Oh so close ....

[K-Court]

Originally Posted by jruck37

This is an American speaking forum, Frank.

Do you need a translation, Jamie? Made perfect sense to me.

[K-Court]

C$1 = US$0.9995 as of close Friday. That's about as close to parity as you get.

[Phaedrus49er]

I SWEAR Frank was trying to say something to us...

[K-Court]

And the Loonie is over the top .... first time it's closed over parity since November 1976. And it wasn't even a coin back then ... As of today's close, C$1 = US$1.0052.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/dollar_markets

[cappuccino]

just as I move across the border, too

[OldGuy]

Originally Posted by cappuccino

just as I move across the border, too

Cashed out too early, eh?

[K-Court]

Originally Posted by cappuccino

just as I move across the border, too

But that's a good thing, Christine, now that you're earning Canuck bucks!

[K-Court]

And so it continues ....

At 8:35 a.m., the Canadian currency was at US$1.0400, making a U.S. dollar worth 96.20 Canadian cents, up from Thursday's close of US$1.0353, or 96.59 Canadian cents.
During the overnight session the Canadian dollar rose to US$1.0416, making a U.S. dollar worth 95.90 Canadian cents, due largely to oil prices hitting a fresh record high above $92 a barrel.
The surge in the Canadian currency, which has consistently been hitting fresh multi-decade highs since it broke through parity with the greenback last month, marked its highest level since May 1974.

[Chris Correia]

Originally Posted by Mahler

I predict that we will be using the US dollar to play Monopoly in the near future. LOL

Don't you now?


My daughter thinks it's sad that the father of our country is on the one dollar bill. I told her he gets the most play that way. However, it may become a dishonor to him if our currency keep going the way it is.

[Phaedrus49er]

Originally Posted by Chris Correia

Don't you now?


My daughter thinks it's sad that the father of our country is on the one dollar bill. I told her he gets the most play that way. However, it may become a dishonor to him if our currency keep going the way it is.

Isn't there a sporadic push to eliminate the Lincoln-befaced penny? Same possibility, I suppose.

[Sign]

Originally Posted by russ

The ballet performances in Windsor are legendary.

Yes yes they are, and we have more um... ballet performances per capita then all of ON I believe, possibly Canada lol.

[K-Court]

This is starting to get weird. It's a rise of 18 cents in the past year. Wild.

TORONTO - The seemingly unstoppable Canadian dollar traded at a 47½-year high Monday, hitting 104.69 cents US late in the morning.

That's a gain of three-quarters of a U.S. cent since Friday as the currency hit a level unseen since early 1960 - when John Diefenbaker was prime minister and Dwight Eisenhower was still in the White House.

[duff beer]

The onslaught continues...107.04 with no sign that it is slowing down.

[stingo]

Originally Posted by Mahler

Oh, jebus. Now all those Canadian foreigners will be coming over the border to get a good deal on the exchange rate.

NPR's already done a story on it.

[K-Court]

I heard the other day that if it got over 1.06, it would be the highest in 130 years.

[OldGuy]

That's amazing! 130 years and you still haven't applied for statehood.

[Frank.S]

Originally Posted by OldGuy

That's amazing! 130 years and you still haven't applied for statehood.

Im surprised the USA isn't like, one of our provinces, I mean, its about the same size

[Sign]

Originally Posted by Frank.S

Im surprised the USA isn't like, one of our provinces, I mean, its about the same size

But then our property values would drop. It's bad enough having the loud, obnoxious neighbours next door. You don't invite them to move in with you.

[Frank.S]

Originally Posted by Sign

But then our property values would drop. It's bad enough having the loud, obnoxious neighbours next door. You don't invite them to move in with you.

Theyll get along great with Quebec :p

[K-Court]

$1.10 today. Following the crude price up.

[Sign]

How long before prices on goods starts to drop to reflect the strength of the dollar? They can't keep over charging us now or else they will just drive more people to shop in the US. Personally, being right at the border I have been making frequent runs to MI to hit Target and Meijer and load up on just about everything I need or will need for a couple months heh. If you do go over though, change your money on the CND side because many places in the US aren't giving an exchange based on current dollar.

[OldGuy]

And now they're invading. We better hurry up on that immigration law.

