Thursday 15 November 2012

Real Estate Market Showing Little Hope

Records show that while Canada’s home prices are remaining consistent, home sales have been slipping. It was reported that since last October, the Canadian real estate market has been cooling down. According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, home sales fell 0.1% during October to 36,492 units. In addition, last year’s home sales fell as well by 0.8%. Monthly sales are down 5.4 percent since June, according to the association’s data.

As markets in British Columbia fell, policy makers took measures to tighten mortgage lending to prevent real estate bubbles from forming. For example, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, toughened rules on government-insured mortgages in July for the fourth time in 4 years. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, the country’s federal banking regulator, also introduced stricter standards for mortgage lenders.

Gregory Klump, the realtor group’s chief economist, announced that he has seen little change in national activity since the new mortgage rules came into action. The market has changed little since the month of July.

On November 8th, The Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. reported that housing starts fell 8.9% this October. Canada’s central bank forecasts that housing investment, which helped lead Canada out of recession in 2009, will bring down growth probably until 2014.

In Victoria (capital of British Columbia), the real estate market had massive falls in October as home Sales dropped by 26%. However, Vancouver home sales showed record gains and while some parts of Canada might be showing gains in the market, many parts are reporting steady declines.

For the original post visit: http://www.loansafe.org/real-estate-market-showing-little-hope

No comments:

Post a Comment