there's a tendency to overbuild. In some states like Florida, they're a victim of some very localized um call it political regulatory problems. >> This is exactly what you're talking about on my screen. uh Texas U. Austin's rent has uh Austin's rents have been falling for 19 months straight according to Zillow. Uh the typical asking rent in the capital city now is at645 as of December. And uh is this is this specific to Austin or are you seeing this across a lot of big cities, Ron? >> Well, it's all about cities that have fallen out of favor and and and cities that just overbuilt. And as you started off at the very beginning of of talking about these regional disparities, there is tremendous regional disparity. I mean, like I think half of the jillionaires in in California have just left. They're going to they're going to move to Florida. There's probably going to be some real big estate. If you're at the very top end of the uh Florida real estate, you're probably doing okay. But there's implications. You know, we saw the growth of Salt Lake uh and that then that's kind of peaked out. uh we saw the growth in Denver that's kind of peaked out. There's just movements of phases of the e the economic environment in those particular jurisdictions that just attract and then cool. Uh and and I think that's what we're seeing right now. Um some of the other effects quite frankly are in some specific uh situations where there was previously some uh rentals by immigrants which are those some of those immigrants have been sent back home and that has an impact on very specific markets even right down to the neighborhood level. across the nation, layoffs are happening, especially in the tech sector. But more broadly, real wages have slowed down in terms of growth, especially if you consider now that uh oil is at uh uh multi-year highs since 2022, all-time highs since 2022. And so that eats into people's wallets and discretionary spending. How does less discretionary spending and ultimately less discretionary income affect the housing market? It just cools the entire um appetite for making a change. Um you know because look look housing is not like any other kind of investment. Buying a house thing is just it's there's too much friction. There's still a ton of cost associated with it. Um even though real estate commissions are just come down in the tiniest way there's still some cost associated with it. So you really need to have a this has been universally proven. You need to have some positive sentiment about the economy in your local area before you see some definite improvement in real estate. >> If let's say income start to improve dramatically, Nick, this year, I'm not saying it will, but let's say it does this year or next year, would that immediately trigger more buying activity? You think in today's current environment? >> It would trigger more buying activity as long as mortgage rates get back below six. It it it is required for those two things to happen at once because no matter who you are, when you see a rate that is still, you know, it was coming down, coming down, there was a bit of a bump in activity. Oh boy, it's right back up again. I mean, maybe I should just wait. I should just wait and see if that 609 rate comes back down to 569, 559. >> So, people aren't moving. They're not buying right now because the rates aren't where they need to be and the labor market's not great. On the other hand, people aren't moving either because of the reasons we talked about because ironically rates are not where it needs to be for people to move and accept a uh you know slightly higher rate, not six and above. So what's happening then? People aren't selling, they're not buying. Are we just going to see equilibrium for the next 12 to 18 months? >> I think we probably are certainly for the next little while, but never discount the idea that there is pent-up demand. pent-up demand does exist and it just needs that sort of mortgage rate breakthrough to get it unlocked a little bit. uh but certainly in a rising rate environment when there's a slowdown a distinct slowdown in hiring we observe that through almost all all regions if there's a distinct hiring slowdown combined with higher rates yeah I think you're going to have a pause >> for the investors watching in a higher rate environment especially like now would it be reasonable to be short homebuilder stocks >> bec could be temporary I mean there's one thing we know uh The minute that victory is declared and um there the war the yeah and the straight of war starts moving again and energy energy starts prices start to come off we could see some very very swift reaction we see it already we see massive swings in all markets whether it's bonds stocks you name it uh but once there is a true ceasefire and the ships start rolling again yeah you bet there's going to be some mortgage rates come down. I mean, it just they won't come down totally quickly. It won't be instantaneous to return to form, but once they start dropping, there's going to be a lot of improved sentiment. >> Higher gas prices and higher diesel prices. Will that impact raw materials for construction >> a little bit, but what it really will do is drive up food pricing. I mean, diesel has a huge impact on food. Every uh almost all farm equipment run off diesel. There's also been a tremendous shock in fertilizer costs. Uh they've driven dramatically. Um you know, we we will see some food inflation in all sides of the border. Every quite frankly everywhere across the world will see a return to higher food inflation. And nobody likes that. Nobody likes gas prices to go up while the price of uh hamburger goes up. I