Big changes...
OCTOBER 24, 2011
Hello to all my readers:
This past week has been very exciting for me. I have accepted a position as an analyst with MHanson Advisors in the US to provide Canadian macro-economic coverage, with special focus on our housing/credit bubble. MHanson provides research to financial institutions in the US and has a long track record of timely, accurate calls. It's an honour to be working closely with this firm.
This has important implications for this blog. While I intend to continue my writing, there will be two major changes. The first is in the frequency of my writings. Where I was writing 5-6 times per week, I'll now be writing 1-2 times weekly. Perhaps more significantly, the original, in-depth, unique data that my readers have been used to will have to be replaced with a general commentary on news-worthy events. As part of the terms of employment, some of that original research had to be removed from the site, hence, the 'primer' articles have been thinned out by necessity. However, I will be including some of that data in my upcoming book, which is nearly complete.
I know this decision will disappoint some of my readers. It has not been an easy decision for me; This blog has been my 'baby' for the past year. However, at some point, the monetary benefits must be weighed against time lost with a young family. While I have loved writing this blog, the time away from my family has not at all been compensated in monetary terms. In fact, this blog still costs me more to maintain that it returns to me....and that is only the monetary consideration. When an opportunity like this comes along, one has to think about the opportunities for self and family. In this case, the opportunity is just too great to pass up.
All this said, there are still exciting developments that will keep this blog as a cutting-edge resource for my readers. Most notably is that the developers are in the process of designing an interactive house price graph similar to this one that The Economist created. It will feature house price, real house price, rents, personal disposable income, inflation, and GDP data from many Canadian cities. It will be an amazing resource when it is completed. The book is also in the works, and I think it will be a doozy. Also keep in mind that this will still remain an active blog. It's just that the frequency and depth of posts will change somewhat.
Thank you to my all my readers. I appreciate the time you take to read my random musings. I look forward to keeping the discussion going, albeit in a different context.
Cheers,
Ben
Posted in:
- |
- Tagged:
86 Comments
Congrats! I'm sure you didn't decide on this flippantly. Good luck on the new job, and best wishes.
I do hope you don't get "soft", massaging truths so they're more palitable (and misleading). The government does that enough already.
Ben,
Glad I caught on to this blog before you removed the primer articiles. The blog has been very informative and I've learned a lot. Thanks for all of your hard work and good luck in your new position!
Congratulations on the new job Ben! I can understand that the level of detail in future posts will necessarily be lower than it has been in the past, but I'm a little surprised that you were asked to go back and remove content from archived posts. Is this standard practice in your industry?
It is if we don't want to cannibalize our own research. We sell research. Unfortunately, no one will pay for material they can pull off the site for free. The material from the primers will be reworked into research notes for clients to bring new clients 'up to speed'. Fortunately, I will be able to share that material in the new book, so it isn't lost from the public entirely.
Perhaps you can clarify the "we" here? Are you contributing the work you did independently in order to become a partner?
I also want to point out that many have come to rely on your site in some way, for example providing links to specific articles/data as part of their argument about the state of the Canadian housing market. Removing public material (unless harmful) is definitely not within the overall spirit of web publishing, and could affect the reputation of both yourself and anyone linking to your site.
That's the most depressing thing. As it stands, it is almost impossible to find good analysis from a Canadian perspective. It's almost non existent outside of the mainstream media, or outside of somebody writing analysis with an ulterior motive. Your blog was pretty much the only authentic one. Now, not only will we lose you, but you have removed old commentary...? I'm sorry, we can sugar coat it as much as we like, but this is just another example of selling out to corporatism.
I know we all want to make money and have a family to feed, but something is just not right about this. I know there comes a point in a persons life when we look at ourselves and say, "Screw all this crap, now I'm gonna get mine!" But I honestly think this site, and you as an analyst were on the precipice of an independent breakthrough which would have been a greater net benefit to society than making this career move.
You know how you can search Google for "American housing bubble" and get thousands of good analytic posts, but if you search for Canadian housing bubble stats, there is almost nothing.... It's because in Canada we are more restrictive of our information (try to get raw stats from the CMHC)... But in this blog, at lease there was some analysis and data which was usually not being reported from other sources. Now we lose that. It's really a blow.
