Vancouver Condo Info

One of my long-time favourite bloggers, Professor Piggington of San Diego, has finally decided to buy:

After the recent leg down in interest rates, monthly payments are the lowest compared to incomes and rents than they’ve been in the history of the data, and are quite dramatically below their median historical levels:

But note another consideration, which applies only to the US where you can lock in rates for the life of the mortgage:

If this outlook is correct, as I believe it is, then today’s ultra-low rates make this an ideal time to take out a chunky 30-year fixed mortgage, and to sit back and let inflation hew away at the real value of the mortgage and the monthly payments over the years to come.

So even if the buy/rent ratio in Vancouver came down to what it is now in San Diego, buying would not be as favourable, because interest rates would certainly rise if we went into a period of long-term higher inflation.

Note that the graph above compares monthly payments against per capita income (not median household income). It would appear that it is now possible to buy a SFH in San Diego on a single median income.

But of course Vancouver can’t go the way of SD, it’s surrounded by ocean, mountains, and a border… um it has the nicest weather in the country and everyone wants to live here… um…

Well it’s just different here.

Piggington.com Jumps the Shark

Apparently it’s not just the typical less than 20% down mortgage that the CMHC insures. They’re currently almost at their government mandated limit of $600 billion in default insurance because banks are buying up insurance to cover even low ratio loans (ie greater than 20% equity). This removes all risk from the lender, so why wouldn’t they do it? I didn’t even know this was permitted.

Normally, every 3-5 years as the mortgage market grows, CMHC has asked for, and received, approval from parliament to raise this limit. It was last raised by $150 billion in 2008.

Now media frenzy has politicians scurrying to offload mortgage risk from the government back to the private sector. (The government guarantees CMHC’s liabilities, so public concern is certainly understandable.)

As a result, many question whether CMHC will get its $600 billion limit raised anytime soon.

Here’s some reaction on that:

TD Bank economist Sonya Gulati tells CBC that not increasing the limit “may serve to tighten the housing market.”
RBC economist Robert Hogue told Global News that increasing the limit “…would be, policywise, a very delicate balance to strike.”
The Post quoted an unnamed industry source as saying: “…What will the government do, not increase (CMHC’s) limit? This could kill the entire housing market.”

Read the full article here.

This post was submitted by Scott.

A really good overview and analysis of the U.S. Housing Bubble at OCHousingnews.com. The build-up, collapse, stimulus/supply mgmt. and current double dip all covered in detail.

^{http://ochousingnews.com/news/a-brief-history-of-the-housing-bubble}

From 2003 to 2006, American lenders and borrowers inflated a massive housing bubble. From 2007 to 2012, this bubble has been deflating, but the bottom is proving elusive. The housing market is closer to the bottom than to the top, and if a viable solution can be found to bring supply and demand into balance, the tremendous affordability from low prices and low interest rates will help a bottom form in the near term.

This post was submitted by mojojojo.

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).

Full article

This post was submitted by Mansur al-Hallaj.

Looks like the US fed isn’t very optimistic about the recovery. They say Japan style interest rates until 2014. Will this help a US house price recovery, or will buyers wait if they know there’s no rush for bargain rates?

Mark Carney is making new remarks about some Canadian real estate markets being “probably overvalued“.

It was the second time in recent days that Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney voiced concern about property prices, which surged after the financial crisis as borrowing costs tumbled.
“We see that in a number of real estate markets in Canada, valuations are at a minimum, firm; in others, they’re probably overvalued. So there are risks there. We’re watching it closely. We’re working with our partners, the federal government, the superintendent of financial institutions,” he said in an interview on “Question Period” on CTV.

“Measures have been taken. They’ve been effective. We’ll keep up that vigilance. If more needs to be done, I’m sure the appropriate authorities will take those measures.”
The federal government has tightened mortgage regulations several times in a bid to prevent a property bubble from forming. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on January 17 that the government is watching the housing market closely and is ready to intervene if needed, but is not about to do so now.

Yes, the federal government has tightened mortgage regulations “several times”.. Here’s a timeline of those changes courtesy of Burbs Boy:

Jan 2006 – Minority Conservative Government elected
Feb 2006 – 25 year increase to 30 year on test basis
Jul 2006 – 30 year test affirmed and also increased to 35 year
Jul 2007 – 35 year increase to 40 year
Oct 2008 – 40 year decrease to 35 year
Mar 2010 – 35 year decrease to current 30 year

This post was submitted by wreckonomics.

A very good analysis form a leading Bubble Blogger in SoCal. The good Doctor began blogging about the US bubble years before the collapse. He has an interesting analysis of Vancouver’s bubble here along with some good comments.