mean that's a double whammy. Nobody wants >> on legislation. This is from the um Trump administration. Passed a couple weeks ago, Trump removes regulatory barriers to affordable home construction. The order directs the EPA administrator and the Secretary of the Army to review and revise storm water, wetlands, and other water related permitting requirements to reduce building and ownership costs. Uh what are the immediate impacts if any of this? >> Well, in the long run, very positive. I mean that has become an extremely overregulated area. Uh way overregulated and seeing that change is very beneficial but it just continues to need that little bit of sentiment improvement and that lower mortgage rate but on a long-term basis these are smart useful changes. Um it's absolutely necessary to reduce regulatory burden on all types of home building and this is one step. Another piece of news I want to draw your attention to is rising foreclosure filings. So, according to this article, foreclos uh foreclosure filings rose 32% um year-over-year. Delaware, Nevada, and Florida posted their highest state foreclosure rates in January as national filings were up 32% year-over-year. It's still the the rate is still below historical peaks, but the trend has been higher. Is it at a point yet where uh investors and I guess homeowners are alike to be worried? >> I think not. I think worry is is probably misplaced. But we also have to realize that some of these regions there's extreme employment focus in some of these regions particularly for mortgage delinquency. Uh like Vegas is having its probably its worst three quarters that you could imagine since co I mean it's just been a tremendously the whole Nevada gaming industry has been just struck hard. The entertainment industry it's been very bad and there are will be layoffs and then there will be foreclosures. There will be uh mortgage delinquency. Um, I can't tell you what's going on in Delaware, but I I think if we track back to all the specific hot regions where there's problems, I think we're going to be able to identify a local employment problem. >> Let's bring this closer to home. By home, I mean Canada for both of us. I'm in Vancouver right now. Let me just start with a question that I think a lot of people are thinking about. Should I be negotiating with my landlord for the same rate, if not the lower, even an even lower rate when it comes time to renew my lease later this year? When you renew your lease in Vancouver or Toronto, you only have one thing to say to your landlord. If you don't reduce the rent, I'm leaving. Period. End of story. No discussion. And you will get a respon. You may get the response, well, then you got to go. But I'm betting 80% of the time you're going to get the response, yeah, I think we can knock like 3 or 4% off it. No problem. Because that's universally what we're seeing. >> What if they say, "Oh, my strata fees have gone up this and that." >> I don't care. your strata fees could have doubled. I don't care. Uh I know that I can move to a similar unit, very very similar unit, if not a little nicer and get about a 5 to 8% reduction in my rent. So if you're not willing to do it, I'm going to I'm just going to move. >> When was the last time you saw this kind of market in Canada? And more broadly speaking, why is it happening now? >> Probably about 2008 in the world financial crisis. Wow. But uh because there was just that many people just there was job loss, there was extreme economic concern and some people just moved out and went back home to their parents or slept on their buddy's couch. Uh and that that also puts pressure. But today the most compelling problem for landlords in Canada is there's negative growth in the country's population for the first time in the history of history. I mean there's less people living in Canada now than there was a quarter ago and it would appear that that will continue. So when rent new Canadians are all renters, almost universally renters. So when that goes backwards, there's too many units and there's too many units anyway. There's too many dog crate condos that weren't that aren't being sold and are need to be rented. There's too many new rental projects stimulated by CHC that are coming to completion in the next two years. There's just this huge over burden of new inventory at a time when the population is actually shrinking. And I don't blame anybody for not thinking the population would shrink. Nobody would imagine it would happen. But it is statistically factual that it's happening. >> In an environment where the population of the entire country is shrinking overall or at least not even growing, which types of housing um will be affected the most? Are we talking about single family homes, multif family homes, condos, town homes? What will be go, you know, what's going to go down first? condos and town homes obviously because that's that's rental stock. You don't see too many single family rentals. That's a much lower percentage of single family are rented. So they are the most impacted. Condos absolutely like it's just it's it's it's a horror show out there. Uh but we have to anticipate that there's going to be some there could be some price improvement eventually. not now, not this year, maybe not even next year, but even with the stimulation measures that the government has put in place now in Ontario and soon to be in BC. Um there's going to be there's no construction. There's absolutely no new starts of anything. There hasn't been for a number of years. And that combined with lower population, I mean, that is a recipe for lower lower rents and potentially lower prices. >> So, I've got some cash. I