What you could have done, rather than water down the site, is to branch out and open up the site to other writers. This site has the potential of being like a Canadian Zero Hedge. Even if you can no longer post comments every day, allow a select few qualified analysts to share the site with you. Otherwise, I honestly don't see how this site can continue to offer the level of quality it built its reputation on.
I think you guys are missing the big picture here. Ben has put in a good deal of time and effort into this blog with little by way of compensation. Now you can suggest that he was on the precipe of a major breakthrough that would have great benefits to society, but are you really going to ask him to do this for free?
No, he can charge for access to his service, that's perfectly acceptable. Reggie Middleton of BOOMBUSTBLOG.com has this exact business model and make good money from his research. I would pay a fair fee to have access to Ben Rabidoux's services, and I'm sure others would too. But that is no longer an option. No good analytical info will be posted now.
In my opinion, what Ben Rabidoux has been doing over the past years was a very important service to society, done free of charge to his audience. Now, he will stop doing that, and has removed past information from his blog. If he had simply chosen to charge for his information, that would have been fine, since we all deserve to be compensated for our time. But, what he has done is sold out to an American company and agreed to take a salary in return for not sharing his commentary with anybody, other than large clients who work with the American firm.
There are many different ways to make money in life, and you are perfectly entitled to exploit as many opportunities as possible. But this avenue that Rabidoux has taken means that he is no longer providing any greater service to society. He has been purchased; he deserves to take flack for this move. That's the big picture. Joining a boutique advisory company for a salary is the small picture, and honestly, I don't think it will be a very long lived career move anyway.
Congrats Ben,
I've learned a great deal from you and your readers on this blog. I wish you all the best in your future position.
Congrats Ben, well deserved, best of luck in your new position.
Congratulations. As a daily reader of your blog pretty much since its inception, I take a certain vicarious pride in the value of your hard work and insight being recognized.
If a research company advising financial institutions in the US is paying close attention to the Canadian credit/housing bubble, does it mean the sharks are smelling blood and expecting a meal soon?
Congratulations Ben! Thanks again for this blog and I wish you great success at work, with your book and, most importantly, with your family. Cheers.
JM
Congratulations. I will miss all the detailed information but am very happy for you to have work. Best wishes!
You have saved many families from financial collapse, I thank you for that and congratulations. may the universe smile on you.
John
Thanks for all the great postings - good luck with the new job.
Looking forward to your comments in the future, and congratulations on your new role. This blog is an incredibly useful resource. Let us know when your book is available.
I see the Brain Drain continues. Sad to see you moving on, but happy for you at the same time. See you on CNN!
Congrats Ben.
Well done Ben! All the best in your new endeavors.
Dave
Well done Ben. So, are you moving to the US? There are some great house deals down there.
Haha! Nope, staying put. Strictly a writing gig, which I can thankfully do from home.
Congratulations, well deserved.
But unfortunate for the rest of us. The wealth of material and level of detail made this site an important resource, not just for individual readers, but for the sake of public awareness and policy, where you were beginning to get some traction.
Hopefully MHanson will have an interest in promoting their (your) reports in the Canadian media. Perhaps even pick up some big important Canadian clients?
Congratulations on the position, Ben.
Congrats Ben, your hard work has paid off. Too bad you had to remove some of your data from your blog, but I understand your position.
Wish you all the best in your position.
Congratulations Ben. I loved reading your blog.
Good luck Ben!
I hope the hard work pays off.
Congratulations!
Good luck to you - well deserved! Cross-border work can be extremely interesting - our household has 2 people who do this. Hope you enjoy working with the friendly but somewhat traumatized folks "down there." Practice your elevator speech about postal versus zip codes; if we had a dollar for every time we had to say, "A province is like a state..."
Good for you Ben. Nice to see some acknowledgement for all the good work you've contributed over the last year.
I will add the fact that you've been hired in an official capacity to report on the bubble as yet another indicator as to where this is all going to end up.
All the best Ben.
This is my first post, although I have read every single posting you had for a long time :)
I'll miss your more or less daily input, I'll be eagerly looking forward to the 1-2 posting/week !
First VHB, then AmericaCanada, now you. Too bad that the best Canadian blogs all seem to go under (or at least partly)! Good luck with the new position.
Bravo!
Enjoy your writings - very original. Wish you well in new endeavor!!
Congratulations and good luck Ben. Always insightful, rational and well thought out I think you'll do fabulous.
