Cory Bagg Real Estate
Cory Bagg
Friday, April 16, 2010

Provincial Quarterly Update...

 
April 13, 2010 Provincial Quarterly Update...

 

Vancouver, BC – The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) residential sales in the province climbed 43 per cent to 7,110 units in March compared to the same month last year. On a seasonally adjusted basis, MLS® residential unit sales in the province increased 6 per cent compared to February 2010. However, home sales in March were 20 per cent lower than December 2009 on a seasonally adjusted basis.
 
“Home sales have moderated since the beginning of the year,” said Cameron Muir, BCREA Chief Economist. Waning pent-up demand and eroding affordability were key factors in the market. “Despite an improving provincial economy, higher mortgage interest rates and tighter credit conditions for low-equity homebuyers and investors will squeeze some prospective buyers out of the market this spring,” added Muir.

The BC residential sales dollar volume increased 95 per cent to $9.22 billion in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the same period last year.  Residential units sales rose 64 per cent to 18,284 units, while the average MLS® residential price climbed 19 per cent to $504,312 over the same period.

For the complete news release, including detailed statistics, follow this link: www.bcrea.bc.ca/news_room/2010-03.pdf.

For more information, please contact:  

Cameron Muir
Chief Economist


Sunday, February 15, 2009

In Canada, $10 billion infrastructure investment could potential

In Canada, $10 billion infrastructure investment could potentially create
110,000 jobs
>>

TORONTO, Jan. 26 /CNW/ - CIBC (CM: TSX; NYSE) - As governments look to
spend their way out of the recession, between $25 and $30 trillion of fresh
infrastructure investment will be pumped into the global economy over the next
two decades, finds a new report from CIBC World Markets.
"Governments all over the world are buying jobs," says Benjamin Tal,
senior economist at CIBC World Markets. "And the infrastructure sector is
where many of these jobs will be created. When it comes to creating jobs and
stimulating activity, infrastructure spending is a much more effective tool
than tax cuts.
"In the U.S., the impact of economic growth of infrastructure spending
worth one per cent of GDP is more than double the impact of tax cuts, which
have a greater leakage to imported consumer goods, and which risk being saved
by households. In Canada, $10 billion of infrastructure spending can
potentially create 110,000 jobs and lift economic growth by close to 1.5
percentage points-well above the stimulus effect of a tax cut of a similar
size.
The report estimates that in the U.S., the Obama Administration will
spend close to $150 billion out of the upcoming $875 billion fiscal stimulus
on infrastructure investments. China will spend almost 80 per cent of its
near-$600 billion stimulus package on infrastructure. Overall, the report
estimates that governments will commit an additional $650 billion in global
infrastructure spending in the next two years.
While some question the effectiveness of infrastructure investment in
stimulating the economy due to the long planning process associated with these
projects, Mr. Tal notes that close to $57 billion worth of shovel-ready
projects can be started in the U.S. in the next 120 days. That number swells
to $136 billion over a 24-month time frame. In Canada, municipalities can
deliver close to $14 billion worth of infrastructure work in 2009 alone.
Based on an examination of Canada's 100 largest upcoming infrastructure
projects, Mr. Tal estimates that roughly $23 billion, or 40 per cent of all
upcoming infrastructure investment, will go to the energy sector-of which the
vast majority will be used to finance major hydro and nuclear projects. Later,
that spending will be joined by new oil capacity investment as now-cancelled
oil sands projects are moved to the front burner as crude oil prices rebound.
The coming years will also see a significant inflow of infrastructure money
into the transportation sector followed by spending on health infrastructure.
"Beyond the short-term stimulus, what will keep the fire going is private
money," adds Mr. Tal. "By now infrastructure is viewed by almost half of
global institutional investors as a standalone asset class - up from 10 per
cent only three years ago. And rightly so, since the risk/return
characteristics of the sector are notably different than any other asset class
including real estate.
"In Canada, for example, with more than $700 billion to play with, even a
minor change to pension funds' asset allocation can dramatically change the
mathematics of infrastructure funding. And it's already happening. We estimate
that currently roughly five per cent of pension funds' assets are allocated to
global infrastructure investment-up from only two per cent earlier in the
decade. And this allocation is rising."
He expects that rising trend to continue, with pension funds allocating
between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of their assets to infrastructure
investment by 2017-adding more than $200 billion of fresh money to this
capital intensive sector.
"While investors have already priced-in these rewards in some countries
and sectors, elsewhere there is still time to capitalize on the coming
infrastructure boom," concludes Mr. Tal. "And with massive injection of public
and private money, this asset class will prove to be a profitable one."

