BTC Sessions - Top 1% Realtor Reveals Canada's Housing Horror (Why He Holds Bitcoin)

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Mentor Sessions Ep. 042: Canada's Real Estate Horror Exposed: Unceded Land Claims Spark Massive Housing Crash – Why Top Expert Stacks Bitcoin | Steve Saretsky (Loonie Hour)Canada's real estate empire is crumbling. In this explosive interview, top Vancouver realtor and Loonie Hour co-host Steve Saretsky reveals how a single BC Supreme Court ruling on unceded territory has made 150+ homes unfinanceable overnight, sparking a wave of aboriginal land claims that could engulf entire cities like Kamloops and even Parliament Hill. With 90% of British Columbia on unceded land, property rights are under siege—lenders are bailing, sales are tanking, and national house prices have plunged 18%, the sharpest correction in 30 years. Steve breaks down why this housing crash is bigger than 2008, with Toronto condo sales hitting record lows and Vancouver homes now costing just 8 Bitcoin (down from 2,350 in 2015). As investors flee cashflow-negative rentals amid strict tenancy laws and soaring rates, Steve explains his Bitcoin bull stance: it's the ultimate hedge against fiat debasement and property chaos. Don't miss this wake-up call on why Bitcoin trumps bricks in a broken system.Chapters:00:00 Teaser00:01:25 Intro & Richmond BC Aboriginal Claims00:01:53 Background on Unceded Territory & Treaties00:03:54 Co-Existing Titles Dilemma00:04:49 Lender Reluctance & Financeability Issues00:05:35 Lands Unsaleable Without Discounts00:07:24 Emerging Claims Across BC & Canada00:08:08 Kamloops Entire City Under Dispute00:08:30 Ottawa/Quebec Bands Inspired by Ruling00:09:23 Parliament Hill on Unceded Land?00:09:30 Rectifying the Crisis & Government Response00:10:01 Property Taxes Lawsuit Implications00:10:40 BC Real Estate's GDP Impact & Slowdown00:12:08 New Construction Collapse00:13:54 Investor Pullback & Sales Data00:14:36 Seller Price Resistance & Market Freeze00:15:19 Sharpest Correction in 30 Years00:16:20 Bank Massaging DefaultsAbout Steve Saretsky:Top Vancouver realtor, real estate investor, and co-host of The Loonie Hour podcast. Widely regarded as a thought leader in Canadian Macro.X: @SteveSaretskyLoonie Hour: https://thelooniehour.ca/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SaretskyPrevious Episode:JP Morgan & BlackRock’s Coordinated Attack on MicroStrategy Exposed: https://youtu.be/vytDFdtKnrU💰 Supported by @BowValleyCU — Tired of big banks? Join Bow Valley Credit Union, run by freedom and sound money advocates, as Canada's only traditional institution directly integrating Bitcoin for seamless, no-hassle transfers, no rehypothecation, self-custody withdrawals, insurance, auditability, and ideal corporate balance sheet integration. If you or your business is in Alberta, switch today! 👉https://qrco.de/bgGaIQ⚡ POWERED by Abundant Mines: Fully managed Bitcoin mining. Learn more at abundantmines.com/boomers📚 FREE Bitcoin Book Giveaway: New to Bitcoin? Get Magic Internet Money by Jesse Berger FREE! 👉 Click: bitcoinmentororange.com/magic-internet-money 💡BOOK Private Sessions with Bitcoin Mentor: Master self-custody, hardware, multisig, Lightning, privacy, and more. 👉 Visit bitcoinmentor.io Follow Us on X:• BTC Sessions: @BTCsessions• Nathan: @theBTCmentor• Gary: @GaryLeeNYC#RealEstate #LandClaims #Bitcoin #HousingCrash #UncededTerritory #CanadianRealEstate #BitcoinTreasury #VancouverHousing #PropertyRights #BitcoinPodcast #BTC #SelfCustody #BitcoinAdoption #SteveSaretsky #LoonieHour

The entire city right now is technically under dispute. 90% of British Columbia is technically on unseated territory. The big banks don't want to come up publicly and say, oh, we're not lending on that land. National House Price Index is corrected to 18%, which is actually the sharpest house price correction over the last 30 years. There's probably still some more downside. I'm a Bitcoin bowl myself.

Everybody thinks it's just like a money laundering mechanism. And like the media has almost trained them to believe that. Whether you look at gold or you look at Bitcoin, they're both telling you the same thing. Today we're sitting down with Steve Sureski, top real estate insider, bitcoiner, and co-host of the wildly popular Looney Hour podcast. He's also one of the only realtors who will look you in the eye

and tell you the truth about the market's breaking in real time. In this episode, we discuss how a single court ruling completely undermined Canadian property rights, making parts of British Columbia unfinanceable and unsellable overnight. I'm not putting my client in there until this gets rectified or unless my client's getting a 30, 40% discount, why most real estate investors are still sleeping on Bitcoin. I just don't think they get it.

And that Canada is in the middle of its biggest housing bust, bigger than 2008 with sales absolutely collapsing. 25 new condo sales in the city of Toronto last month. Plus, he lays out the coming economic chaos and tells you the moves he's personally making to prepare. Shit really starts going sideways. Like, you pick up your USB stick and you can you move. All right, good morning, Steve.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Really excited to have this conversation. We're going to get into real estate and Bitcoin and all that fun stuff. Four, I actually want to pick your brain about what's going on in Richmond, BC right now, because a lot of our American listeners might not know. But back in, I think it was August of this year, we had the BC Supreme Court basically have a ruling regarding the, I think it's the Cowichin tribe, having title over about, I think, 3008 hectares or so, but 150 privately owned residencies there are impacted.

Okay, what's going on with this Aboriginal claim to BC privately owned homes? What's happening there? Yeah, I mean, like, high level. I'm not like a legal expert, but, so I, some background context. I grew up in the city of Richmond. That's where I'm born and raised, went to school there. I actually lived in couch and for a bit on the island there and played some hockey there. So I'm kind of stuck in the middle, so to speak.

But no, like basically, so like in Canada, I guess again, this goes back to like the 1800s, effectively, is based on like our constitutional law is, you know, you have to effectively do all these treaties. He's like, there's like Aboriginal rights are effectively titled to land, right? So basically 90% of British Columbia is technically on unseated territory. So what that means really is like just broad strokes for your audience is effectively. We don't have treaties with all these first nation bands. And so, well, you know, we've had, there's like a lot of, there's been a lot of ongoing claims or like, or disputes over like, hey, you know, this is our land.

You compensate us. And this has all been going on in the background. So, and so there's been the case recently. that was in the courts there for, I don't know, four, five, six years or maybe longer, where there's like a section of Richmond, which again, like Richmond being, you know, the main city of the airport, right? You're 10 minutes to YVR Airport, right? So basically what happened was the judge ruled that the First Nations banned or the, you know,

the First Nations preserve, they basically had a claim on this section of land in Richmond, which is basically farmlands and along the river saying, oh, you know, these guys used to fish there, you know, 100 plus years ago. And so the judge ruled that not only does their right basically supersedes the crown, so the government, the crown right, but it also can coexist. And this is the really sticking point. It says it can coexist with the fee simple.