It's been a nasty week for those of us seeking some enlightenment in the financial world. First Garth tells us he is buying and selling real estate in this market, but not flipping, and then the only sane voice goes to a private firm. Ben the decision is easy to understand and I wish you the best of luck. Ron
Ben, and the other readers of this site - are there any other blogs or newsletters you are aware of and can share that would help keep us informed??
Hi Ron. I'm not leaving entirely. Will still post analysis and discussion. Just maybe not as much of the original, beefy stuff. But I can try to drop hints... ;)
It's specific to Victoria but I enjoy http://househuntvictoria.blogspot.com/
Congratulations on snagging that analyst job for a US firm, Ben. I still believe you have been wrong in the short-term but you prove that hard work and a stubborn streak pays greater dividends than a lot of equities and preferreds currently in the marketplace.
Congrats on the new job. I'll buy the book and continue being a loyal reader to this blog. Luckily I was able to make a profile of my province before taking down the content. The interactive graphs sound like a great resource, hopefully it's on a province/city basis and not national.
I've always thought you'd be going places... Maybe that's why I've been into this blog so much, plus the fact you can teach this stuff so well. Until the next post...
"The interactive graphs sound like a great resource, hopefully it's on a province/city basis and not national."
It will be all of the above: National, provincial, and by major city. It should be awesome.
I have been a reader since when there was no troll and not many comments. Your site (and yourself) went really big in the last year!
Congratulations on the new position.
I hope we'll find a new blogger to take the ball and continue to provide such detailed data that you got us used to.
congrtas Ben!
Sam's "the troll" Mango will miss you very much.
yeah yeah yeah, so I find this really witty interesting guy on youtube: Mark Hanson. I mean this guy really knows his stuff and he presents it with a lot of humour. Then he stops but says that he has got to work for a living and has a wife and kids that like to see him. So I look around and find Garth Turner and you. Your stats and analysis are first rate, no youtube video but in-depth knowledge and first-rate analysis. Well congratulations Ben. C'est la vie.
Congratulations Ben!
Although I am happy for you personally and I understand the draw of getting paid to post this stuff, for those of us left behind this is a huge blow. It really is critical to get this fact based information into the hands of ordinary Canadians and I hope we can find a way to continue with that.
Congratulations, Ben! Thank you for the knowledge you have shared to all of us. Best wishes on your new gig!
Enjoyed your writings.
All the best Ben !
Congratulations Ben.. I have read all your blogs so far This is my first comment on it ..I want to thank you & wish you good luck...
A case of too good to last?
You did important high quality work here on a very relevant isssue(s). Greatly appreciated. All the best with the new gig. I'll be checking in twice a week as there is lots of interesting economic events still to come at us. Hopefully the desire to share with us - your faithful, arguably tight fisted readers, will remain strong.
Ben, I always thought that the content of your blog is way expensive to be given away for free, lots of good quality research and data. Many of us benefited from it though and educated ourselves. May be your new company will recognize the PR that comes with the actively visited blog and that it is not easy to attract the community, talk to them that some work should be done pro-bono for the community to increase the name recognition and to build the reliable feed back channel, it is invaluable in the fast changing situation and can give you many hints and insights that you can later develop.
Good luck and I feel very disappointed that none of the local government economic advisory offices were not smart enough to grab you.
Congratulations Ben! Glad that your accomplishments are garnering some financial benefits for you. Of all the housing blogs I frequent yours is the most erudite.
Conratulations. Don't forget that finance is all about buying time, for loved ones.
Very disappointed! I just found this Blog. Well guess I'm on the hunt for a new information source. Needless to say I won't purchase the book. Taking articles which were free, removing them, & then selling them will not work for me especially since there are dozens of very informative sites out there. Too bad the quality of this blog will now become watered down by another form of corporate greed.
Pretty incredible entitlement mentality there, Rob. So, you're disappointed that Ben will no longer be providing high quality, time consuming, and completely free research for your benefit and at the expense of time with his family?
Since you just found this blog, I guess you wouldn't know that Ben has been providing some of the best research anywhere for the past year (95% of which is still archived), has put up with ignorant trolls who attack not only his work, but him personally, and has received little compensation for it.
I can see why you'd be upset with him. Yeah, you really got hosed in all of this, Rob.
Ben, best of luck with your well-earned position.
Rob, you're a dick.