<<
The complete CIBC World Markets report is available at:
http://research.cibcwm.com/economic_public/download/occrept66.pdf
>>

CIBC World Markets is the corporate and investment banking arm of CIBC.
To deliver on its mandate as a premier client-focused and Canadian-based
investment bank, World Markets provides a wide range of credit, capital
markets, investment banking, merchant banking and research products and
services to government, institutional, corporate and retail clients in Canada
and in key markets around the world.



For further information: please contact: Benjamin Tal, Senior Economist,
CIBC World Markets at (416) 956-3698, benjamin.tal@cibc.ca; or Kevin Dove,
Communications and Public Affairs at (416) 980-8835, kevin.dove@cibc.c
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Real Estate Economic Forecast

Home prices to slide, not crash: economist LORI MCLEOD Globe and Mail Update October 7, 2008 at 5:11 PM EDT Over the next eight to ten months, a gradual slide will likely send the average price of a home in Canada lower by another 5 to 10 per cent, says economist Benjamin Tal. Sales activity will also drop by an average of about 20 per cent from current levels before stabilizing near the end of 2009, Mr. Tal, senior economist at CIBC World Markets Inc., said in an interview after his speech Tuesday before an income fund industry conference.

 

By this time next year the market will level off as conditions in the Canadian economy stabilize, he said. However Canadians shouldn't be waiting for a “V-shaped recovery,” at that point, but instead should expect both home prices and sales to remain relatively flat, he added.

“What we are saying is that prices will continue to ease in the coming months, but there will be no U.S.-style freefall,” Mr. Tal said.

 

Canada should be in buyers' market territory by late 2008 or early 2009 for the first time since 2001, he added. Some cities have already been feeling the slowdown in home sales and prices harder than others, such as Windsor, Ont., which has suffered as a result of the auto sector slump. Cities in Alberta have also experienced deeper and earlier price declines than many other parts of the country, mostly due to prices that seemed to double “over breakfast,” Mr. Tal said.

 

In June, the average resale home price fell year-over-year for the first time in more than nine years, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). Prices slipped further in the next two months, and the same trend will likely be repeated when September numbers are released next week.

 

In the West, it's likely some cities will see double-digit price declines by the end of 2009, particularly in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Mr. Tal said. However, the declines will bring Canada back to a market that still has healthy sales and price levels, he added. The cool-down is unlikely to wipe out all of the gains made during the six-year boom, he said. In Regina, for example, home prices have risen by up to 40 per cent in one year, according to a report this week by brokerage Royal LePage Real Estate Services. In the third quarter, the price of a detached, two-storey home there hit $259,000 compared with $185,500 the year before, the report said.

 

In Ontario, where prices have risen at a more moderate pace, home values could fall by an average of about 5 per cent from their current level by this time next year, Mr. Tal said.

 

As home prices continue to fall, mortgage rates are on the rise, with banks passing on their higher borrowing costs to consumers. While mortgage rates are still near historically low levels, the increase is fuelling worries that debt-laden Canadians could be in danger of tumbling into a U.S. style housing crisis. The concern is heightened by the fact that some existing mortgages are zero-down, 40-year amortization products, which have extended some home owners to their financial limits.

 

A government lending clampdown aimed at averting a U.S.-style housing bubble will virtually eliminate these products from the market for new and renewing mortgages as of Oct. 15. Despite these concerns, economists said Canada's housing market is unlikely to mirror what's happened in the United States.

 

An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 Canadian home owners are currently in arrears, said Will Dunning, chief economist at the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals (CAAMP), in a report released Monday. This means about 0.3 per cent of Canada's 8.05 million home owners are behind on their mortgages by three months or more, he said.

By contrast, arrears in Canada hit about 0.7 per cent in 1992, as the effects of the housing bubble in the late 1980s and early 1990s worked their way through the mortgage market, Mr. Dunning said.

 

Even if there are some job losses in Canada due to the global financial slowdown, the number of mortgages in arrears is unlikely to rise to anywhere near to the 1992 level because interest rates remain so low, Mr. Dunning said.

 

The closest comparison to Canadian arrears levels in the United States are 90-day mortgage delinquencies, Mr. Tal said. They are now in the 2 to 3 per cent range, meaning that about 1.5 million U.S. home owners are currently in delinquency. In August, the last month for which data were available, one in every 416 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing, a 12 per cent increase from July and a 27 per cent increase from August, 2007.

 

National foreclosure statistics aren't available in Canada, but lenders say the rate is low, and hasn't shown an appreciable increase over last year. At 70 per cent, the equity Canadians have in their homes has also been increasing over the past decade, while in the United States that level has slipped to below 50 per cent, Mr. Dunning said.

 

The U.S. housing collapse was a crisis brought on by overuse of subprime mortgages. Thus, Mr. Tal said, it's important to remember that its peak risky mortgages made up 5 per cent of the market in Canada, compared with 33 per cent in the U.S.

 


Monday, November 5, 2007

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