So again, let's just unpack that a little bit further. I fact that what that means is let's just say you own a. house in Richmond and it gets stuck in this dispute where the First Nations say, hey, listen, we used to basically fish and farm or whatever and hang out on your property. They are taking basically the government's land effectively now and they're saying, listen, well, we have, we coexist. So they're not kicking anybody out. They're not saying, listen, get out of your house.

It's mine now. You're out of here. But what they're saying is like the judges said, listen, these two titles can coexist. Now you guys have to figure it out. The challenge is, is the. living in the real estate world, which is what I do, is you can't really have a title coexist. You have to understand clear boundaries of like, who owns what and what is the ownership structure. Do I own it in fee simple? Am I simply leasing the land on a 99-year lease off

this First Nations band? And so the challenge really is today is basically which lender is going to want to basically lend money against this collateral, right? And so like as a lender, you're looking at for a couple of things. You're wanting to know what is the value of the collateral, number one. And number two is how liquid is the collateral? Like if I lend my money and I need to sort of get it back, you know, maybe through a foreclosure process, how quickly is that going to have? And so both of those are basically up in the air. And so again, these lands, in my opinion, are not financeable. They're not sellable. I mean, as a realtor, I'd be like, well, listen, I'm not putting my client in there until this gets rectified or unless my client's getting a 30, 40%

discount, I don't see how anyone can rightfully go in there. So that's the real challenge today. And based on my conversations with lenders, most of them are all keeping it very hush, hush, right? Like the big banks don't want to come up publicly and say, oh, we're not lending on that land because that's just bad PR, right? Yeah. And so, but if you kind of, if you know who to talk to you effectively, what I'm being told is there's about 10 lenders right. now that will not lend on that land for new purchases. So if you're already living there, you got a mortgage, they're almost certainly just going to renew you.

It's, it's just good for business and they don't want to have bad publicity. But if you're a new buyer and saying, listen, I want to buy this place. I've got an accepted offer. I want a mortgage. A lot of them are going to find a reason not to do that loan. Maybe it's an outright denial. Maybe it's, I'm going to throttle your loan to value. Maybe it's the appraisal comes in way lower than what you think you pay.

So that's that's really what's happening. Now, the bigger thing is this is that this has set a case precedent that's saying the first nations can have claim effectively to other private fee simple ownership. And when 90% of British Columbia is on unseated territory, meaning they have not done treaties. with these First Nations, everybody's coming out of the woodwork and saying, well, yeah, we used to fish over there 300 years ago. So, like, you know,

if those guys are successful, like maybe we can be successful. And so, yeah, I think ultimately what's going to have to happen here is it will probably get reversed in court. It has to. But that could take several years, maybe longer.

I think you're going to have to do all these treaties. That's going to be very expensive. So, yeah, there's just a lot going on behind the scenes. I mean, like Canada wasn't galtz-gulch to begin with, but it seems like that's really undermining property right laws in the sense that if you can't even be certain that you own your home to lend against it. And again, of course, being in a debt-based monetary system, we need those loan creation or to have more money into the system. Have there been any, because it seems like the incentives are all right aligned that if you have any claim possibly, it's worth putting forward because you might actually get some property out of it. Have there been any other claims outside of the BC area or even more directly in BC that are coming out of the woodwork now that are following with this case?

Yeah, there's actually like a map, but I haven't looked at it too much into detail. There's like a map of like ongoing, someone created it. There's like a map of like ongoing disputes across British Columbia. And so you can kind of see them. And like one of the ones that's ongoing right now is the city, the entire city of Camloops, which is what? Yeah. So the entire city of Camloops is a population of 100,000 people. The entire city right now is technically under, under dispute.

And so again, the issue of the concern is, well, hold on a minute. And if that's the case precedent sent in Richmond, then in theory, that could also, and maybe probably should apply to places like Camloops. So that's the obvious one. I was watching a clip there yesterday. And there was another First Nations band that came out in Ottawa. They're Ottawa slash Quebec. And they actually, they came out and said, listen, we've been trying to negotiate and deal with the Quebec government for years. they've been sort of chewing us away.

And so we're going to formally submit a title claim. And they mentioned specifically the Richmond ruling as an example that they had watched very closely to say, listen, this has given us the encouragement that we needed that we should be successful or could be successful moving forward. So that's one. So they're kind of like evolving throughout the country. I don't know if it's confirmed. but I think I was reading it would be kind of ironic. I'm pretty sure Parliament Hill in Ottawa is actually an unseated territory. Really? That would be fun.

Yeah. Yeah, it would be kind of ironic if that's how it all played out. But yeah, so I mean, long story short, is my view, we'll get rectified. It has to get rectified. But it's a real problem. I know that the government is now, BC government is starting to actually listen to people in the industry and trying to understand. They don't even know. These guys have no clue.

They don't talk. I don't think they don't talk to anybody. They don't actually, they don't, I don't know who they consult with on like the real estate side. It's not me. They're apparently now getting in the right rooms. So we'll see how this kind of unfolds. Because I think this would also possibly have implications for property taxes. Like if you don't hold the title, why would you pay the property taxes?

You can at least make an argument whether or not it's a valid one or be held up in court. You can, I can at least see it being put forward or you're not fully on the hook for it as well too. So there's a, there's actually. actually, there's a claim right now, or not a claim, there's like a, like a lawsuit going on right now where all those people that were impacted in Richmond, they are actually suing, I can't remember if it's the city of Richmond or the British Columbia government, but they're suing based on saying, hey, listen, like, you know, give us our property taxes back effectively over the last number of years. That's incredible. I'm not, I'm not surprised. On that note then,

too, because I agree that I think this probably will be rectified in the courts. It just seems like if they didn't, like if it held up in some sort of way in the long term, I think it would be catastrophic for across the country. And it definitely would make Canadian real estate completely uninvestable, right? Because you don't know that you're actually going to hold the property anymore. It seems to me, and I want to get your view of what currently the state of the real estate market is like. Because I was pulling up from Stats Can. And in BC in 2024, I think it was 19.02% of the GDP for BC was real estate industry.

And so if things are slowing down, if you can't lend again, property further kind of putting another break, applying another break, that could have, I think, really bad economic implications, not only for BC, but even for the BC government tax revenue. Like, how are you possibly going to fund all these projects? Yeah, I think it's like, I think, I don't know if I don't have the exact specific numbers, but I think it's like the fire sectors of finance, real estate insurance. I think it's roughly 20% of GDP. I think in BC, I think I think I might be even Canada wide, to be honest.

