Vancouver Condo Info

..At least that’s what Mark Carney and other Bank of Canada officials have said according to this article, yet they’re refraining from being more specific.

Meanwhile the Organization for Economic and Co-operative Development (OECD) is urging Canada to start raising interest rates in the fall and keep on raising them to stop an inflating housing bubble and reign in inflation.

The OECD, a high-powered economic research group backed by contributions from its 34 rich country members, offers a scenario: An increase in the benchmark rate of a quarter of a percentage point in the autumn, and similar increases each quarter through to the end of next year, leaving the benchmark overnight target at 2.25 per cent.

That still would be low by historical standards, yet, according to the OECD, likely a big enough increase to cause prospective homeowners to think twice before buying at current inflated prices. However, the OECD’s recommendation comes with a risk.

The Federal Reserve Board has made a conditional pledge to leave U.S. rates extremely low until the end of 2014. Following the OECD’s path could create an unprecedented spread between Canadian and U.S. interest rates, which would put upward pressure on a Canadian dollar that many say already is too strong.

Oh, and the OECD made this same recommendation a year ago and was ignored. So I wonder how Carney intends to bring the days of ultra-cheap money to an end?

This post was submitted by Adam.

Hi gang, I’m back for a tour of the BPOE. Driving though Greenwood, BC (population 600, 30 listings) I noticed a For Sale sign in front of this house. This very same house was on sale for about $435K around 2007 as I noted in this forum (or Vance’s, can’t remember):

For Sale: $239,900
1897 Heritage home! If only the walls could talk! Original RCMP headquarters and definitely has B&B potential. 4 BDRMS, 2 baths. Modern renovated kitchen wit all amenities-stainless steel appliances & cord flooring. This home has so much to offer that you must see it!

Listing

Now do you remember back in the days when you talked about those ridiculous prices along Highway 3, you were granted with chants of “BC Bud!” (interior HAM)? What happened? Did everyone stop smoking? Well maybe all the RE buyers stopped smoking!

However maybe the RE industry is using stronger stuff, because a bit further west on Highway 3 I saw the following:

Regal Ridge

It reminded me of one of those ghost developments in Florida, apart from the elevation and weather. A great expanse of local streets (each with its own theme statue) and the odd house here and there.

Now that prices are cratering in the nearby Okanagan Valley, where they have things like shopping and hospitals and mild weather, who’s going to buy up there?

This post was submitted by patriotz.

Well, there’s a change in the air when it comes to Vancouver Real Estate.   The ‘can’t lose’ investment is starting to look like the ‘must lose’ investment with reports of buyers walking away from deposits and waiting for prices to keep dropping.

“It happened twice in the last month. One [deposit] was $75,000 and one was a $20,000 deposit, the guys just walked away from it,” said Mr. Arora, who runs Oneflatfee.ca in Surrey, B.C. “They are going to wait it out. So they lost $75,000 and $20,000, but if the market comes down $150,000 on a $1.5-million house, that’s not uncommon.”

Vancouver’s once-overheated housing market has cooled sharply, with the average price falling nearly 10 per cent in April from a year ago to $735,315, according to figures released Tuesday by the Canadian Real Estate Association. That was the largest drop since the recession and it marked the fourth decline in the past five months.

In a market once famous for being overheated, Mr. Arora said he hasn’t seen a bidding war in months. “It’s totally a buyers’ market. Buyers are determining the price,” he said. “And sellers are surprisingly accepting it. They are taking it.”

Buyers always determine the price.  If there are enough of them that want to pay more they will drive prices up.  Sellers have no control if no buyer is willing or able to pay the asking price.

This post was submitted by Farce.

The problem with using averages is they can look terrific on the way up and horrible on the way down.  Remember all that talk about the ‘average’ Vancouver house now being worth $1 million?  One year later it’s apparently worth $735,315.  What will it be worth next year?

