House sales have gone up recently even if prices haven’t.
After last years rock bottom sales numbers this year saw a big jump in summer sales.
If demand is increasing more price increases can’t be far behind right?
RBC economist Craig Wright says nope, expect further softening.
Interestingly enough they don’t mention interest rate increases, simply ‘strained affordability, slowing population growth and empty condos’:
Craig Wright of the Royal Bank says “activity now is borrowing from the future… that, alongside of a still-strained affordability environment suggest, to us as least, that the housing sector will continue to soften rather than accelerate from this point forward.”
Wright also sees new home construction being limited in the short term by slowing population growth and unoccupied condos in Vancouver.
They predict small growth in the province over the next couple of year and note that BC created no new jobs over the last year so retail sales are not moving much.
Read the full article here.