But I mean, it plays a huge impact, right? Like rising home values, the wealth effects, the additional spending that comes from people's, you know, feeling wealthier, going out buying a second car, a boat, whatever, right? So obviously, when you have falling home values and uncertainty around the investment landscape, there's going to be knock on effects that, you know, don't always get captured in the, in those official stats. But like, yeah, I mean, I think obviously confidence plays a huge thing. I think that the real issue.

today, I think from like the economy moving forward is actually what we're seeing like the new construction development space. There's really like a we've had so much investment in real estate. Like obviously it's been like this 20 year even longer 20 year bull market where everybody just thinks it's just just it's just going to keep going up. Right. Like that's just what we've been taught like our parents pass that down to to their kids. And you know, we saw during the pandemic rate rates to zero the central bank telling everybody that rates are going to be low for a long time to go out and basically buy a big house effectively um and so like all of this and the government coming in and saying listen you know you know you don't have to pay your mortgage

for six months we'll do mortgage deferrals for everybody so it was basically like the government basically put like a floor under housing and told everyone to go out there and like blow their brains out and um that's effectively what they did and so what we've seen now is just just like sharp reversal, right? Rates up. Investors have really pulled back significantly. And the investors are predominantly focused and concentrated in the pre-construction space. So they effectively finance all new development in BC and a lot of Canada. And so as the investment landscape has soured, those investors have all basically turned away. And so if you look at like pre-construction numbers today in greater Vancouver, I think we're at about 3,500

sales year to date. So 35 new home sales year to date. We had about 20,000 in 2021. Wow. So, you know, you're like, this will be the slowest year in at least a decade from based on the data that we have. You know, you look at places like Toronto. I mean, you know, they've had record low sales all over the last 30 years.

I mean, they had 25 new condo sales in the city of Toronto last month. You say 25? 25, yeah, 25. Wow. Yeah, 25 condos in a population of 3 million people in that city. Just in the city, right? I'm not sounding. Yep, not even the GTA.

Yeah. Oh, my God, that's incredible. In your view, do you think, because it seems to be like nobody wants to come down in price. That's why the market's freezing, basically. Either you can't get access to loans or you don't want to take a mortgage right now because interest rates are too high. You think they might come down a little bit in the future or that the sellers don't want to adjust.

They're still looking at that. They're looking at that. 2022, 23, and they're trying to get maybe what they bought of this pre-construction or what they saw their neighbor selling for previously. It seems like we kind of have one of two options here. We're either they're going to have to step back in and put a floor under real estate again, so drop interest rates, make it more favorable conditions for buyer, or they're going to have to go with the affordability kind of crisis and allow them to actually correct down, which I don't necessarily think they're going to do. When this market gets unstuck, is it just new demand coming

online in your view because we have more favorable financing conditions? Or do you think sellers are actually going to adjust their prices down. If I'm not mistaken, like, even going back to 08, 08, we never had a correction compared to the U.S. Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't really have that much of a correction in 08, 09, right? It was like, it was about a year, right? It was a pretty sharp reversal. There's a lot of reasons for that, obviously, but,

which, you know, it's probably a longer conversation. But the, what we're seeing today is, like, national house prices are down about 18% from the peak. So the national house price index is corrected to 18% from the peak. which is actually the sharpest house price correction over the last 30 years. So we're kind of living through it now. I'd argue that my view there's probably still some more downside, right? So you're going to see 20 plus percent correction in national house prices.

Obviously, there's some markets like suburbs of GTA that are down, you know, 30 plus percent, right? Whoa. Yeah. I mean, like there's real corrections. I mean, the frothiest markets out in the far-flung suburbs. that went up like basically doubled during the pandemic. Those are correcting significantly. There's real problems there.

You know, in terms of government support, I mean, I think we're seeing it already from the banks, right? The banks are really, the banks have ultimately been massaging this the whole time through basically allowing people to extend their amortizations. Through blanket appraisals on pre-construction units, which effectively guarantees the price of what they paid on the pre-construction some condos so they can close. Yeah, we're just seeing banks are basically working with a lot of borrowers to sort of massage defaults, in my opinion. And because I ultimately view like the banks, you know, that's the bank's collateral, right? I mean, that's their asset.

And so like it's in their best interest. I think you have five large banks in this country. And in my opinion, they basically control the country. Like I think that they have a lot of say in policy. and I think it's in their best interest to obviously manage this house price correction. I'm not saying that prices won't go down further, but I've actually been a little bit surprised that we haven't seen government really come in with really a whole lot of new levers to support housing.

Like, I almost, like, every time they've houses have corrected, they've come in and basically supported them. You know, we haven't seen that. There's been some talks about, like, oh, you know, we should be extending amortizations for everybody. 50-year mortgages like the U.S.? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. So we're not seeing that.

I think the, you know, the Carney government came out in the latest budget. They had an opportunity to obviously, like, put forth some policy suggestions and ideas, and they didn't really do anything. In fact, they really basically just said, listen, like, I think they know that the resale market, the new construction market, I think they know it's kind of toast. And so they basically came out and like every policy they brought in was basically just, support the rental market, which is they're going to focus on building more rental housing. That's what we're seeing getting built today. And I think that seems to be the government's

direction. Like, let's just build a stable rental market and whatever happened to the resale market, like they're going to let the chips fall, at least for now. Attention on freedom-loving Alberta bitcoins. Tired of the big six banks freezing funds, blocking transactions, or slamming your account shut without warning or explanation, just for dipping into Bitcoin. Remember the freedom convoy debanking nightmare? The federal government has invoked the emergencies act. But don't let them control your money or raise your financial life. Join the pioneers over at Bow Valley Credit Union,

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No, not at all. I mean, I'm sitting here in the US of A. So I just, the idea that you could have a government say, well, these people own the land, but you also own the land too. And these two property rights can sort of coexist at the same time. Not in a 50-50 cents, but you own 100% of it and you also own 100% of it. So it just from basic logic doesn't fly. And all I'm thinking is if this is the case, and we already know the problems involved in real estate, everything involved and just upkeep and inflation and changing the market, all it's screaming in my head is just Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin. You can actually own that. I'm sorry. I mean, I know it's a Bitcoin show. I don't want to like jump right into it. But like where do you go from here long term? I mean, I, I, I, there's a lot about Canada that seems nice. Vancouver seems like a very lovely place. But I wouldn't invest my money if I, I didn't think that I had property rights there. I mean, yeah.

Like, I mean, I mean, obviously I'm a Bitcoin bowl myself. So I'm, I'm with you alongside that. I think that, you know, the thing that I've noticed is like the change in psychology. I think just I think I think the problem was is almost like people in Canada basically got lulled to sleep on the sort of sort of negatives. But like the risk. in in housing, right? Which is like, I don't think everyone, everyone really thought like rates could go up or prices could go down.

I think it's just been like, it's just like that it's like confirmation bias, right? It's the last, you know, or a recency bias of the last, you know, five, 10 years is what people are used to. And so, you know, I think like the big thing that I saw, and this might be like a little bit new for you, Gary. It was like, like, come back to like BC and this happened in Ontario too, but like BC in particular is you had a lot of people that, let's say a mom and pop, they have like an investment condo. Okay. They have an investment condo. They've got a tenant in there. They've had it for 10 years.

