While some Canadian cities offer reasonable affordability compared to household incomes, Vancouver’s housing is, by any measure, highly overvalued and vulnerable to a sharp correction. Prices have risen 55% from their 2009 trough to a level 29% above their prior peak. The average home price reached nearly C$800,000 (according to CMHC).
This post was submitted by Mansur al-Hallaj.
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on Mortgage brokers warn about new rules@chopper: World edges closer to deflationary slump as money contracts in China Fixed that for you! 
on Mortgage brokers warn about new ruleshttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9263196/World-edges-closer-to-deflationary-slump-as-money-contracts-in-China.htm If the link above does not work can someone please teach a retard like me how to do a
on Mortgage brokers warn about new rulesre: http://www.realtor.ca/PropertyDetails.aspx?&PropertyId=11939783&PidKey=-542343134 I think that house has been done over by amateur flippers. They are starting to get spooked by
on Mortgage brokers warn about new rules@Anonymous: >Nope, just a place to bitch about lounging RE agents with little to do but post crap on blogs.
February 2nd, 2012 at 9:05 pm
@Sheesh:
"To clarify, I think they will try to put restrictions on dual citizens who do not reside in Canada."
You mean like Wayne Gretzky?
NHLers aside, the Charter of Rights says that citizens have the right to enter or leave Canada at will. I don't think any attempt to limit citizens living abroad would be constitutional.
February 2nd, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Yeah you can believe whatever you want, but the truth is that there is still quite a big housing bubble. Vancouver is still listed as one of the most dangerous places to invest in real estate and I don´t see any chance of returning to the normal state without significant burst. Toronto is maybe doing a bit better, but to call it balloon instead of bubble isn´t really smart. Calgary and Alberta Real Estate Market are just slowing down after quite an increase in the last quarter of 2011, but their housing market is far from bubble. The prices are quite stable and the increases in home sales were steady last year.
The debt level of Canadian households is one of the biggest and there are growing numbers of retiring people. This does´t make a good prospect for upcoming years, because we will probably see another home value increases, which are the key factor for starting the bubbles again.
January 31st, 2012 at 1:34 am
@Patriotz
Do you mean recognizing dual citizenship or allowing dual citizenship?
To clarify, I think they will try to put restrictions on dual citizens who do not reside in Canada. For example, your citizenship may expire if you live out of the country for a number of years, or there may be increased tax implications.
I am interested in this as I am a dual citizen with the US and I was living there during the Lebanon evacuation so I remember the news stories on these issues at the time. There were grumbles cheapening the value of citizenship, etc.
As it was at the time, all I had to do was file a statement of non-residency to avoid tax implications while living in the US. When I returned, I simply had to inform them I was back and now I again pay taxes as a Canadian.
I am no fan of the Conservatives, but, despite my own self-interest, part of me agrees that this is not quite right. In an age of global mobility, perhaps citizenship should entail certain responsibilities.
January 30th, 2012 at 8:12 pm
What I found most interesting was the reason for the huge surge in CHMC volumes was the bank’s were taking it out even when there was a high down payment and paying the premiums themselves.
This would of course allow the banks to make loans to anybody with no risk with the taxpayer on the hook.
I am not sure this is what they had in mind when they made the program.
January 30th, 2012 at 7:40 pm
@oneangryslav2: That’s CMHC insurance in force as of the end of the calendar year.
Source:
http://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/files/pdf/MortgageInsurance.pdf
January 30th, 2012 at 7:22 pm
Does anybody have a link that provides numbers for historical levels (in constant dollars) of mortgages insured by the CHMC? I’d like to chart that by house price to show to an especially obnoxious acquaintance.
January 30th, 2012 at 6:38 pm
@Conrad:
“Lather, rinse, repeat”
…exactly what your mother told me while ridin’ the rod last night.
January 30th, 2012 at 6:37 pm
@Devore:
Wonder what happens when cmhc exceeds its 600B cap…
Also would be interesting to know if cmhc tracks its total exposure live or quarterly…
January 30th, 2012 at 6:37 pm
I just went through the 216 comments on this CBC article and only around 5 out of the 216 had something positive to say regarding real estate (or believed the story), the other 210 comments were either calling for a correction bigger than the article predicts or commenting on the inaccuracy of Sherry Cooper’s predictions over the years…..that’s gotta say something?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/01/30/bmo-housing-real-estate.html
January 30th, 2012 at 4:36 pm
looking back: USA's classic "There is no bubble" talk – April 2007
When the Census Bureau reported a statistically insignificant decline of 3.9% in new home sales for February, the stock market dropped, ignoring significant increases in both new home construction and existing home sales. Moreover, the monthly housing numbers are notoriously volatile during the winter, because the housing market is sensitive to the weather in much of the country, and has been since the days of New Amsterdam.
But the markets and the press have reversed the old song: they now accentuate the negative, eliminating the positive.
This panic started two months ago, when the two largest subprime lenders, HSBC and New Century Financial, announced that they were suffering large losses from unexpectedly high defaults by homeowners.
…But subprime loans are a small share of the mortgage market. The latest figures from the Mortgage Bankers Association indicate that they account for about 14% of all home mortgages.
…Many analysts foresee worse problems this time around because home prices were rising in 2001, and now, supposedly, the housing bubble has popped. It's certainly true that if prices are falling, more homeowners are likely to default on their mortgages. But, despite the common opinion, house prices are not falling. They are not rising at the double-digit annual rates of recent years, to be sure, but they are still rising nationally and in most markets.
New York is a good example for all of this. In the first five years of the decade, house prices almost doubled, rising at over 15% a year. In 2006, the rate of increase slowed to 6%, still above the national average.
…The overall economy is taking all this in stride. Employment in homebuilding is down about 25,000 workers from its peak last September, while over the same period total employment is up by 1 million, and the unemployment rate has remained around 4.5%, which is unusually low.
Despite the headlines, the subprime mortgage market is not about to lead America into a recession; nor is the housing bubble. The sky is still up there, and it's still in one piece.
Mr. Weicher is director of the Center for Housing and Financial Markets at the Hudson Institute
http://www.nysun.com/opinion/housings-hype/52350/