Like its been said above I knew this was too good to last. Quality research should not be free and this was quality research.
Super upset from a selfish point of view, but one must see this as an easy choice for Ben.
Thanks for the good work. I'll grab the book when it's released.
Ev
Ben,
This is a pity. I enjoyed your daily insights and analysis.
I hope they ll be treating you well!
Best of luck!
Congratulations Ben !!! Good luck with your new job. This is a great blog.
Congrats Ben. We're working in historical times so make the best of it.
First post here. Ben, thank you for the critical thinking and research. I have really enjoyed your work, and will miss the frequency of articles. However, I believe you have made an excellent choice.
Good Trades.
Quoted from jimmy, "Rob, you're a dick"
4 pargraphs worth of Jimmy's thoughts, previous to this comment, are now worthless. Please refrain from personal attacks. If you cannot then please do not post.
So there was this great local band, Ben. They worked their hearts out 4 nights a week here in town and built up a really loyal following. Pretty soon their name was well known and they got picked up by a US record label and hired to backup a big name down south.
They went on tour, got busy, forgot their fan base and after a brief flight close to the sun where one of their best songs made top 50, they just disappeared and don't play in town any more. Funny thing is, they still live here but they just stopped trying and they would have a hard time getting gigs now that a few years have passed.
That is how it goes. You see they let their public profile fade away and they dropped their following once they thought they "had it made". It turned out to be a huge mistake for their careers even though they had rationalized the exact same words you wrote here.
You see, they needed to work harder for the new boss so it would mean less time for the thing that had actually brought them fame in the first place! And that is why I think it is a mistake to be so hasty about reducing efforts on your blog.
Actually, you could probably ramp up your reputation even further in the coming years by gearing the blog to wider economic issues that would not conflict with the "new boss'. Just saying, don't be so quick to reduce your efforts on the thing that brings public and media attention. Ask any star,.... that is the real gold mine.
If anything, you should double your efforts.
Oh yes, congratulations. Now, get back to work Ben.
Gotta be Nickelback you're referring to..
congrats ! well deserved ben ! been a daily reader for about 6 months, i will definitely miss your daily posts.
Ben - I am very happy for you. You have done excellent work and deserve all the best. Thank you for the time you have given us.
appetizer: Garth's blog
entrée: Ben's blog
dessert: TAE blog
Guess I'm going on a diet....
Good work Ben, I've always enjoyed your informative and well backed up posts.
don't know what's TAE, but Garth's blog and this one were my daily read.
I guess I just gained more time off the computer each day
Hilarious.
That used to be my economic menu as well, about 2 summers ago.
Then I realized the Turner appetizer wasn't agreeing with me, and I got a bit bored of the entrée. No offense Ben, but I just needed something more than pure housing analysis.
Switched it around to Ben's blog, followed by Zero Hedge, followed by TAE and was pretty happy with that. But over the last few months, I've been skipping the appetizer and focusing on the main course & dessert - crony capitalism & total economic collapse.
Cheers,
-FN
My guess is The Automatic Earth? I'll start reading this blog a little more.
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
Conspiracy theory: CMHC/REBGV shuts Ben up and removes his website by indirectly funding his closure via legit-looking US firm.
I think you're going to find that what drives you to frequent posts is the blogging environment and inquisitive nature of your commenters. The comments are as good as the blog itself. When you "write" just for a shallow audience to bring them "up to speed" and get no feedback from them... you're going to find it loses all the fun.
This is unfortunate, I think you could have structured this much differently -- you hold all the cards. Good luck nonetheless.
Ben,
Have to agree with some of the dissenters that removing your "free" material constitutes selling out. You developed that analysis due to your passion for the subject, and shared it with us to create an online community where ideas could flourish and people could make more informed decisions with that information.
Now that the information is being removed (something I actually thought you might do when you mentioned you were writing a book), I don't think it's unwarranted for people to question your original motivation for developing this site. And I have to agree with those that suggested this site will atrophy and die now that it's "heart" (free high-quality analysis on the Canadian housing market, provided on a regular basis) has been removed.
While I find it unfortunate you have decided to go that route, I still would like to offer a heartfelt congratulations - clearly you're a very intelligent individual, a stellar analyst, and you showed dedication to building a great online community.
One might suggest MHanson may not have taken notice of you had this online community not been such a success, but to suggest that would be to take away from you personally - you've worked very hard, been very generous to us your humble readers, and you deserve to be rewarded for it.