The tenants, you know, is under market, right? So they're paying $2,500 a month for whatever. Let's just say it's a one bedroom. Let's just let's say $2,500 for one bed and that's what they're renting out for. And, you know, you've got a variable rate mortgage and, you know, your mortgage is one and a half percent because rates are so low. And they, then all of a sudden your variable rate goes from basically one and a half to six in the span of a year. So all of a sudden, you know, what you have is a cash flow positive condo that produces, you know, net of your mortgage, net of your strata fees, net of your property taxes, you're making

$200 a month. Okay. There's no need to raise the rent, right? Because, you know, you've been making $200 bucks a month. You've got a good tenant. Don't disturb them, keep them happy. Sure. All of a sudden, your payment goes way up.

And so this positive cash flow in condos is $200 a month. Now you're losing $700 a month, negative cash flow, which for like a mom and pop, I mean, 700 bucks a month, it's nothing to sniff at, right? I mean, that's not at all. That's going to start really adding up. And so that's what we saw because the government in BC has these really strict tenancy laws and says, well, it doesn't matter. You can only raise the rent, you know, 2% a year.

So all of a sudden you're like- It's not even tied to CPI? They basically have been, it was supposed to track CPI. And then what happened was inflation. Obviously went like crazy and, you know, during the pandemic. So like actually, no, no, no, no. You know, we can't allow you to raise rent 6% this year or whatever. So like we're going to cap it.

And actually it froze it at one year. And then the next year they raise it's like 2%. So basically as your maintenance fees are going up, as the cost of maintaining this asset is, is inflating. Right. I mean, the cost of trades, materials, et cetera. went way up. Of course. Like double digits and your variable and your mortgage went way up.

Yeah. The government basically like locked you in. It was like, no, no, no. You can only raise 2%. So what we actually saw there was like there was initial wave for like 18 months where you just had all these like four sellers. They're like, listen, I can't, I can't be losing 700 bucks for the next couple years. Of course.

So those became four sellers that ultimately added to the inventory. And I think that's why we've seen is like there's just been so many investors now that that have been scarred by that experience, that I think now we're starting to hear more and more people that are like, hey, you know what? Like, wow, it seems like people have actually done really well in like the stock market. Like maybe that's an alternative or like crypto and Bitcoin.

Like I think we're starting to hear more and more of that from like local BC Canadian residents. That makes perfect sense. Sorry, just to even add quickly. We've done a ton of work with real estate investors out of Ontario. And I think it's much been the same thing where they've had a bad experience of the last couple of years with the real estate portfolio in the GTA area, and they're coming into Bitcoin.

They're looking for another alternative for all the reasons that you listed there. Gary, I'm sorry. I interrupted you there. I was going to say you mentioned earlier about the government trying to use more levers there, but how many levers do they have left? I'm sorry, I did a little bit of minor research before our chat today, and I went on your website, and I saw a picture of a home, and I'm sorry to say it didn't look like that great of a home,

for like three-bedroom one bath in Vancouver. over two million Canadian, this was going to cost me over 23 Bitcoin for this house on this small lot that is roughly the same as mine where I live. I don't have anywhere close to 23 Bitcoin. What is the point? Like, I feel like we've got to be close to the top of this bubble to mix a metaphor. But like, what more can you do? Like, I mean, listen, I do a lot of presentations to like, you know, American investors and stuff over the years. And like the one thing I'd say, the one thing I'd like, I put like an ashter. I'm not going to justify our values.

The valuations are pretty crazy. Obviously, we're in the inner city. I think Vancouver is one of the most affordable housing markets in the world. I think we're like top five. The one thing I think the problem with Canada is, is like it's a really small country. Like it's 40 million people, right? I mean, it's like one tenth the size of the United States. effectively. And so, like, I think the challenge of Canada is, like, there's really, like,

there's only, like, a couple big cities that actually, like, all the immigration and, like, all the, like, if you're looking for, like, you know, if you're a young person, you're looking for, like, economic opportunity, like, it's kind of like Vancouver, Toronto, like, okay, you can sprinkle Calgary and you can sprinkle, like, a little bit of Montreal, but, like, that's it. So like when you look at like the price charts like And I think like Vancouver and Toronto or something like 70% of our national house price index So when you see this chart that just goes up to the right like it's pretty much like comparing like and saying like show me the price chart of like New York and Seattle Right which like new I mean I've been to see I got cousins in Seattle like it's expensive as hell in Seattle too

So I would say like Vancouver is kind of like the Seattle Toronto is kind of like the New York. obviously it's like smaller scale. I think there's obviously way more opportunity in higher incomes in those in those Americans in cities. But that's the equivalent. Like, you know, like if you're like, if you're a new immigrant, like, it's not a lot of people going like Winnipeg and Regina. Like it's just like and housing is really affordable there.

I mean, you get a nice house in Saskatchew on for 400 grand. I mean, but like nobody wants to live there. So like everybody just keeps flooding into like these two major metros. And I think that's ultimately why the valuations are like super supportive or like not supportive. That's why they're so high in my opinion. It's partially anyways. We've got, you know, offshore money. We've got some dirty money.

We've got, you know, a lot of borrowing. So there's there's a lot of variables. But I think that's like the important context. I recently drove down, had to go drive down to the States. And there's a whole lot of nothing. There's a whole lot of nothing in between, you know, Calgary and Vancouver. I've done this country coast to coast several times. Like the drive from, what is it, like, Winnipeg to Thunder Bay, it kind of just sucks.

It's just land. There's nothing there. Yeah, so, like, you know, it's crazy. So, like, the second largest, like, or like one of the larger cities in, like, British Columbia. So you got, like, Vancouver. Then you got, like, Colona, which, like, Colorado is like a city of, like, 150,000 people.

Like, that's, like, a small town in the U.S. So, like, and that's, I think the big challenge with, with, like, Canada. It's like, yeah, it's a massive land mass, but like, it's largely undeveloped. So, yeah, it's, I don't know, it's crazy. There's some nuances there, but yeah, I don't know. And, you know, the funny thing is I always like say to people, it's like, again, if you're like an American, like, there's no Canadian that gets excited about TSX. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? Like in the U.S., you guys got all these, like, amazing companies. You got the S&P 500.

Everyone's like, you know, you've got to index the S&P. Like, man, like nobody's getting excited about the TSX in Canada. You got a couple banks. You got a couple, you know,

phone companies and then you got some, some oil and gas. So like every Canadian base is just like, well, I get, I get rich or I can make money in housing. Like that's, that's the way it's been done for the last 30,

40 years. And like, that's what people know. And again, I think like obviously, I think that conversation, and hopefully starts to shift in other directions, you know, Bitcoin being one of them.

But yeah. On the Bitcoin note, I'm actually kind of curious. One, do other people in the real estate space in Vancouver, what's their sentiment, what's their vibe towards Bitcoin right now? Because it seems like the obvious parallel. Like if you've identified real estate as an investment vehicle because of the broken money is just sucking up monetary premium, that you would be open to Bitcoin gold commodities,

kind of the works as well too. but I'm not sure if it still has, you know, the negative context. Oh, it's a scam. It's a Ponzi, all that sort of stuff. Or other Vancouver real estate investors figuring out Bitcoin. I think that I think naturally there's a lot of people that are still in real estate that are like, oh, like, this is what I know. It's a hard asset.