want to buy a home and I want it to be obviously someplace that I want to live in, but also I'm thinking about long-term appreciation as well. Now, here's my logic and walk me through this, Ron. I don't know what's going to do better uh in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal uh 10, 15 years down the line, but I I know for a fact, like we talked about, the population shrinking. Organic births in Canada have been declining for years. That's not new. But more recently, they've been cracking down on immigration, which is why the population is down. So, people are having fewer children, uh, lower household formation. That makes me think, Ron, maybe people are less inclined to move out of their condos into homes because if you don't have a family, why do you need a big house, right? So, maybe single family homes aren't the place to go to park my cash. What do you think? >> I would have to say that there there's such a limited number. This is this is the really important part to understand in in British Columbia and in Ontario. in those two in those two localities. The switch flipped to all high-rise in 2018, like seriously, like the the the ratio of high-rise to low-rise building, new builds, uh was 8020. It's been 8020 from uh 2018 onwards, like we're going to be heading into 8th to 9th year of this kind of well, we just stopped building these those promises now. That's really important to understand like when there's very very little new product being built like hardly any there has to be some natural appreciation to the old product that is all that there is provided that we finally go back to some population growth because I think you and I would agree it's not going to be zero population growth forever eventually whether it's 28 or 29 um immigration will restart. Well, you see, I'm not sure about that because across developed countries around the world, people are having fewer children. The fertility rate is below two. Uh, so you're right. It really depends on how immigration policies are going to change. Ron, how do you see this playing out? >> Well, we have to believe that in the near future, it will continue to be a liberal federal government. The the prime minister's numbers are very good. His polling is very good. Uh, if he chose to have an election today, he would probably win with a majority. you'll probably have a majority in a few weeks when the bi-elections are finished. Uh and it it there is a basic tenant of that federal government's beliefs that they believe in immigration and for that matter I believe in immigration but the reality is they had to fix a mistake when you were letting 1.3 million people come in in one year. It was just unmanageable and it put too much stress on the country. But I am absolutely certain that by 2028 we will see a return to reduced immigration numbers something like 325 to 375,000. And once that tap gets turned on again then we'll see the impact of it. Let me show you this chart here. This is the uh a chart of a mortgage uh 1, three, five and 10 year fixed mortgage rates in Canada. I remember 2022 very well. I know people personally who um either had to move out of their homes uh sell their homes because they just couldn't afford their uh their mortgage payments literally doubling. We we in Canada, unlike the Americans, uh we have to renew our uh mortgage rates every couple years depending on what the term is, but we don't have a 30-year here. So, uh are we about to see a repeat of 2022 is what's on people's minds. What do you think? >> I don't think so. And that's only because I I have a pretty rational belief that the war in Iran will end whether it ends in two weeks or whether it ends in a month and a half. Um with the midterms looming in the United States, I believe that eventually we'll see an end to that war. And then we'll see a correction in energy pricing, not instantaneous and not massive initially, but a gradual improvement in energy pricing. and that will more quickly transfer into bond yields and which will then transfer into mortgage rates. Uh it going down not immediately not instantly but the general belief that they'll be coming down and variable no longer once the war is over there's no chance that variable rate mortgages will go up in Canada that goes off the table. It's priced in now but that's only because of the war. As soon as the war ends um there will be no no chance of an increase in variable rate this year. So that is positive and that that will bring some uh measure of um security to the the people who are buying. Uh but right now we don't have it. >> Well, let's say I can afford to wait a year or two to buy a home. I'm comfortable renting. Should I do that? Should I wait? >> Well, right now the math favors renters. I mean, rents are falling. They'll continue to fall. They'll continue to fall all this year. They'll probably continue to fall into next year. Math favors renters. And until pricesi prices prices must continue to drop for anyone to beat that formula. If you can rent for substantially less than you would pay in a mortgage payment, you've got to think that that's uh going to be an advantage. And if you're sure that the rent's not going to skyrocket, which it won't. It's not going to go up this year, probably not next year, why would you feel motivated to buy a house? Because you might even become a lifetime renter. I mean, it's possible that that's going to be a financial benefit to people u if the prices in Canada continue to stay high. >> How significant were the tariffs on the Canadian economy, the US tariffs on the Canadian economy? Uh was that an overblown issue? Was the Canadian economy on a slowdown anyway, or