Economic Outlook Archives - Page 7 of 10

19Dec

Toronto, Vancouver among biggest property bubbles in the world, UBS says

[CBC - September 28, 2019] 9 years salary to buy a house in Vancouver, more than 6 in Toronto Swiss investment bank UBS has deemed Toronto and Vancouver to have among the world's biggest housing bubbles, with mispricing that's even more pronounced than it is in expensive cities like Paris and San Francisco. In an annual report published Thursday, the Swiss bank looked at 20 cities around the world that are considered to be financial centres, local metropolises that are hubs for [...]

Economic Outlook, Toronto, Ontario, Vancouver Real Estate

19Dec

Despite recent sales spike, analyst predicts Greater Vancouver market will see more owners losing homes

[News 1130 - December 15, 2019] VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Don’t believe the hype. That’s a real estate tracker’s warning about claims home sales in Greater Vancouver are climbing up again. Dane Eitel, the founder and lead analyst of Eitel Insights, says the market will get worse next year. “We could see a very real day of reckoning here come 2020 to the detached market and that’s where we’re actually going to see some need-based selling, which we haven’t seen for many, [...]

Economic Outlook, Vancouver Real Estate

16Nov

Canadian Housing Market Trends To Look Out For In 2020 – The slowdown seems to be over.

[Huffington Post - November 3, 2019] The floodgates have officially opened for Canadian housing market forecasts for the next year. We’ve already heard that interest rates will likely sink lower in 2020 as the housing market continues to rally through the first half of the year. There’s also speculation around how the Liberals’ October election win will impact housing affordability and whether the NDP will play a bigger role in setting the housing policy agenda within the new minority government. Now the Canada [...]

Canada, Economic Outlook

29Sep

More Fed cuts expected to push Canadian interest rates lower

[CBC News - September 19, 2019] Watch for effects of shrinking global economy to hit Canada as well A weakening global economy and continued trade fears — and emphatically, he said, not angry words from U.S. President Donald Trump — convinced U.S. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates on Wednesday for the second time this summer. And for Canadians waiting for lower rates, those same global forces are on their way, and will likely force Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz to follow suit. Despite the fact that the quarter [...]

Economic Outlook

10Aug

Metro Vancouver housing market no longer ‘vulnerable’ but Victoria still at risk: CMHC

[August 5, 2019 - BIV] Metro Vancouver’s housing market has received a “moderate degree of vulnerability” rating, after three years of “high degree of vulnerability” ratings, from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC). CMHC’s HMA examines urban real estate markets across Canada, assessing a combination of four key risk factors: overvaluation of house prices in comparison with levels that can be supported by economic fundamentals; overheating, when demand for homes in the region outpaces supply; sustained acceleration in house prices; [...]

Economic Outlook

30Mar

B.C. Real Estate Association forecasts lower mortgage rates in 2019

[Source: Georgia Straight - March 28, 2019] That's according to the latest mortgage rate forecast from the B.C. Real Estate Association. The cost of borrowing for a home is predicted to get a little cheaper this year. "The average contract rate for 5-year mortgages has declined about 30 basis points from its peak in 2018, reaching 3.44 per cent in March," the BCREA states in a two-page report. "Unfortunately, this still means a stress test rate of 5.44 per cent, even for [...]

British Columbia, Canada, Economic Outlook

20Mar

First-time home buyers big winners in budget, but will incentives work in B.C.?

[Vancouver Sun - March 19, 2019] The federal budget offers incentives aimed at making housing more affordable for first-time buyers, but it remains to be seen whether they’ll work in the overheated B.C. housing market. “We’ll want to look at the details, we’ll want to take a look at whether it will assist people in communities where unaffordability really is a crisis and housing prices are very high,” said B.C. Finance Minister Carole James. “I think that will continue to be a challenge.” The [...]

Canada, Economic Outlook

12Mar

Metro Vancouver real estate not alone as prices slide across prime global cities

London, Sydney, Hong Kong and more seeing price declines over past year, reports The Economist – a correlation that could herald a global recession [Vancouver Courier - March 8, 2019] It’s easy to think of Metro Vancouver real estate prices as being particularly hard-hit in the past couple of years, by a combination of provincial taxation measures and the federal stress test. But a report published this week by The Economist shows that, in global terms, we are far from alone in seeing [...]

Economic Outlook

09Mar

Economy added 55,900 jobs in February: StatCan

[CTV News - March 8, 2019] OTTAWA -- The labour market generated a second straight month of strong job gains in February with the creation of 55,900 net new positions, all of which were full time, Statistics Canada said Friday. The surge followed an even bigger gain of 66,800 positions in January. The back-to-back results gave Canada its strongest two-month stretch of job creation since the spring of 2012 -- and its best two-month start to a year since 1981. The unemployment rate [...]

Economic Outlook

10Feb

Uneasy Year of the Pig arrives for China – dependant BC companies

[BIV - February 4, 2019] Chinese New Year dawns on a jittery business landscape as Huawei dispute casts uncertainty over access to overseas markets. Not only is Chinese New Year one of the local community’s most celebrated holidays, it is also typically the time for B.C. businesses – especially those with ties to the Chinese market – to celebrate a year of gains while looking optimistically at the potential of more in the coming year. 2019, however, is not a typical year. [...]

British Columbia, Canada, Economic Outlook