Comments on: Canadian New Home Prices Stall, Stat Can Makes Baseless Bullish Price Forecast

By: Dennis_K

Dennis_K — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 16:41:25 +0000

I guess StatCan is relying on unearned and foreign capital to continue to be injected into residential real estate, and understanding that newcomers will be used as one of the funnels to do so. After all, to the best of my knowledge, there have been no regulatory changes to stop unearned / untaxed capital from getting spent on real estate (i.e. money laundering, tax avoidance). Even with the federal Prohibition on th Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act, which I’ve read and is great in principle, seems to have loopholes that allow it to be circumvented, since it’s not clear how the provisions of this Act will be monitored (after all, we still don’t have a national means by which to identify ownership by named individuals), and who is to enforce it.

I’ve noticed that many government agencies seem to be releasing statements and documents favoring the real estate development / building / sales food chain, and just refuse to look at excess liquidity and non-essential demand (i.e. persons not requiring a principal residence) as drivers of unaffordable (market) housing, certainly relative to local incomes. CMHC seems quite interested in pushing the limited-supply narrative, given the release of their 2018 document ‘Examining Escalating House Prices in Large Canadian Metropolitan Centres’, and their June 2022 document ‘Canada’s Housing Supply Shortages: Estimating what is needed to solve Canada’s housing affordability crisis by 2030’.

I mean – seriously – building our way BACK to affordability? We need median prices to DECLINE, in some cases down by over 40-50%, in order to become aligned with current median incomes (see National Bank of Canada Housing Affordability Monitor reports). Who within the residential development / building / sales food chain would ever want to see more housing built than could be sold, just so that the prices actually drop to that level? It’s in their interest to keep supply just shy of demand (whether it’s rational or not) in order to keep prices as high as possible. And there is no law that says if their costs decline, that they must sell for a lower price – market-wise, that would only happen if there’s sufficient competition (i.e. excess inventory elsewhere) that isn’t selling.

And why is StatCan even talking about home price projections? Isn’t it their job to compile the statistics, as they are, in order for the national public to be informed of the on-the-ground reality around us?

By: Rene Nielson

Rene Nielson — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 12:21:44 +0000

The powers that “be” always say it’s gonna be great, especially right before the SHTF

By: Moose

Moose — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 00:27:48 +0000

Said it before and said it again, housing is too big to fail in Canada which is just what the Feds want. They’d rather let people trades houses off each other at grossly inflated values rather than building the economy organically. It’s the path of least effort.

By: Miff Tacklem

Miff Tacklem — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 17:51:05 +0000

In reply to Trader Jim. Correct. Like all other institutions in Canada, SC can't be trusted. The institutions are being used for political expediency and no longer serve to level playing fields or inform citizens. SC and the current federal government know that a massive amount of Canada's GDP is generated through real estate. They know if there is a crash, the house of cards will fall.

By: Devilsadvocate

Devilsadvocate — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 15:32:24 +0000

Welcome to the semi-fixed downward trajectory. The longer the Liberal government is in power, the longer Canada is remain under the thumb of a quasi-dictator whose focus is on making its citizens poorer.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 14:14:43 +0000

Its just false. Fake news…loses will be massive.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 01:03:01 +0000

So this is what it’s like to live in China…

By: Doomcouver

Doomcouver — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 23:26:19 +0000

I hope some underwater mortgage holders take them to court over these baseless claims of near-term price growth. Stat Can must be loaded with housing shills to put out this trash.

By: G-money

G-money — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 22:26:58 +0000

Oh boy, CREA and TREB will be all over this to use to prop up the housing market.

By: Oldguy

Oldguy — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 20:48:23 +0000

This is not the only outlier that seems to be based on absolutely nothing. The only consistent characteristic is that most of these outliers are part of, or closely aligned with, the federal government. Remember, the solution to many of Trudeau’s problem lies in ongoing high inflation and laundered money.
Watch this space.