I just hope the reward that's been offered to you does not lose its luster over time, as trust is not something easily regained once it is lost.
Wish you (and your family) the best in your future endeavours.
Cheers,
-FN
I'll still be posting my data for everyone. I'm determined to prove some of the housing information being published is manipulated to keep the positive headlines going. I've compiled quite a bit of data over the years but will start by exposing TREB's sales report. http://i39.tinypic.com/15qvu46.png
Don't be surprised if they terminate their monthly sales report for a quarterly report. That's when you know something is very wrong.
Greg - may be it is a time to open your own housing blog since Ben's hands are now going to be tied by the corporate policies and he is going to ficus on the broader picture overall instead of housing? Let us know where. I agree that data is manipulated. Next few months are going to be exposing ones as the sales picked up last year in Nov - Feb interval so it won't be like the comparing the month to month now.
yes please open a blog to post your data!
Ya I'd follow it
Nah no time for dealing with blog trolls and besides, housing is my least area of interest. I only post data to give blog owners some alternative thinking and for concerned homeowners who can put two-and-two together. I understand why homeowners feel no reason to sell their home; they feel safe because the value is still there, but what they don't understand is i) profits are only made when a transaction is executed. ii) the value of their home can depreciate in a fraction of the appreciation time--remember it's just a number.
A number indeed that one must pledge their [future] labor for to consume something today. People need to understand that what they work for is money or a number that has no intrinsic value to it. Therefore, it can simply be erased in a depreciating asset along with the labor used to achieve it.
The first ones to sell will be the lucky ones.
Hi Ben - if in the future you feel like gaining your freedom back, and would consider a paid newsletter format, I would be the first to sign up. I believe you have the basis of a business model that could attract hundreds or perhaps thousands of followers. I know of other analysts with your skills that charge in the range of $180 per year. Times a thousand followers this would result in a good income, plus freedom. The real estate issue will die a natural death at some unknown time in the future, but your analytic skills applied to the rest of the investment world would be highly valuable to a lot of your followers.
VERY sorry from a personal perspective to see you leaving Ben. But I totally understand from your perspective. All the best and good luck with your new career. Your blog was awesome. If you start up a subscription service in the future, I would pay for it. Your data was timely and original and the analysis was excellent, so much better than the MSM.
Good luck!
Congrats, Ben:
I just discovered your website a couple of weeks ago and greatly enjoyed it - already you're moving on! Ah, well, good for you and your family. I'm a Canadian in a similar situation to yours. I provide intraday 10-yr and long bond futures forecasts for a well-known U.S. forecasting firm. I'm a lot older than you but it's a pity that Canadian institutions don't appreciate home-grown talent. Best of luck!
Bonne chance!
Tu as fait un excellent travail
For anyone interested, here's a chart of historical GTA average home price and transaction sales. It appears over the past two years, price appreciation has outpaced sales transactions indicating prices have been driven by more bidding. From other data that I've put together, detached homes are the primary factor contributing to the average home price figure rising.
http://i42.tinypic.com/ic2zxs.png
Great charts. Where did you find TREB data back to 1953?
On their website.
Here's a few more charts I put together this weekend. It's amazing how revealing the charts become when using raw data rather then revised seasonally adjusted-media hyped stats for the headlines.
http://i42.tinypic.com/2w7egm0.png
http://i44.tinypic.com/282m921.png
http://i43.tinypic.com/zx45tu.png
BTW Ben, I could be mistaken but I think this blog was mentioned on the CFRB Real Estate Talk Show yesterday.
wow, the increase in price is crazy in the last year... from '96 to '10 it seems to grow normally, but then it shoots higher
Your Sales/Price charts are incorrect as they are not inflation adjusted. Adjust for inflation and you will see a close price/sales volume tracking.
Not much sense in measuring raw data with other manipulated data. I guess that's why many economists always get it wrong. Luckily there's a few of us who still use a calculator and a little bit of T/A.
http://i40.tinypic.com/6zwz5x.png
Read what hedonics, substitution and geometric averaging is, then you'll know why CPI doesn't reflect real prices paid by consumers.
This blog is dead. The messiah saw the $$$ and fled the scene. Screw the followers. Happens all the time. Wish I did not grow so attached to reading this blog several time daily. Oh well.