November 2012 Canadian Economic Fundamentals

[Ally]

New guidelines coming for mortgage insurers




Canada`s financial regulator will release new guidelines for mortgage insurers early next year, including the government`s Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. ` but they won`t drag down the housing market as much as the guidelines for banks have, says the country`s banking watchdog.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Tighter mortgage rules are justified




The tightening of the rules on mortgage insurance, announced in June by Jim Flaherty, the Minister of Finance, was justified to restrain the rise of household debt, although a report by the chief economist of the mortgage brokers association, published on Monday, argues that these measures will slow down the housing market.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Realty reality: What $350k can buy in Canada





While $350,000 won`t buy you a detached house in Vancouver, it can net you a lovely ` some may say stately -- abode in other parts of the country.







Steele on Your Side teamed up with CTV consumer reporters across Canada to take a look at what your real estate dollar can buy you.







For $359,000 in Vancouver`s Fairview neighbourhood, you can buy a cozy, 600-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Vancouver complex turns not so family-friendly




When Thandi Schweitzer and her partner Deb Rousseau bought a two-bedroom unit in a condo at 36th and Main six years ago, they were aware the building had a bylaw barring tenants under the age of 19.




They weren't too concerned. After all, they had no immediate plans to start a family.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Mortgage rules hinder first-time buyers




Canada's mortgage brokers say recent changes to federal rules have taken too big a bite out of an already cooling housing market and they suggest policy-makers should address the needs of their industry.




In Vancouver, the slowdown predates the mortgage changes made in July, said the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals chief economist Will Dunning.




"Vancouver, like the rest of the country, since the changes has seen a further reduction in sales activity, so I think there are two effects being layered here: the slowdown and the policy impact," Dunning said. "I don't think that's going to help the market settle down anytime soon." In October, the dollar volume of homes sold in B.C. dropped 14.6 per cent from a year ago, the number of sales dropped 10 per cent and the average price - $508,292 - was down 5.1 per cent, the B.C. Real Estate Association reported last week.




Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Women opting for secure condo lifestyle




The desire to live in a secure, maintenance-free home is among the reasons a growing number of independent women in Alberta are opting for condos when it comes time to get into home ownership.




For about 48 per cent of women across the province who responded to a Women and Home Ownership poll by TD Canada Trust, the cost of maintenance and repairs steered them away from buying a single-family detached home.




Nationally, 40 per cent pointed to maintenance costs as the main reason not to buy a detached home. But buying an apartment condo or townhouse is a different matter. There is little in the way of maintenance that isn't taken care of for purchasers.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Mortgage crackdown threatens economy, report says




Ottawa's moves to crack down on the housing market go too far and are now harming Canada's economy, the group that represents the mortgage industry says.




The Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals represents 12,250 mortgage professionals across the country.




In a report published Monday, CAAMP chief economist Will Dunning says the policy changes announced recently that made it harder for Canadians to obtain insured mortgages were unnecessary, let too much air out of the market, and are starting to eat into the broader economy.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Canada's newest hotspot? Northwest Territories




This marks the largest gain of any of the provinces. With previous changes to mortgage regulations, demand rose between the time changes were announced and their implementation, and invariably fell in the months immediately after being implemented, before recovering to long-term levels, according to Gregory Klump, chief economist for CREA.




`By contrast, recent changes to mortgage regulations were in force more quickly after being announced, so home buyers had far less time to react,` says Klump. `As a result, demand didn't pick up just before the changes took effect, while sales declined once they did."




Home sales in Canada decreased slightly by 0.8 per cent between September and October 2012, an indicator that the country`s housing sales may soon be headed in the right direction, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Generation Y and Homeownership: A generation of renters, and not by choice




Sociologists couldn`t do better than Bram Warshafsky, 23, as a model for the attitude shift toward home ownership that they have long predicted for his generation.




Raised in a four-bedroom house in an upper-middle-class neighbourhood in midtown Toronto, Warshafsky, the second of four boys, appreciated having enough space in the backyard to play catch. But after he finished his commerce degree at Queen`s University in 2010, moved back in with his parents and landed a job with Johnson & Johnson`s marketing division, he couldn`t justify a jump into the real estate market. He has since become what he describes as a `passionate renter.`





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Canadian house prices dip 0.2% in October: Teranet




TORONTO - Canadian home prices dipped in October from September and year-over-year price gains slowed for the 11th straight month in yet another sign Canada`s hot housing market has cooled, the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index showed on Wednesday.




The index, which measures price changes for repeat sales of single-family homes, showed overall prices fell 0.2 percent in October from a month earlier, only the third October drop in 13 years of data.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Latest obstacle to transporting oilsands product is pure nonsense





Many Canadians thought America went crazy during the U.S. election campaign. We were psychoanalyzing the wrong country. Maybe Canada is nuts.




Quebec now seems likely to stall, if not block, any flow of Alberta and other western Canadian petroleum to Montreal through a reversed pipeline.