It's, I think that I think people still think it's like this like funny internet money, right? Which is like the uneducated sort of view of it. I think, you know, I love it. Like, you know, obviously there's a, there's like a generational thing to it too, right? Which is like, you know, you see the older generation, like everyone that's in their 50s plus that reads like the global mail. Everybody thinks it's just like a money long money laundering mechanism. Right. And like the media has almost trained them to believe that.

So like that's what they believe. And there's, but I mean, I'm seeing like I'm seeing more more like young people I think like that can't get on the housing ladder. if you can't get on the housing ladder, man, like, you're not going to do, you're not going to get there by, you know, the 60, 40 portfolio. So I think we're seeing more, more young people obviously like in crypto, in Bitcoin, like, because like they need the returns, man. Like they need like, you know, 6% a year, I ain't going to do it for them. So, like, I think that's what we're seeing.

I've had a few younger clients, like, you know, basically make a bunch of money in crypto and then sell some and use that as a lot of. a down payment to actually get in on the housing ladder because I think that's for a lot of young people that's kind of the only hope. I agree, Gary. Yeah, you know, I'm sorry, we were thinking about Vancouver to go back to this. Nathan showed me this website, this game where you could play Mansion or Crackhouse. Oh, man, it was the best.

I know what you're talking about. I was blown away. It was, for those that don't know, it's basically a website where they'll quiz you, then they'll show a picture of a house. And in Vancouver, it'll ask you, is this a Vancouver mansion? Or is it just some random crack house somewhere? And I got to tell you, I was at about a 20% hit rate. I was getting them wrong left and right.

So, I mean, it just gets back to my mind. At some point, there can only be so much that you try to prop this up before it all just collapses. It feels like Bitcoin, you don't need to worry about, I mean, I know I'm quote, unquote, pumping my own bags here, but you don't need to worry about a, tenant. You don't need to worry about obviously property rights. And I know you're saying it's just a generational thing, you know, the older generation. But at some point, the older generation is going to die off. And there's going to be a whole bunch of money left to a bunch of younger folks. I guess I just wonder what happens to Vancouver or just housing in general as an investment when people start

realizing like, oh, there's a better place to park my money. Yeah. I mean, I think like, I mean, yeah, Vancouver's definitely been like a dumping ground for like offshore havens as well. And Is there still, by the way? Because I remember there's a bunch of rules in place. I mean, it's still happening, obviously, a little bit. But like, it's a trickle to what it used to be. I mean, there's so many taxes and regulations that have really choked that off. I mean, the one thing that probably talk about is like, I think as you're seeing now,

I think my concern around housing would be obviously like the rate side of it, which is like, hey, listen, are we actually going to have stable mortgage rates like in the medium to longer term future when all this government debt is being issued? not only that, but obviously all of them are looking for revenue sources. And I think like property taxes is an easy lever to pull. And so that's going to hinder like the returns in that space, right? I mean, it's an asset that you can't move. So you're stuck with the jurisdiction that you're in.

But the one thing I'd kind of like point to, you guys like to something at the Bitcoin side. So I was point to like, you know, people talk about like Canada and Vancouver. and the real estate side of it. But like, if you look at the money side of it, so what's the average sales price of a Vancouver house when it's denominated in ounces of gold? And it actually peaked in 2005. So in 2005, in 2005, the average house costs 840 ounces of gold.

And today it is at 100. sorry 300 300 wow so at 05 it peaked at 800 and today you're at 300 ounces now if you go to bitcoin jeffo's favorite metric yeah yeah so in 2015 it was 2,350 bitcoin to buy an average house in Vancouver and today it sits at about eight. Wow. Oh, okay. That's amazing. When you talk to clients, are they like,

are kind of just your everyday mom and pop, just every day either home buyer or maybe like small real estate portfolio, are they aware of the money's impact on the real estate prices? Like, do they have that kind of understanding of why it's going up nominally? I don't think so. Really still even. I think like, I mean, there's some of my clients, I think that are like a little bit more in tune with that and actually following along and care about financial markets and the economics behind it. So I'd say like there's there's certainly that.

I mean, we have some sophisticated, you know, investors that we work with that that see what's happening. But I would say like the I just, yeah, man, I think it's tough. I think for the average person, I just don't think they, they get it. that's the one thing I'm like, listen, like, whether you look at gold or you look at Bitcoin, they're both telling you the same thing, which is like, just housing really hasn't been like the great investment, despite like nominal prices that look like this. Like, yeah, you have to start denominating it against other assets. And so, yeah, I think people are always surprised when I say, listen, like it peaked in gold terms in 05. Yeah, I would have not

of thought that far back. That's actually quite a little bit shocking there. I do want to pick your brain about the U.S. markets and kind of macro more generally. But before I do too, I want to get your sense of, because I haven't, I haven't been to Vancouver for quite a while. I think it's been like eight years or so since I've gone to the West. But what is the current like boots on the ground sentiment both towards Alberta and as well around like the EB government? Like I see all these things. I saw you post about a fire hall that had like a record number of overdose calls. I saw somebody throughout there a stat. I don't know if it's accurate, but it was like 70. at a 10,000 homeless in Vancouver.

It sounds to me like it may be worse than even a decade ago, but I don't know, I still see like, like we have a memorandum of understanding. You still can't get Alberta energy going west. There's always seems to be like this little bit of tension between BC and Alberta. Is there any change in sentiment towards the current kind of regulation in government in BC? And what is the kind of like Vancouverite take on Alberta right now? Do they still think we're a bunch of just, you know, redneck oil,

oil drilling monkeys. Yeah, that's funny. I mean, I think like if you look at, I'm just trying to pull it up here, but if you look at like, if you look at the polling around support for a pipeline from Alberta to BC or through BC, even like the majority of British Columbians support it.

So like our government's kind of in the minority. I think their base is obviously like, you know, the NDP being a more left. I think their base is like, like, I don't know if I'd say the majority of their base is anti-pipeline, but the reality is the majority of British Columbia in support a pipeline from Alberta through BC. So, I think the challenge with, yeah, BC is, it's tough. We had like, I think it was like 18 years of Christy Clark, who was like a little bit. She was like more like probably center right, I would say.

And then they, you know, people just got sick of her, like housing exploded underneath her. And that was kind of like the death knell and then they you know then we voted in the nDP and um really since like david eb got in it's been a it's been a train wreck i think we went from like six billion dollar uh budget surplus to both 13 billion dollar deficit or something like that in the last couple years so um yeah i think it's more like he's uh he's very ideologically driven and his view is yeah he doesn't want a pipeline so i don't know we'll see what happens i think then I'm optimistic it'll get done. But yeah, I don't know.

I think British club unions are viewing Albertans a little bit more favorably these days. Good. Well, I'm glad to hear that at least. Hopefully they'll have nice feelings towards the free state of Alberta when it eventually happens. You know, it's still like even just like Gary,

I apologize for the Canadian rant. No, please. This is Canada talk. I'm just watching. It's still absolutely like the election of Carney still absolutely shocks me. Like I did not think that Canadians were that kind of lulled to sleep or that easily redirected. And for anyone else and checked it out, your conversation with Bloomberg has been unbelievably accurate.