did that really put things uh on on on pause? >> It's very regional. Uh you know, in Alberta right now, they probably are saying, "What tariffs?" I mean they're making so much money from the price of oil. But in Ontario, this is really important to understand in the last number of uh reports both on employment and on GDP manufacturing continues on a steady inexraable decline and manufacturing is Ontario. Um the the I think 50% of all manufactured goods uh come out of Ontario. So, if that downline, if that downs slope continues, it's nothing but bad news. >> What do you think of uh Carney's recent deal with China? At least making inroads into making deals with China. I'm talking about reducing the tariffs on Chinese EVs from 100% to 6% and in turn uh the Chinese have made it easier for Canadians to visit China without a visa. So, inroads into a thawed relationship under Trudeau. Long-term, where do you see this headed? So, you know, if you go back into the history of Mark Carney, the Liberal Party, uh, Brookfield, they have a tremendous affinity for China. Um, that's been established. It's real. It's not going to change. And by the way, the removal of the tariffs on agricultural goods was a major win. I mean, that is a tremendous positive impact for our farming sector. U, all that said, the the fact of the matter is simply this. The president doesn't President Trump does not want to see a bunch of EVs manufactured in Canada. Even if they're just manufactured like they take the BYYD uh car apart and put it into three pieces and then reassemble it here. So that's it's not really manufacturing. But he's opposed. We have I don't I I think we're all going to find out that this government has not done a great job about getting some progress on Koozma before the July deadline. Uh it looks like Mexico is doing a lot better job. And look, if if there's just plain, hey, we're going to cancel Kuzzma and renegotiate, if we get that message in July, all the tariffs problems will come back to life. They just will. >> What Well, what what is Canada's long-term survival strategy? If you were in parliament and you had to kind of think about the future of the country here, should we be making more deals with China? We're trying to get on America's good side. And by that I mean basically agree with Trump's demands. >> Look, you know, presidents come and go. Um Donald Trump has three years left to his term. If the midterms go against him, he'll be crippled in the things he could do. Um the reality is that we are tied to the United States. Canada can't escape that. Canada can't just say, "Well, we're going to make deals everywhere else in the world and we'll just export our way out of this problem." Uh the chance of that happening and the amount of time that that would take to happen, it's very unlikely. Canada should try to recapture a positive trade relationship with the United States. No question about that. Uh it's going to be good for Canada. It's going to be good for everybody in North America. But the reality is this. With a rupture in trade continuing, we're going to see some problems in Ontario and Quebec. Uh, Western Canada will probably be okay. Uh, but we are going to see continued recessionary problems in both of those provinces. It's just unavoidable. >> What needs to happen to turn these recessionary pressures around, Ron? >> There's only there's a threepart solution. It's energy, energy, and energy. It's resource extraction, resource extraction, resource extraction. I mean, that's what we're good at. That that's what we've got a lot of and that's what supplies a tremendous amount of revenue to our governments if we doubled or tripled our output of petroleum products and natural gas. Not only would it help in terms of our economy, it would be a tremendous impact on reducing our deficit and improving our lives. I mean, if you've got the world's third or fourth largest reserves, you need to sell it. I mean it there's no if if anything has become perfectly clear from this war in with Iran. Energy still runs this world. Uh every you know we're lucky we don't have uh every we don't have all our restaurants closing at 9:00 at night like they do in Egypt or half of them being closed all the time in Pakistan or lineups for gasoline in Australia, New Zealand. We don't have any of those problems. uh but other countries do and there's going to be no misunderstanding anymore. The idea that the world is going to suddenly convert to alternative energy in a decade is now dead. There's there's no one going to no rational person is going to talk about it anymore. So we have our time. It's our time to shine and develop resources like we've never done it before. We have to. It's necessary. And it is the answer. It's the answer to Canada's economic stagnation. >> Okay. Thank you, Ron. Where can we find your work and tell us about what you're covering on your podcast? >> Butler mortgage.ca is uh if you want to find our company. Uh right now we're focused on this endless um rent reduction, the population issues, the uh we've we've got almost weekly to bi-weekly updates on rates, where they're going. Uh so by all means uh tune in. We're on all kinds of media. We're out in Tik Tok. We're in uh Instagram. We're everywhere. Uh and uh just put Ron Butler into any search engine and something will come up. He's all over the internet, folks. Ron Butler. Google him. Thank you so much, Ron. We'll put the links down below. Make sure to follow his website as well as his YouTube channel. He's got great stuff. Thank you so much. We'll speak again soon. >> Thanks for having me. >> Thank you for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe.