Time for your cheat sheet on this week’s top stories.
Canadian Real Estate
Canadian Real Estate Correction May Be Over As Prices Rip Higher
Canada’s real estate correction has seen prices begin to head the other way. A benchmark, or typical home, jumped 1.7% (+$12,300) to $727,700 in March. It was the second consecutive increase since prices began falling, and enough to begin reversing the annual trend. While two months don’t make a trend, exuberant buyers in the market are back in charge.
Canada’s Epic Real Estate Bubble Means Mayors Can’t Afford Their Own Cities
How unaffordable is Canada? Lofty mayoral salaries wouldn’t qualify for a mortgage on a median home without some help. Considering the mayors of these cities get paid significantly more than the median household, it’s not clear who they’re building these cities for. It’s just a part of the reason the OECD has declared Canada’s real per capita growth will lag its advanced economic peers for the next 40 years.
A Global Hard Landing Is Now Expected, Worst Outlook In Decades: IMF
Buckle up—a hard landing is nearly impossible to avoid now. The stark warning was from the IMF, which released its latest forecast for the global economy. It’s an unusually dim forecast from the agency, which hasn’t forecast such a sharp downturn since 1990.
Toronto Real Estate Is Still The King of Cranes, 4x More Than The Next City
Toronto real estate is some of the priciest in the world, and that has set off a building boom to match. Despite higher rates and construction woes, the city topped RLB’s North American Crane Index. A whopping 238 high rise cranes have been deployed in Q1 2023, rising by 8 units since the previous quarter. It’s nearly 4x more cranes than the next city, crowning the city the crane capital of North America—possibly the world.