There's an environmental problem with oil, says new PQ Environment Minister Daniel Breton, who also presents this as a typical separatist "territory" issue.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

RBC relesase latest Housing Trends and Affordability Report





The overall trend in housing affordability in Canada continued to show a lack of direction in the third quarter of 2012. In the past two years or so, there have been alternating periods of improvement and erosion with regards to affordability, which, on net, left the general trend essentially flat on the basis of the national data. True to this pattern, housing affordability in the third quarter fully reversed two successive quarters of mild erosion in Canada, and returned (for the most part) to levels that prevailed at the end of 2011 ` and were little changed relative to levels at the start of 2010. The improvement reflected modest declines in home prices and mortgage rates, as well as further household income gains. At the national level, RBC`s housing affordability measures fell in all three categories in the third quarter of 2012 (a decline represents an improvement in affordability). The detached bungalow benchmark eased by 1.0 percentage point to 42.0%, two-storey home by 1.2 percentage points to 47.8% and condominium apartment by 0.6 percentage points to 28.0%.





Read the full report here.

 

[Ally]

Housing prices decline in October



There's mounting evidence October was a weak month for sales of Canadian housing.





A new monthly analysis by Teranet shows Canadian housing prices declined last month compared with September ` only the third time in 13 years of data that there was a month-to-month decline in October.





The Teranet-National Bank National composite house price index, released Wednesday, said house prices were up an average of 3.4% across Canada in October compared with a year ago.





However, the index also showed an 11th consecutive month of deceleration in year-to-year price increases and a 0.2% drop in average prices from September levels.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

5 things you didn't know about the Canadian mortgage market




Each year, the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals (CAAMP) releases a report on the state of the Canadian residential mortgage market. This year the report examined everything from the growing popularity of fixed mortgage rates, to the economic impact of the new mortgage rules. The data is compiled through multiple sources, including an online survey of more than 2,000 participants made up of both homeowners and renters.




Because the report is filled with a wealth of data, it can be overwhelming for the mortgage newbie. And it`s always been a dream of mine to bring the year`s most interesting facts to life. The report was released Monday and, since then, the RateHub team has been working with PushPullLabs, scrambling to make sense of the facts and figures and communicate them in the clearest way possible.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Boost exports, private investment, economist urges




KITCHENER ` Canada needs to increase exports and boost business investment to keep our economic engine moving forward over the next few years, the chief economist of the TD Bank Group told an economic forum Wednesday.




Consumer spending, real estate growth and government stimulus have fuelled economic growth in the past few years, but those sources are expected to cool, Craig Alexander told Wilfrid Laurier University`s annual Economic Outlook forum.




`We need a rotation` of economic drivers toward exports and private business investment, he told about 300 people at the forum.




Governments at the federal and provincial levels are trying to balance their books, and consumers are dealing with high household debt, Alexander said, though he expects interest rates to rise only moderately in the next few years because the U.S. is holding down its interest rates as well.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Real estate 2013 report: Compared to everyone else, we will do very well




Calgary and Edmonton are now the top cities for real estate investment, according to a new report from PwC and the Urban Land Institute, which says the two Alberta cities have displaced Vancouver and Toronto for 2013.




Investors will favour apartment and office buildings next year while developers will focus on the retail market but overall the report says mediocre will be the new measure of what defines a good market.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

If a Starbucks opens in a new neighbourhood, it's time to buy a home there



"Wake up and smell the coffee," writes Michael Corbett, Trulia's real estate expert and and host of NBC's "Extra's Mansions & Millionaires!" in his book Before you Buy! The Homebuyer's Handbook for Today's Market.





He's talking about big chains such as Starbucks and Whole Foods. If you see them opening in a new neighborhood, it's a sign that the neighborhood is up-and-coming, and therefore a smart real estate bet.



Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Canada's housing affordability rises in third quarter






TORONTO (Reuters) - Falling home prices and an uptick in household income made Canadian home ownership slightly more affordable in the third quarter, but the longer-term trend is largely unchanged, according to a report by RBC Economics released on Thursday.





RBC, Canada's largest bank and a huge mortgage lender, measured affordability as the percentage of monthly pre-tax income for a household needed to cover the typical costs of owning a home, including mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes.





Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

Is Canada an island of economic stability? Hardly - and here's why




Earlier this week I participated in a round table discussion about the short term outlook for Canada`s economy. Of the four panelists, I was the most bearish. I hope I`m wrong and that Canada remains an `Island of Stability,` but it`s tough to ignore all the risk factors ` partly because there are so many of them.



Read the full article here.

 

[Ally]

It's back to business for Canada and the U.S.






With the U.S. election behind him, Barack Obama can resume his day job at the White House. One of the many files on his desk would be Canada-U.S. relations, not a top priority in his world but very much so in Stephen Harper`s.




If the prime minister had a short list for his next conversation or meeting with Obama, it would start with him strongly urging the Obama administration to approve the Keystone XL pipeline project from the Canadian border to the Gulf Coast of the United States.




Read the full article here.