Historic house prices

[YehoramShenhar]

Hi,

Interesting tool from the economist to compare housing trends between different countries over the past several years. One interesting graph to look at is prices compared with average income. Note that in most measurments Canada looks cheaper than many other countries - even after the dramatic declines of the last few years.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14438245

 

[MikeDix]

QUOTE (YehoramShenhar @ Jan 5 2010, 09:44 PM) Hi,

Interesting tool from the economist to compare housing trends between different countries over the past several years. One interesting graph to look at is prices compared with average income. Note that in most measurments Canada looks cheaper than many other countries - even after the dramatic declines of the last few years.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14438245

Thanks for this post! This is a very useful macro-economic tool that enables us to compare Canada with other countries. The four measurements, and the ability to adjust the date range makes for some really interesting observations. Besides confirming that we are in a more balanced (conservative, likely more sustainable, less risky in terms of volatility) real estate environment than a lot of other countries, this tool allows you to set a date range for the time you started to invest in real estate to Q3 2009. You can see whether your portfolio has out-performed the national average for Canada and the other nations. Very cool.

We live in a global economy...giving us choice of investment opportunities both at a micro-economic level within Canada (micro-regional as promoted by Don in his analyses of the hot spots), and in other countries. How would you feel to be heavily invested in Japan for the past 10 years? Not pretty according to this chart. Canada has a lot of sound fundementals, and within certain regions there are some great growth opportunities over the next 5-10 or more years. We may not get the home runs seen in Britain, Oz, or New Zealand, but I know where I would rather have my money invested right now. A great place to have a retirement plan comprised of real estate, and a great place to retire.... a very compelling story. If you add in the strength of the Loonie I believe we stack up really well.

 

[KieranTrass]

QUOTE (MikeDix @ Jan 7 2010, 09:40 PM) We may not get the home runs seen in Britain, Oz, or New Zealand,

My suggestion is that it`s a good thing you didn`t get the home runs in this real estate cycle boom phase because those other markets appear to still remain more vulnerable than Canada.

Kind of like playing baseball and one team scores the most home runs up until later in the game when they start to run out of energy... let`s hope Canada doesn`t start ramping up the score now because real estate is one game where the biggest winners in real estate value growth rates can quickly turn into the biggest losers, for example the USA, Dubai, Ireland, Spain etc,etc,etc have suffered the classic case of that now, with rapid and large value declines.