I think that was like a couple months before the election. Doomberg. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is actually like everything seems to be moving that direction that like Carney is going to get in. For some reason, Trump wants him.

We're going to get a pipeline. And we see that set up with the memorandum of understanding, which again, I don't think it necessarily has teeth, but everything's kind of going in that direction. Yeah. you would think that at some point here that there would be enough kind of pain in the real estate market or housing or an employment data is looking terrible these days as well too that we might get a bit of a shift but it seems like no it's actually because you're directly in the Vancouver area too you're kind of an outlier being a little bit like a conservative libertarian leaning Vancouver real estate. Yeah I mean honestly man I feel like I'd consider myself

to be honest like more center like maybe like maybe slightly center right like I mean yeah it's funny because like people in the pot like we got comments from our podcast, you know, you guys are so rightly. And I think, man, I'm not. I got voted for all sorts of different parties over my life. Like, I just, you know, try to look at things through like an economic lens. I'm like, this is crazy. Like, why are we self-sabotaging ourselves by not like digging out our resources?

And that was like the view of the liberal government over the last 10 years. Yeah, I think it's kind of crazy that people rewarded them with another four-year term. I mean, I'm, I'm optimistic and encouraged by the direction the new administration has taken. Clearly, you're seeing some of the wing nuts like Stephen Gilbo dropping out. And so that to me, a guy like that dropping out is very encouraging, that to me, signals something. So, I mean, yeah, when you look at like the last 10 years in Canada has basically been like no productivity growth, doubling down on like rampant immigration, you know, a million people a year, which is absolutely insane.

And, you know, and housing. And so it's like you've derived all of your economic growth as basically has been like more people coming in and pushing house prices up. And so like that's not going to be the solution moving forward. Politically, it's not acceptable, but also just like, listen, there's no new housing getting built. Like the developers are all in life support. Insolvencies are rising. that housing market's going to be very weak for a number of years. So you're not going to be able to drive any growth there.

So like the only other thing you have in Canada, like you don't have tech companies. You're probably not going to have tech companies, at least not on any sort of meaningful scale. And it's like what we have is like our competitive advantage is natural resources. You just have abundance of natural resources. And that's like our conversation that we had with Duneberg, who's I think one of the leading authorities in that space, you know, like the conversation that struck me the most was how bullish and optimistic he was on Canada like a year and a half ago. Yeah.

Because I think he ultimately viewed that there was going to be no alternative, that the pain was going to be so uncomfortable that it would force our policy makers to pivot. And I think I'm hopeful. I think that's what we're starting to see now. Yeah. It's interesting too because he called and I, I will, I will. just put myself in the separatist camp and I'm fine with that. Because he even called that there would be growing tension with Alberta's separatism

and the federal government and that ultimately the pipeline would be kind of the concession to get them to stay. And I don't know if you caught this, but we just had like the UCP AGM, not the like a week ago or so. And Daniel Smith got booed and a guy who brought up Alberta independence got a standing ovation at the UCP meeting. So that feeling, that sentiment is definitely growing here. I'm not saying essentially representative of the entirety of Alberta,

but that tension between our province and the federal government is absolutely growing. What's your, I'm just curious. I don't live in Alberta, so I don't know the day-to-day general sentiment, but like if you get out of your house and you just sort of like talk to all sorts of different people, like what would you say the general attitude towards Daniel Smith? Do people, is like,

is she relatively like, does she, like very dislike? Like, what is the overall broad scope sense? sentiment towards her. Broadstroke sentiment would be like, if you're looking at perhaps older millennial and up,

we're looking at like middle class and kind of up for sure. And we're not including Edmonton because that's just a weird orange dot in the middle of our province. Very positive, right? She's had a very positive sort of reception. She was able to kind of really capture because it was Jason Kenney really screwed up over COVID.

And she was able to kind of like recover the brand and continue from that point forward. So generally outside of what I would call like your classic kind of. metropolitan attitude very much like there's going to be a course within calgary downtown within emminton you're going to have some opposition and i'd even say too like if you go out to like uh the suburbs around the major metropolitan's like cochrane and erdry and okotokes and in high river things like that um it's funny because there's uh there's support for her but there is definitely a push for her to be more aggressive with the federal government and even from conversations that i have which again isn't representative of the entire population, but larger than you would think, the idea of Alberta

independence, a lot of the times what I hear from the, like, different people over and over again is it would be nice, but it's never going to happen. And so everyone kind of is in this position where they don't realize that they're all saying the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, that seems to make sense to me. I mean, you're never going to satisfy everybody, right? And that's something with politics. I think that the challenge we have in BC is that we haven't really had like a true we haven't really had a true alternative to david eb and the ndp like there hasn't been a great like you know what's crazy is like our we had the bc conservative party which literally started out of nothing like two years ago they almost won they came with him like

you know a hair of winning the election they basically only got there because of peer Paul, yeah, everybody just, everyone that voted assumed that, oh, the basic conservatives is a part of the federal conservatives. And like, I like that peer guy. Despite having, like, a really, my opinion, like not a very inspiring leader. They still almost pull it out.

So, yeah, I'd be kind of curious to see. I think that, I think EB's on the hot seat for sure. Agreed. I think one of the unfortunate things is that particularly even go back to the idea that people don't realize that the problems originate from like the base layer. They come from the money as well, too. which means that they'll not be open to kind of more fiscal responsibility or more austerity kind of practices in order to correct the ship because they don't really understand the underlying problem in the same way that we see like Gen Z, the younger generations, they're skewing quite, there's quite strong socialism and communism there.

And it's like, I get that because the system isn't serving you. If you're, man, if you're like 18 graduate, even if you're graduating with an engineering degree from UBC right now, right? Good luck buying a home in Vancouver. It's never going to happen. if you've got nothing already saved up or you don't have someone that can necessarily help you. And so if you're mischaracterizing that as a problem with like capitalism or mischaracterizing that as like, oh, we need more social programs to fix this. Like I can't see a conservative government really winning in BC without that knowledge of what the root cause actually was.

It was like Peter Thiel actually wrote about it. I don't know if you guys saw that, but it was actually like pretty pretty well articulated. I think it was like an email he had sent out to like a whole bunch of, he goes like Zuckerberg and all other guys, but like, basically he was like, listen, like, if you're wondering why, like, you know, this is obviously referencing the United States, but like, if you're wondering why more and more of these young people are like gravitating to the left and towards socialism, it's like, it's because like these people will basically, you know, have been denied the social contract, right?

I mean, like the money is effectively broken. They have no assets. And so because they have no assets, they're not benefiting from the, you know, all time high in stocks, crypto. real estate, like they haven't benefited from any of that. So when you have nothing, you're just going to vote for handouts. And so, yeah, I mean, I look at it through a lot of that lens, like whether you're in the US or whether you're in Canada.

You know, yeah, I see it. Like I see like obviously you think about like a younger person. Like they're very much in favor of like rent controls and, you know, stronger tendency laws because they don't own housing. And but they don't realize is that ultimately like by in by putting those in place, you actually disincentivize more supply. And ultimately, you know, you choke off supply and you ultimately push rents higher over time. So, yeah, I don't know.