As loonie surges, Canadians snap up US homes
Snowbirds bring checkbooks to grab properties at deep discount

CHANDLER, Ariz. - Two hours after his flight landed in Phoenix, Calgary resident Doug Farley already was cruising the city's vast stuccoed suburbs in search of the one attraction Canadians cannot seem to get enough of these days: cheap homes.

There are thousands of them here: almost new, unoccupied and dropping in value. The mortgage meltdown, combined with a surging Canadian currency, has Farley — and many of his countrymen — dreaming of winter golf on grass that's always green.

"My dollar's the same as your dollar, finally," Farley said, grinning as he peered through a pool fence at a sparsely populated condominium complex in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb.

For moderate-income Canadians like Farley, the race is on to take advantage of the "loonie," which in September reached parity with the U.S. dollar for the first time since 1976. Many are combing the Internet for anxious American home sellers and looking with an investor's eye at the condos they rented while on vacation in sunbelt states.

"Now it's more than just the snowbird coming down and staying in a condo. It's people looking for business opportunity," said Frank Nero, president of the Beacon Council, Miami-Dade County's economic development arm in south Florida.

Canadian condo-builder Solterra Group of Companies also is riding the surge in the Canadian economy as it plans to snatch large chunks of land in Las Vegas. Michael Bosa, the company's vice president for development and acquisition, said the loonie has bolstered his company's bids.

"We're looking now aggressively," Bosa said. "We think we'll see more opportunities in the next six to eight months."

In Arizona, Jason Sirockman of Edmonton, Alberta, said he watched as home owners flooded the market with 58,000 homes, more than twice the amount in 2005 when home values peaked.

Now is the time to buy, he said. Alberta, a three-and-a-half-hour flight from Phoenix, is experiencing a modern-day gold rush from booming work in its vast oil sands.

"Fifteen of my friends are on buying trips down here, and we're all cheap," Sirockman said. He brought his family to Scottsdale this month while he submitted a lowball all-cash offer for a three-bedroom home.

"I don't want to take advantage of a guy who's having trouble in the market and is losing his shorts," Sirockman said. "But I have no problem with a guy from California who bought on spec and has five houses in Arizona and never lived in them."

Single-family homes and condos in the Phoenix metro area now sit an average of 99 days before getting sold. That's three times the wait for homes and four times the wait for condos compared with two years ago, according to the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service.

The market has shifted totally in the buyer's favor, especially those offering cash, said Jeff Russell of Alberta. Last month, Russell snapped up a patio home next to a golf course in Scottsdale with a $299,000 check. It was listed at $463,000.

"I was actually going to come down here and buy a seven-series BMW because cars are ridiculously cheap here," he said. "But I discovered that, forget cars, houses are on deep discount. I could never get anything on a golf course as nice in Canada for this type of money."

Real estate agents in Phoenix, especially those with Canadian ties, are hustling to reach potential buyers up north while the American housing market and the U.S. dollar continue to slump.

Rick Morielli, a former real estate broker from Toronto, received his green card in November, posted a Canadian realty Web site, took out some newspaper ads in Canada, and already he has about a dozen clients looking for homes.

"There's a real 'Wow' factor here for Canadians," said Morielli, who now lives in Phoenix.

"When I take them to a brand new subdivision, and for $210,000 can get them four bedrooms, 2,000 square feet, all appliances, brand new, that's something they haven't been able to buy in Canada for 10 or 15 years. In my opinion, everyone should be buying now."

Mark Dziedzic, a former financial planner from Toronto, now sells homes full time in Arizona and holds seminars in Canada to push the American housing market on fellow Canucks. Dziedzic said he's had to hire more staff at his office to keep up with the influx of Canadian investors.

"When (the Canadian dollar) hit a dollar ten, it really created a real buzz for Canadians, not only those looking to buy second homes but we're also seeing it from buying purely from an investment standpoint," Dziedzic said.

Still, with so many homes on the market, the interest by Canadians isn't about to fix the housing slump in Arizona, real estate consultant Elliott D. Pollack said.

"You have a massive oversupply in the face of a lower demand," Pollack said. "And you're going to have to work off those excess units. And to do that you'll need two or three years."

Source

[Frank.S]

i want to buy a car from the us here, you can actually get a good used vehicle for 12,000 it seems. here that gets me a suped up reliant K it seems haha