Vancouver Condo Info

Spark posted this link in an earlier thread. If you havent seen this yet its worth watching: the US housing market from 1890 to the present rendered as a rollercoaster ride. You really get a visceral feel from the peaks and dips.

This video was created by the fine folks at speculativebubble.com

.. so who wants to make one of these for the GVRD? I bet the 1980-82 section would be particularly exciting.

According to this article in the Globe and Mail, Canadian building permits took an unexpected plunge in February. The 22.4 percent drop was more than triple economist expectations.

“The magnitude of the decline is a function of the uncharacteristically robust level at which builders have been taking out permits,” said Stewart Hall, market strategist at HSBC Securities (Canada), in a note.

“Let’s not get carried away in spinning this as Canada’s own real-estate implosion.”

Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., said that while the construction industry remains healthy, “the hefty retreat does support the view that housing activity will moderate in the year ahead.”

Well it looks like we’ve got another strong start to the spring season, at least when it comes to the Real Estate Boards benchmark price for a single family home. I don’t have all the numbers yet, but theres a short story in the Sun, and here’s my short-term chart:

So it looks like the sub-prime mortage meltdown in the US hasn’t fazed this market yet – Not only that, we’ve got more listings, less sales and prices are still going up! It really is different this time!

UPDATE: Here are the March benchmark prices for the GVRD, and the price charts for townhouses and apartments – Everythings up this month, it must be springtime!

GVRD Benchmark prices, March 2007:
Detached: $682,173
Attached: $428,299
Apartment: $349,373

Short term housing charts, Attached & Apartments:

Thanks to Agent Will for the March stats package. This is a very peculiar market, at these prices buyers must be counting on continued appreciation.

I just discovered condohype – It looks like the latest addition to the Vancouver/ condo/ real estate blogs with a focus on condo marketing. Very funny writing with a heavily sarcastic bent and a solid focus – their tagline is ‘disown the lifestyle’.

Check it out, they’re off to a great start!

..now where’s my latte?

Well it looks like another sub-prime mortgage lender in the states is down for the count – New Century Financial filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy today and announced that they will fire 3200 employees. The thing that makes this a story to pay attention to is the fact that more than 2 dozen subprime lenders have shut down in recent months, New Century is just one of the latest. According to ml-implode.com 47 lenders have shut down since late 2006.

This could pose additional problems for the US housing market as foreclosed homes are added to the supply side while potential buyers with poor credit ratings are taken out of the demand side of the market.

There’s an article in the National Post titled something grand about going small. Canadians are living in ever-larger houses, except in vancouver where they’re living in ever-smaller condos. The example in the article is counselor Gordon Prices’ west end apartment that is around 1100 square feet “which makes it about half the size of the average Canadian home.”

Vancouverites are used to making do with less. Most have no choice; the city is sandwiched between water and mountains, and real estate here is astronomically priced, the highest in Canada. Traditional single-family homes — even small bungalows — cannot be had for less than $500,000, making them unattainable for even moderately high-income earners.

Figures released last week indicate that detached bungalows in Vancouver sell for an average of $758,000; in Toronto, they sell for an average of $387,744.

Other Canadians may wonder how people in Vancouver could possibly cope inside such small homes; Mr. Price’s apartment is actually a generous size, by West End standards. And his neighbourhood has one of the highest population densities in North America, with about 20,000 people per square kilometre. That is more than four times the density of Montreal, one of Canada’s oldest and most congested cities.

I’m glad they point out that 1100 square feet is actually a large west end apartment – interesting that they don’t mention the sub-500 square foot ultra tiny condo’s that are going in to many new towers downtown.