Over the past few days, I've been decluttering my basement.  I'm getting rid of stuff that I don't need, because I've accumulated so much junk over the years.  As I was cleaning, I came across something that was kind of interesting. In 1985, I was just finishing  my first year of university and got my first real summer job working as a courier (kind of), driving a Chevy S10 pickup truck for a construction company. I can't remember my hourly wage, but what I found in my basement  believe it or not) was my record of employment. Back in 1985, I remember specifically that the price of gas was 29 cents a litre, because I was constantly filling up the truck. So my record of employment showed that I worked 14 weeks and made $3000 that summer. If you think about that - if you do the math - 29 cents a litre and made $3000.  Right now, the price of gas is about $1.45, so technically, what I made back then would be equivalent to making $15000 for the summer now.  It's impossible for kids these days to do that, so as you can see, the price of gas shows the rate of inflation over the years and how the cost of living has gone through the roof. 

So, that brought me to my point today:  I was watchnig the news this morning and they were talking about inflation ticking in at about 4.7%. The government wants to keep it at 3% and we all know that the expected rate hikes are in March, but there' s a chance that they might be raising rates at the end of this month. So, how does that affect the real estate market?  It does... a little bit. They're basically just pushing things forward. They're hoping to slow things down without seriously affecting the market. When governments step in (traditionally) and do things too drastically, it can be bad. In 2017, they brought in the stress test, which slowed things down immediately and it took about a year to recover.  They have to be careful this time because everybody knows that real estate is in the "too big to fail"  type of category because it affects so many people. They're treading a fine line because they want to slow it down but they don't want to slow it down too much.  They want to cool it down, not slow it down.  They want to do it gradually and safely - that's what their plan is.  So, at the end of the month they're going to raise rates, but it's not going to be much. The raise is going to be so incremental, so small, that it won't really affect people that much.  One thing to consider too is there is still a lack of inventory and that lack of inventory is definately going to still keep driving the market.