There’s an article in this weekends sun about the Canadian housing market slowdown titled Housing market still sturdy, but cooling. Sort of like a casserole, perhaps soon it will be cool enough to eat without getting burned?
The housing market in Canada is holding up better than in the U.S., but it is cooling and will cool further heading into the new year, analysts said Friday in the wake of a stronger-than-expected housing construction report.
Almost all of those new starts are apartments and condos in the prairies and atlantic canada. In BC housing starts declined by 7.9% compared to last year. J.P. Morgan economist Ted Carmichael is quoted in the story with reasons that the Canadian housing market shouldn’t be in as much trouble as the US market. He mentions that “mortgage rates at large Canadian banks have moderated recently, reflecting the decision by the Bank of Canada to keep its trend-setting rate steady” and:
…the pace of Canadian housing construction has slowed much less than in the U.S., he added, noting that construction in November here was the same at it was a year earlier, while south of the border construction has plunged more than 27 per cent over that time.
Another report, released earlier this week, suggests that the Canadian market will not suffer the same fate as the U.S. market, with the latest barometer of building intentions _ building permits _ still on the rise, even though the increase was also limited to multiple-unit housing.
I wonder what the gap between a building permit or start date and a buildings completion or move-in date? I would assume it must average around a couple of years for the whole process. Assuming I’m not way off, how clearly can anyone predict market conditions in two years?