It's kind of sad, but I don't know, like, I know you guys are bit Bitcoin proponents as am. I just like, you know, Jeff Booth's, you know, I consider him a buddy of mine. And like, I think he just eloquently puts it. Like, I don't think there's any fixing this current fiat system. And that's, I think, a root of a lot of the problems that we're facing. I completely agree. And actually, we interviewed Jeff, what was it, like a month or two ago. But the thing that shocked me and, like, really put me back on my heels was he's left.

And I always very much viewed him as, like, a very grounded, a very optimistic kind of like Bitcoin monk. And so to see him go, like, I got out of Canada, that started to make me a little bit nervous. Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy, man. I haven't chatted them since then. But yeah, I mean, it's concerning. I think people are definitely, there still are concerned about the direction of the country. And I mean, I'm sure that people, there's definitely, I'm sure people in the U.S.

that feel similar depending on your politics and all that stuff. But like, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think like when you see what's happening in politics and in these like big cities with crime and drugs and it's like, yeah, it's like, man, it's a pretty compelling case to have like a USB effectively with, like, like a whole bunch of Bitcoin that you can basically pour it with you anywhere you want, you know, like, which is the difference of having like,

you know, gold bars. I mean, you can't really care. You can't lug those around you, but it's like, hey, listen,

if shit really gets, starts going sideways, like, you pick up your USB stick and you, and you move. 100%, which funny enough, I got two things.

And Gary, let you jump in. One, I actually know a guy here in Alberta who did that, that he was in China during the, with the beginnings of the lockdown, saw the writing on the wall and took his entire network. him back to Alberta in his overhead compartment on a plane and bought a house here.

So, yes, that is people, especially people coming in to get attracted for a number go up, but the ability to port your entire net worth with you anywhere in the world by memorizing 12 words is really powerful as like a security blanket or like a fire extinguisher, emergency exit, if need be. And even just speaking to the crime of the cities too, I used to be a bit of a degenerate punk rock musician back in the day here. I spent a lot of time in downtown Calgary. We'd walk from bar to bar to show show every night too.

The last couple of years, like, I don't feel comfortable being downtown Calgary at night. I won't walk through the alleys, the trains. Everything's just completely, it's just gotten so much worse. Friends that I used to spend time with, I remember I ran to a friend I used to hop around with. And she told me she just won't do it at night anymore. Like, we used to, it was, it was fine. Like, 10 years ago, Calgary was very safe downtown. No issues.

It's not the case anymore. It's gotten a whole lot worse. Now, with all that, our American friend, Gary, what questions do you have? Well, speaking of America, you know, I've always just thought of Canada for a long time until I kind of started working with these great folks over at Bitcoin Mentor as basically kind of America Jr. I would just kind of joke about it. Oh, there are a nice little neighbor to the north. And it wasn't until I talked to Nathan and a few of the other folks like Ben that I realized how bad it's gotten, just the economy, the move to the left, socialism, all that sort of stuff. I don't know how up you are in American politics or American economics, Steve, but do you see anything going on in our country that would sort of lead us down that similar path. Jeff leaves Canada as he could have to move again in another few years. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, I think like US is obviously like it lives and breathed capitalism.

So I think like you're probably the furthest away from going like full socialist obviously. But yeah, I mean, there's some interesting like signpost. I mean, I think like the one thing I'd maybe be like concerned about maybe this is just like an outside observer. but like the crime and the violence, I think, is, is in especially like big major cities is obviously, like, from an outsider would be concerning. I mean, I have people that have moved to Vancouver specifically from the U.S. being like, listen, like, I just, I was worried. My kids, shootings, like, you know, to me is, is one, I suppose. I don't know.

I think it's just like an interesting case where I'm kind of like, I don't know, like, I think like. I'm more concerned about some of these big cities, you know? Like, and I'm saying like Vancouver's the same, right? It's like, yeah, and if you can't, if you can't uphold the social contract and the money dies or is dying, does the homeless just keep getting worse? Which, and the homeless brings more drug use and the drug use brings more crime and is it this sort of self-reinforcing feedback loop? that's where I always get interesting where it's like oh that like maybe maybe there's a case be made that like you know you move to the burbs and you you know you get that like little piece of farmland right like it's kind of like the dark side of me feels like that's kind of where we're

going agreed i hope that turning vibes yeah like i hope i hope it's obviously not the case but i'm like yeah i don't know what like i just don't see a solution right like the solution right now from governments whether it's in the U.S. or whether it's in Canada or pretty much around the world is like more more deficits, more government spending. Like we're just going to keep trying to paper over all this. Like we just need to get more money out there. And so like in my opinion, like the debasement will continue. Yeah.

And that just ultimately hurts like the bottom. It's really like it is like the bottom 50, right? Like it's like that like I don't know. I just, I was chatting with a bunch of people this week just on like, you know, this K-shaped recovery, which is like,

it's so true. Like, it's like if you're in the bottom, you're in the top like 40, like I don't know, I think you're doing fine. Like, you know,

you've probably own some equities. You probably own some Bitcoin. You probably own some real estate. Like you're kind of, you're kind of keeping above it. But it's like you've been in the bottom 50. You don't really have any assets. Like you're just getting destroyed.

Like food prices are still going up. you know, they're telling you CPI's two and a half percent. Yeah, man, I don't know. Yeah, I'm with you. When you said before, the debates will continue. I could think of the debase that will continue until morale improves. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The beatings will continue.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm like, I want to be optimistic and say like, oh, we'll figure it out. But like, yeah, when you look ahead the next three to five years, I'm like, I don't. I don't see any like nobody nobody nobody's talking about austerity. I mean, nobody, nobody wants it. It's crazy. We had a city of Vancouver, just funny, like topical, but like for the first time in years,

the, couldn't there's an other, you know, to be fair, there's an election coming up next year. And so the mayor was like law, obviously you want to get reelected. So he announced that he's freezing zero percent growth in property taxes. People.

Okay. There was like, I think more people than less people, more people were mad about that. I saw that in your X feed, your Twitter feed. Yeah, they were mad. People are like, dude, it was like, people are really pissed off. Like, man, I've never seen people like complain about like their taxes not going up. I mean, obviously like, well, you know, he's going to cut services and the library is going to be closed an hour earlier because as a result, he's cutting the art budget. It's like, well, you got to cut somewhere.

You know, you can't obviously zero. I don't know. It's just interesting, man, because like we've had property tax growth over the last three to five years, huge. Have you had Ken Sim on the pod yet? No, I mean, I've chatted with him. I mean, he's a good buddy of Jeff's and. Yeah, I was another Bitcoiner right there too.

Yeah, he's a Bitcoin. Yeah, I got orange filled by Jeff. Yeah, you know, I've chatted him. Never had him in the pod. You know, it's funny. I don't think he's a politician. He'll tell you that. But he's just doing what he thinks is best.

And that doesn't really go over well. politically in many cases. So we'll see how he performs in the next election. But yeah, it's just crazy for to see people mad about that. It's such a small adjustment as well, too. It's just ridiculous. And even to your guys's point, it's the, I agree. I'm not at all bullish on the cities.

