In Quotes: CREB 2015 Economic Outlook

Today was CREB's economic outlook for 2015 taking a look at all things housing and economy for the year to come. Here's some quotes from keynote speaker Kevin O'Leary, CREB chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie and more.

Read more about the outlook on CREBnow on Friday.

Kevin O'Leary

On interest rates:

"I think to be conservative today as entrepreneurs who sell assets that are interest rate sensitive we should think about what's going to happen here. so if we go and look at previous periods when rates went up and see what occurred, for example in 1999 or 2004, when rate hikes were moving up, yes there was a correction in the market but it wasn't any more than six per cent and within eight months of completely recovered because generally speaking interest rate hikes are associated with enhanced economic activity and the correlation between assets and enhanced activity and pricing power with corporations and job growth in terms of wage inflation are all correlated together, so what we're seeing here is an interest rate hike does not do that much damage or hasn't historically so all the concern about 25, 50 or even 80 basis points in my opinion is not going to have that big an impact on real estate."

On employees as an asset:

"If you have an employee that understands the mission of the business, and is on side and in sync with it, that's a powerful asset. The minute that person goes off the rails, doesn't believe in the vision, doesn't agree with the goals, isn't willing to try and achieve them, i'm sorry, you have to take them out behind the barn and shoot them."

Ann-Marie Lurie

On oil: