Monday, August 18, 2008

The housing slowdown is hardly surprising: On one side we have the Canadian Real Estate Association telling us that the average price for a house sold in Canada is about $314,000 (www.crea.ca/public/news_stats/statistics.htm).
On the other hand we have Statistic Canada telling us that the average Canadian salary is $28,500.
It’s pretty simple to draw the conclusion that the real-estate market has priced itself out of budget for the average Canadian.
Michel Trahan
Verdun

By Dawn Desjardins
RBC Economics Research
Monday, August 10, 2008
Housing starts sank 13.6% in July to an annualized 186,500 units from a downwardly revised 215,900 in June (originally reported as 217,800). Expectations had been for a relatively modest 3.6% decline. However, the weakness was likely slightly overstated with the drop largely concentrated in Ontario, which contributed 30,300 units to the overall national decline in starts.
The drop in starts reflected weakness in both urban singles and multiple units, dropping 6.6% and 20.2%, respectively. The latter can be quite volatile month to month with …

Regina posts biggest gains

Canwest News Service
Published: Monday, August 11, 2008
OTTAWA – New housing prices increased this June at their slowest pace in six and a half years thanks to a softening housing market in Western Canada, Statistics Canada reported Monday.
Contractors’ selling prices gained 3.5 per cent from June 2007, compared with the 4.1 per cent annual increase in May. It was the slowest rate of growth since March 2002 when year-over-year price gains came in at 3.4 per cent, the federal agency stated.
On a monthly basis, prices advanced 0.1 per cent …

As you can see from the above chart, the number of residential sales in 2008 has slowed dramatically. Sales were down 8% in January, down 7% in March, and down another 7% in May from the same periods in 2007. The other months only showed modest improvements over 2007, of about 3%. In total, year to date, sales are down 9% from 2007.
This data does not even include the current month of August which is on track to be the worst August sales month in years.
The fantastic Montreal real …

Quotes from around the news sources are predicting a fall in price by about 10%.
Markets in Regina, Saskatoon, Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, Sudbury and Montreal are all more than 10 per cent overvalued, as calculated by economists David Wolf and Carolyn Kwan.
Activity is plunging as builders focus on trying to sell their inventory
Builders are already more cautious, with Statscan’s report Thursday showing building permits fell 5.3 per cent in June – the steepest drop this year. Last week, a Canadian Real Estate Association report showed sales activity slumped 13.1 per …