The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that the housing market seems to be awakening, kind of like Godzilla does from time to time. The Globe's Rob Carrick writes that the disaster movie comparison is apt because resurgent housing is an alarming development, and the only clear winners are people in the housing industry. A quick run-through of the negative effects of a sudden housing revival: The Bank of Canada's task of lowering interest rates gets a lot more complicated, young first-time home buyers would be pushed further out of the market and speculators would be drawn back in. The December resale numbers were surprisingly hot, and early reports for January show more of the same. "Canada's housing market is on fire again," Scotia Economics said in a note. Over the next year, keep your eye on the tax angle. If real estate is where the money is in our economy, will that not eventually be where taxation must go as well? Toronto is talking about a 9.5-per-cent property tax hike, down from an earlier proposal of 10.5 per cent. Calgary and Vancouver are going with 7.8 per cent and 7.5 per cent, respectively, while Brandon, Man., is increasing theirs by 9.4 per cent and London, Ont., is looking at 8.6 per cent.