Southseacompany pointed out these latest stats.
According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver the typical Vancouver home lost $7,600 in value last month.
Sales are where the big drops are being seen though, they dropped more than 30% from the previous month and more than 40% from the previous year.
Read more here.
It’s a buyers market for.. well stocks and oil anyways.
Will plummeting interest rates make real estate more appealing or will a hit to the wider economy drive down house prices?
What’s your bet?
Mo’ houses, mo money?
Canada Mortgage and Housing (CMHC) reported that Metro saw developers start construction on 28,141 new homes in 2019, up 20 per cent from 2018, with a substantial number of those, some 6,727, purpose-built rental units.
The CMHC report came out on the same day that Royal LePage released its latest house-price survey showing that aggregate home prices across the region declined 4.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2019 but in a market showing signs of recovering sales.
Read the full article here.
Southseacompany shared this link to a list of global cities with the most overvalued real estate:
Swiss bank UBS’s Global Real Estate Bubble Index 2019 found a significant overvaluation in half of the 24 housing markets analysed by the research. The bubble risk appears greatest in seven global cities, with Munich the most vulnerable, followed by Toronto, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Vancouver and Paris. Major imbalances are also found in locations such as London, San Francisco, Tokyo and Stockholm, while valuations are considered stretched in Los Angeles, Sydney and Geneva.
Read the full article here.
Mortgage brokers make their money by getting people mortgages. In a softening market this can present a challenge.
FICOM is the agency that regulates mortgage brokers and they are issuing a warning:
Brokers should not overleverage their clients; this may be done by fudging applications – overstating the income of a borrower to obtain a bigger loan (and hence a bigger commission), said Carter, who also warned brokers of working with unregistered fixers.
Carter told brokers in Vancouver that the days of “how to get to yes” are over with new market uncertainty, and slumping sales and prices. Now, brokers need to be extra vigilant and learn “when to say no.”
He said Canadians could be in for a rude awakening if real estate prices fall and they’re still saddled with big mortgages and even loans against their equity, suggested Carter. And the brokers who brought loans to those homebuyers will face extra scrutiny, he said, which is why he’s calling on the industry to ease back the throttle on new mortgages that may be contrary to the best interests of the public.
Read the full article here.