Remember the Fort Mac dude who told us some weeks ago he was going to unload his house in a squalid city populated with horny engineers? (Like there’s any other kind.)

Well, the guy has horseshoes up his rear, apparently, listing and selling just days before the price of a barrel of oil plunged enough to put oil patch execs into cardiac arrest. “First of all, thanks for reading and posting my story! I feel somewhat famous now,” he says, pathetically. “My house just sold for $10k less than what I bought it for back in June of 2008.

“I’m just glad it’s over, especially the way the world markets have been acting this past week! I’m pretty sure back when I bought it the exact same thing was happening globally, but I was completely oblivious to it, just like these new greater fools probably are. I bought at a bad time, but looks like I probably just sold at a great time.”

Now, remember the Financial Post dude who dissed me recently, arguing there’s no real estate bubble – only a gasbag full of twits like me writing about it. “Booming real estate markets are producing another kind of bubble: An expansion of authors writing about a looming crash,” he wrote. Then Marr quoted such unbiased and credible people as Joe Owe and Brad Lamb to help calm the afeared masses.

Well, times change. Sometimes ya gotta flip. Sometimes, flop. Mr. Marr, praise be, has seen the light. “No matter what statistics show, Canada’s housing boom is about to end, experts say,” is his latest piece. Just in time, too. CREA reports sales fell last month – a significant event. Even Royal LePage is warning consumers not to expect real estate to perform. And Capital Economics’ David Madani earns some ink with this observation:

“What concerns me is some buyers seems to have this view that prices can only go up. People feel it’s a one-way bet. A lot of younger people seem to think that if they don’t get in now on the home ownership ladder, they’ll miss out. Some of these people will come to regret this decision. In the more expensive markets, it’s almost like a capitulation where they say ‘If I don’t buy now, I’ll never own a home’. This is what happens in a housing bubble.”

Meanwhile, even The Motley Fool is lining up to take a whizz on the housing market. “If you buy Toronto real estate now, you’ll hate yourself later,” says this week’s headline. In arguing for an investment in nice REITs that pay you actual cash to own them, the Fool reminds is why GTA housing is a potential sinkhole.

“The city’s real estate boom has produced some jaw dropping figures. For instance…

$951,000: Toronto is about to become the second Canadian city where a single-family home costs more than $1 million. Last month, the average detached house sold for $951,000, up 8% year-over-year.

130 skyscrapers: Toronto has more skyscrapers under construction than any other city in North America. Today, there are 130 high-rise projects underway.

39,000 realtors: The number of realtors in Toronto has doubled over the past 10 years. Today, there’s one realtor for every 140 people in the city.

37x rental income: Toronto housing prices are valued at 37x annual rental income. Typically, the market has traded between 15x and 20x rental income.

3.7% cap rate: Toronto capitalization rates — the rate of return based on what a property is expected to earn in rental income — have hit new lows. This was highlighted last year when the Bayview Village shopping mall sold for a record low cap rate around 3.7%.

The conclusion: “You should buy assets that make sense based on cautious assumptions. Nobody should be speculating that people will pay growing premiums for a house.”

That sure is good advice these days in a bunch of cities, like poor Regina. The latest realtor survey shows the average two-story house is 7% cheaper than it was a year ago, even as sales hold steady, while bungs have dipped 8%. Inventory has been flooding on to the market as more sellers sense this is a now-or-never moment. There are more houses for sale than at any time in the past twenty years. Says local broker Mike Duggleby: “The inventory levels available on the market right now are approximately 40 per cent higher than usual, which has created a supply-demand imbalance and pushed home prices down. Strong unit sales this quarter have not been enough to support previous price levels.”

In all of Nova Scotia, including Halifax, prices are dropping. They were off about 3.5% last month compared to the same time a year ago, with more than full year’s worth of houses sitting on the market. In Montreal, prices are running less than the rate of inflation, after an absolute decline through the summer.

Of course, this is at a time when the cost of money has never been lower and a five-year mortgage can be stapled down for a lowly 2.8%. As mentioned earlier this week, already 60% of Canadian markets are seeing falling sales, with most experiencing rising inventories. So the hot housing conditions most realtors and reporters keep telling us exist is really a three-city phenom. And, as I wrote here a few days ago as oil collapsed, you really have to wonder about Calgary.

Well, a crappy, raw semi with a Wild Kingdom basement on a hipster street in Toronto sold this week with twelve offers – all from virgins. The asking was under $830,000, and the sale was over $950,000. When I spoke to the agent for one of the losing bidders (who reads this blog), all he would say is, “I am so done with this town.”

Smart people know where this is going. Tails up.