The average home price in Canada in April was up 0.9 per cent from a year ago at $375,810.

“It bears repeating that the national average price was skewed higher last spring by record level high-end home sales in Vancouver’s priciest neighbourhoods, and that a replay of this phenomenon was not expected this year,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist.

Sales in Canada’s largest markets are having opposite effects on the national average, with slowing sales in Vancouver dragging, and soaring sales and prices in Toronto exerting upward pressure.

The average selling price in Vancouver was down 9.8 per cent compared with a year ago at $735,315, while the average price in Toronto was up 8.4 per cent at $517,556.

Read the full article is in the Vancouver Sun.

This post was submitted by qwistar.

Looky here, the Province newspaper has discovered the price to rent ratio!

Take the house price and divide it by what it costs to rent for a year to get the price-to-rent ratio: Price divided by (Monthly rent x 12) = X.

(Estimates for additional costs of homeownership, such as taxes, maintenance and insurance are factored into the equation.)

If the number is higher than 15, it’s generally not a good time to buy.

If the ratio is less than 15, buying is a better deal than renting, if you plan on living there for at least five years to offset moving and closing costs.

By the time the number hits 20, renting is apparently the way to go, except if buyers expect to stay put for at least 15 years, according to a formula used by trulia.com to rank major urban U.S. centres every year.

B.C.’s numbers, as shown in the graphic, are through the roof, from 29 (Prince George) to 73 (West Vancouver).

Compare that to a few little housing markets like Manhattan (20) and San Francisco (17).  That ratio doesn’t mean house prices are <i>low</i> it just means that they’re more reasonably priced compared to rents.

Since you can’t take on a big loan to pay rent it tends to show how much a place is actully worth in terms of desirability and local economics.

This post was submitted by Scott.

Yes, you heard that correctly.

The word “bubble” was used in a discussion on a national news broadcast.

The CBC discusses the Canadian housing bubble with four economists and gets a fairly unanimous agreement: The Canadian housing market is overpriced and bubbly in many areas.

video embedded below:

This post was submitted by specuskeptic.

There’s an article in the Globe and Mail about the rising number of ‘Grandpa debtors‘ – people past the age of 55 who have debt problems.  There are a few reasons sited for this shift: easy credit, lack of emergency savings and relying on real estate as a retirement plan:

Real estate can also be a factor in some of these dire debt situations, Mr. Elyea said. Some older debtors head into retirement with $50,000 still left on their mortgages, and then start using their credit cards to pay them because their income has dropped and the CPP and OAS aren’t enough to cover the payments.

There’s also the trap of considering your home to be your retirement nest egg, said Mr. Elyea, which can backfire because of the unpredictability of the housing market.

“In our Tri-Cities practice [covering Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody], that’s where a lot of people bought houses at the height of the market when anybody could get financing, and now they’re all [valued] below what they paid for them,” he said.

If you do find yourself in a situation where your debt has gotten out of control, see a professional, said Mr. Eylea, whether it’s a bankruptcy trustee or a money coach who can let you know about your options.

Here’s the full article.

You’ve probably noticed lots of eye rolling around here anytime someone mentions how Canadian banks are so different from US banks.  The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is now pointing out in a report that Canadian banks actually received a multibillion dollar bailout from October 2008 to July 2010.  The government is being accused of offering ‘liquidity support’ that is much higher than originally reported.

All told, the study counts $114 billion worth of guarantees and financial aid for Canada’s big banks from government agencies such as the Bank of Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

MacDonald combed through financial reports from government institutions as well as quarterly reports from the banks themselves.

He says the government has been obfuscating the true cost of supporting the banks.

“A healthy and resilient banking sector cannot operate under a shroud of secrecy. Details of the massive taxpayer support Canadian banks received should be released in the name of transparency and accountability,” MacDonald said.

They also point out that the heads of Canada’s big banks received large raises during the time this ‘liquidity support’ was offered.