Cottage Purchase Mania

As I sit on the deck of my eldest son's cottage I am listening to stories of the explosion of lakefront or just plain rural house purchases

City folk bidding up prices in some cases 25% to 30% over last year's comps

HUGE year on year change

2/

Some of the craziest stuff is about prices paid for houses not on the lake at all but maybe 1 to 4 klicks away from the water

Houses that sat on the market for a year that local folks felt were overpriced taken off listing for 2 weeks and then put back on at 15% increase

3/

And selling in a week full ask

Hey, we all understand why

Cooped up in a townhouse or condo for 4 months and then no easy way to vacation once lockdown is over quickly develops into: "We need a frigging cottage now!!!"

It's just human nature

And it's a Canadian trait

4/

After all, where is there a better place for waterfront cottages than here?

It's in our DNA

And inventory is totally limited

So if city folk become super interested over night..... sh*t happens quick

Now what will the outcome be? Other than lucky sellers today

5/

Well, the cottage market is notoriously volatile

A year of feast followed by several of famine

But what I find most interesting is the case study in cognitive bias

Because this is pure Recency Bias