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/canada-housing-bubble-ripe-for-popping-vancouver-housing-bubble-2012-pop-real-estate-canada/

In the last few years I’ve noticed that many of the cable finance and housing shows highlight families in Canada. Shows that talk about debt or home buyers are usually focused on families in Canada which is rather odd given that we are here in Southern California. Yet the funny thing about these shows is that they rarely identify that they are in Canada although I recognize locations like Vancouver. If one simply tuned into the show it would appear that a bubble was still going on in the states. This is probably the point. After all, the cable shows focused on flipping houses or making quick bucks on real estate started going off the air yet another bubble was still going on up north. Obviously these shows had an audience otherwise they would not be on the air. Now the focus is on the Canadian bubble and American audiences can swim in the nostalgic dreams of the glory days of domestic housing. Yet the shows rarely mention their location as if English-speaking families and cookie-cutter condos and homes are so easily interchangeable that they will fool an audience. Yet one thing the shows fail to acknowledge is that the Canadian housing bubble is even more pronounced than that in the United States.

This post was submitted by mojojojo.

Yes, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation is helping to get homes built in China. If you’re frustrated with house prices here, maybe you should pick up a brand new high end 3000 – 5000 square foot home in Northern Beijing for around $300k.

As part of a little-known mandate to promote Canadian construction companies internationally, the federal housing agency helped local companies including Kryton International, a Vancouver-based concrete waterproofing provider, and local architectural firm Ekistics Architecture secure contracts in a $300-million residential development designed as a high-end, mini-Vancouver neighbourhood — with hundreds of planted trees — in northern Beijing.

Vancouver Forest, located 30 minutes from Beijing’s international airport, is being built in phases by China’s Beijing Capital Group.

The ongoing project, which was designed by B.C. architects and uses B.C. building materials including wood construction, will feature 900 Vancouver-style single detached homes ranging in size from 3,000 to 5,000 square feet on a 549,000-square-metre site that includes many natural landscape features.

It’s just one of many Chinese construction projects that CMHC has helped local companies get involved in.

This post was submitted by Meh.

The controlled collapse of the Chinese housing bubble seems to be proceeding right on schedule. If HAM is a factor in BC what affect will this have here?

Home prices nationwide declined in November for the third straight month, according to an index of values in 100 major cities compiled by the China Index Academy, an independent real estate firm. Average prices in the Shanghai area are down about 40% from their peak in mid-2009, to about $176,000 for a 1,000-square-foot home.

Sales have plummeted. In Beijing, nearly two years’ worth of inventory is clogging the market, and more than 1,000 real estate agencies have closed this year. Developers who once pre-sold housing projects within hours are growing desperate. A real estate company in the eastern city of Wenzhou is offering to throw in a new BMW with a home purchase.

The swift turnaround has stunned buyers such as Shanghai resident Mark Li, who thought prices had nowhere to go but up. The software engineer closed on a $250,000, three-bedroom apartment in August, only to watch weeks later as the developer slashed prices 25% on identical units to attract buyers in a slowing market.

Outraged, Li and hundreds of others who paid full price trashed the sales office, scuffled with employees and protested for three days before police broke up the demonstration. Walking away now would mean losing the $75,000 down payment that he borrowed from his working-class parents.

“I still haven’t told them,” Li, 29, said of his home’s plummeting value. “It will just make them worry, and it’s already too late.”

Full article in the LA Times.

This post was submitted by xct.

There are new strata regulations in BC, here’s the PDF and here’s an article with an overview:

In October 2009, the B.C. government passed the Strata Property Amendment Act, Bill 8. Under the act, many of the changes taking place were to be introduced by implementing regulations. Unlike Bill 8, which required the approval of the legislature, regulations are approved by provincial cabinet as an order in council. Within Bill 8, there were provisions that affected long-term planning and information certificates. Part 15 of the bill, applied to long-term planning, has just been adopted through the regulations as mandatory depreciation reports.

A depreciation report is basically a planning tool used by property owners (the strata corporation) to clearly understand what the strata is responsible for maintaining and repairing as part of its building system (a physical component inventory); the age of the building system; the projected life expectancy; when it should be planned for renewal; what it will cost when the time comes to renew the component; and how the strata will pay for it.

The new regulations provide a two-year window for strata corporations to comply with the mandatory requirement – by Dec. 13, 2013. Strata corporations of less than five units will be exempt, and strata corporations of five strata lots or more that wish to be exempt from the requirement must essentially pass a ¾ vote at an annual or special general meeting for each one-year period the depreciation report is required to be obtained.

Read the full outline in the Province newspaper.

This post was submitted by jeff.