I think we're going to see, we say like social disorder increase over time. And realist, like just fundamentally, like if you have young men aging in that don't have any career prospects, that don't own any assets that can't save up, that aren't married. Like, what investment in the society and community around them do they possibly have? You got to...

None. Yeah, I have many friends that have moved out of the cities and have followed me west here. And I have something that have even gone further now and done the acreage thing. It's like they've got their land. They've got their horses and they got their kids and they're happy. And at least for, if not for even a temporary position for the next decade or so, I think you're actually putting yourself potentially at rest being in the heart of these metropolitan areas. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, I definitely like us. I definitely ascribe to the fourth turning, um, viewpoint. Like to me, it feels very obvious. Yeah. Even like the school systems now, man. It's just like crazy. Like what they're teaching kids and.

Oh, dude. Yeah, I'm homeschool all the way. And I've been a bunch of Bitcoiners. I've had a whole bunch that I've spoken to about this as well. Yeah. It's like, Steve, when you and I were in school, like it was never this bad. It was never this time. It was finding it really interesting is like I'm obviously seeing like,

more and more of my friends and maybe that's just a circumstance that, that, you know, who I'm surrounded with them seem like more and more people are putting their kids in private school, not because they want to pay the money or they're happy about it, but they're like, listen, like, I just, I can't get, you know, I'm, you know, yeah, I've seen a lot more people pushing into like those like, like, sort of like Christian or Catholic. You know, it's interesting. I've been reading a lot about it recently. It was actually a really good podcast with Grant Williams brought.

He was actually a finance guy that was on his pod. there seems to be like a rebirthing of like religious, which I find very, very fascinating, which again, I think all ties in like the fourth turning stuff, which is like, yeah, people are, people are trying to like move back to like anchor to like, which, yeah, it's funny interesting because feels like, I don't know, man, like it feels like everybody like used to be religious and then like it was like totally not cool and like everybody like that grew up religious is no longer. And now like it's kind of like, I don't know. Yeah, I find it really fast.

anything. That might just be a natural. No, sorry. It might just be a natural rebelliousness against parents. Like, oh, my parents did it this way. I'm going to do it the other way. And then it'll swing back the other way, maybe in a generation or so. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's a pendulum swinging, but I've got a different take. Yeah. I do. I do think it is, it's returned to optimism and hope. Like, we get that from Bitcoin as well, too. But if you don't have that elsewhere, it is a message of optimism and hope and it's returned to structure. I think there's also a lot of implications from people that didn't have the familial bond that they needed when they're younger.

So think like for millennials, think daycare generation, right? You never really had this strong sense of community. You maybe were away from your parents most of the day, saw them for like an hour or two at night. And so there's this, there is a warmth and kind of romanticism and having like a strong kind of familial tie.

And then the other one too, that particularly from the Bitcoin angle, because there's a lot of Bitcoiners that have like the return to Christianity and kind of openness to that, which again seems counterintuitive of like, you know, don't trust, verify, and then it's outright faith.

But I was having a conversation with Madex about this, that if you can verify it, if you look at it from a empirical sort of standpoint. And what I mean by that is, like, I was at the University of Calgary for a long time. I was like the hidden libertarian amongst their ranks, making my way up.

I was going insane there. But the people that I felt most kinship with, despite me being atheist, the people that I felt most aligned with in terms of like values and morals and kind of outlook, even on economics, was the Christians. And then even as my life has progressed,

the people that have the best relationships that I see that have like you should never take advice from somebody you wouldn't trade places with. And I see like the Christian friends and associates and they have great families and great relationships and their businesses are doing great. And so even if you don't look at it from like I can't verify the religious aspect of it, but I can verify that all my atheist friends are miserable and doing terrible and my Christian ones have these wonderful families and businesses. So like there's something maybe there at least being involved in the community. At least that's my kind of sense of it. Yeah, I don't know. I just find it interesting. I just think they're all connected. And, you know, we've like, you know, whether that's, we talked about real estate, but you get like the fiat currencies and crypto and politics and homelessness and all this other stuff. And I think it all, I think all these pieces are interconnected. And it's like, yeah, it's a lot to digest. But I mean, I think if you're paying attention, I think it's pretty obvious. Beautiful. Gary, do you have any last questions? I have one more quick one. No, I just want to say, Steve, thank you so much for just coming up. on and being real with us because you could easily sat here, you know, real estate is your business, no pun intended on the real thing. And, you know, you could have just tried to defend it at all cost and defend the Vancouver market and spin it. And you didn't. You were just very up front.

And we really appreciate that here. Obviously, your business is real estate. Obviously, you have investments in there. If you weren't investing in real estate, let's say that's, you can't do it. What would be the next place that you would park your money? And if it's not Bitcoin, you can feel free to say, no, oh, man. Like, honestly, I've got like a good exposure. of Bitcoin. So I'm definitely in that camp. Real estate for me is, is number one just because that's my space. It's my core competence. But I'd say probably if I looked at like my number two asset on my balance sheet, you probably Bitcoin. You know, I'm still a believer in having like a diversified portfolio, like, you know, a professional money manager taking a, you know, a bunch of

that is like sort of like the safe side of things and having like the, I think like what I'm I'm appreciating more and more now is just like liquidity, right? Yeah. And I think because that's what we've seen, especially like, I think the real estate market's shaking up a lot of people, which is like, hey, listen, if you want your money, you want to get it out. It can be really burdensome and really, really difficult to get it out. And so I think just having liquidity, obviously Bitcoin is incredibly liquid.

But, you know, so is like a diversified portfolio. And so, yeah, I would say a real estate one, Bitcoin 2, and then sort of a sprinkle of the traditional I wouldn't say 60, 40, but you get the point. That's beautiful. Thank you. I also want to echo Gary's point as well, too, because I think you're the only, I think you're the only realtor I've ever met who will actually be like, no, if things aren't looking good in the future, they'll tell me.

Every time I talk to them is either it's bullish now or it'll be bullish in three months. Like rate cuts are coming. Don't worry. It's going to take off in three months. I appreciate the honesty there. Last quick question. So for those that don't know, you are part of the Looney Hour. We'll get you to throw that plug in at the end.

But I actually met up with your co-host, Rich, when I was at the Montreal Canadian Bitcoin conference. and I got a cold card into his hands. I got to teach him how to use it still. So you got to make sure we set that up. Have you ever used a cold card and do I have to get one sent to you as well? Man, I don't even know. What the hell is a cold card?

I've got a cold wallet. That's like, I got the best of the best. It looks like the old blackberries for you. So I'll make sure to see hook that up for you at some point in time here. And then lastly, of course, where can people go to follow you, the real estate side, the podcast side, YouTube, all that fun stuff. Yeah, the podcast, pretty much on all podcast platforms.

It's called the Looney Hour. So that's kind of like my, my passion project. And then super active on Twitter X. So yeah, I'll tweet about real estate, but also a lot of like, you know, a bit of politics, a bit of like global macro in there. So, yeah, Twitter, Twitter and the podcast. Hey, you. Yes, you watching the Bitcoin price movements and the latest exciting news.

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