Home Sales up 117%
From the Vancouver Sun: Home sales this August were up 117% from last year. Things were certainly booming again this summer, the Vancouver real estate market appears to defy all common sense. Something in the water? A rush to beat the HST? A huge underground economy? Or are things just different here, this time?
“Canada’s housing market has taken its cue more from the Great Houdini than the bear (economist Noriel) Roubini, fully escaping from the clutches of a potentially lengthy, harsh downturn,” said BMO Capital Markets deputy chief economist Doug Porter.
“Record-low borrowing costs combined with the growing realization that the economic storm is passing have fuelled the remarkable turnaround. However, the gaudy sales growth will be tough to maintain now that prices are moving higher again.”
Resale activity rose from year-ago levels in about three quarters of local markets. Year-over-year gains of 117 per cent in Vancouver, 27 per cent in Toronto, 17 per cent in Calgary, and nine per cent in Montreal contributed most to the national increase in activity.
Well, there you have it. Mr. Porter has declared the good news: we’ve fully escaped from the clutches of a potentially lengthy, harsh downturn. Now we have nowhere to go but up!
Time to capitulate?
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September 25th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Denial Denial Denial……………leads to hallucination and fantasy,Bear wake and give up now and back to your free cave which is free in Yukon. Every time you lose.
September 17th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
I was laughing at the head line, not the comments you “dummice”.
Now Im gonna read the comments.
And the recession is over? Wow.. I guess I will look forward to people dropping some brie cheese bits on the floor again. Squeak!
But I will not go for the big aromatic cheese bit that is on the guillotin like serving tray.. nope, njet, nein.
I bin nicht ein dummkopf.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Anecdotally, I remember Whistler rents in the 90s being priced well ahead of local incomes, because indeed most of the renters weren’t locals. I had friends working retail crammed many into a trailer during the tourist/winter season and then living for cheap rent in houses with jacuzzis in the summer as part of “looking after” someone’s property (with 2 week notice that they’d have to vacate…) Generally, it was only worth it if you were a boarder or skier.
I wonder if a resort’s fundamentals are different because tourism’s the main industry, and a great percentage of the real estate is in secondary/vacation homes?
September 17th, 2009 at 7:31 am
@ReductiMat:
I’m not interested in Whistler (not even to visit) so I don’t follow the market there. I can say though that just like everywhere else RE prices there must eventually adjust to fundamentals, and the fundamentals (rental demand) are far more volatile than they are in Vancouver or other cities, as NO -LYMPICS pointed out.
Both the demand for and supply of ski resorts is highly elastic. Granted Whistler has quick access to Vancouver which makes the demand more reliable than, say, Revelstoke, but you really don’t know how fashionable the place will be 20 years from now.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
@Strataman: Excellent! Looking forward to your writeup!
September 16th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
p/e ratio of s&p was 129 as of august 2009. This is a bad omen. Granted the explanation was that this year’s earnings were completely wiped by last year’s meltdown. Still, I wonder if it has ever been this high … even in previous recessions, I don’t think it has exhibited such extreme behavior before.