More broadly, there are significant signs that the housing market is starting to turn. For instance,

Don’t look now but slumping crude prices are hitting the Canadian housing market like a freight train. Energy accounts for 10% of Canadian GDP and around 25% of exports and the swift fall in oil prices is having a profound effect in the nation’s oil producing regions. Take Calgary for instance, best western winrock inn albuquerque where single-family home sales fell 34% last month. As the following chart shows, Alberta derives some 30% of its provincial revenues from energy royalties and as one TD analyst quoted by the Calgary Herald recently noted, “the effects of significantly lower oil prices had already turned up in resale best western winrock inn albuquerque activity, with sales in Calgary and Edmonton down more than 40 per cent and 30 per cent respectively, from October to January [and] as resale activity slows, prices usually follow.”
Depressed crude prices will create a $7 billion annual revenue shortfall for the province while GDP growth, which had been running at around 4%, is expected be just under half that this year, with some analysts predicting the economy will contract. Here’s CIBC’s outlook for instance:
The impact of lower oil prices on real economic growth is expected to be less severe than on incomes. Alberta’s real GDP, the volume of goods and services produced, is expected to expand in 2015, but at a much slower pace of 0.6%. This is down from the Second Quarter forecast of 2.8%.
Although there are some similarities between the current [oil] price correction and previous ones, there are also key differences. Marginal extraction costs are significantly higher than in the past, with few sources of cheap supply remaining. In addition, current excess supply on the market can be attributable to price levels that encouraged the extraction of higher cost crude, rather than shrinking demand.
More broadly, there are significant signs that the housing market is starting to turn. For instance, best western winrock inn albuquerque the New Housing Price Index fell 0.1% in January. This was the first decrease at the national level in nearly a half decade.
Two housing reports released Thursday best western winrock inn albuquerque indicate year-over-year price gains for the Calgary market but on a monthly basis the real estate sector is starting to see declines best western winrock inn albuquerque indicating a correction is on its way.
“The abrupt shift in housing demand and supply conditions in some parts of the country indicate that potentially severe housing corrections have already begun. In Calgary, for example, the slump in existing home sales and jump in new properties listed for sale suggest that house prices will decline by 15 per cent this year,” best western winrock inn albuquerque said David Madani, economist with Capital Economics.
“Preliminary sales and listings figures for February best western winrock inn albuquerque reinforce this view: home sales fell by 35 per cent from a year ago, while the total number of properties listed for sale jumped by over 107 per cent.”
MLS sales of single-family homes in Fort McMurray and its surrounding best western winrock inn albuquerque area have plunged so far this year. In February, sales were down by a whopping 66 per cent from a year ago, at just 48 units. That followed an annual decline of 53.19 per cent in January.
Softening best western winrock inn albuquerque demographic fundamentals likely will weigh on Alberta’s housing best western winrock inn albuquerque sector. Already there are signs of impending housing market downturns in Calgary and Edmonton, although these so far primarily reflect a loss of confidence caused by the sharp drop in oil prices rather than weaker population growth. We project home resales to decline by nearly 16% in 2015 in Alberta and housing starts to moderate best western winrock inn albuquerque from 40.6K units last year to 27.5K units this year.
We estimate that the direct impact of lower capital spending in the energy sector will reduce Alberta’s real GDP growth rate by more than 1.5 percentage points in 2015. Indirectly, the effect will spread to employment, net migration, the housing sector, consumer spending and, possibly, public sector best western winrock inn albuquerque spending. Our updated forecasts assume a decline in employment during the first half of 2015 in Alberta. Job losses could be as much as half the jobs created in 2014.
Alberta contributed one-third of Canada’s economic growth [in 2013] and is by far the fastest-growing province in the country again this year. Since the beginning of 2013, nearly half the jobs created in the country were in Alberta
Bringing it all together, it appears as though the 50% decline in crude prices may spell the end for the long-running Canadian housing boom. The data looks abysmal in oil-rich Alberta while at the national level, it looks as though January marked a tipping point. Add to this the fact that Canadian households are more leveraged than they have ever been as the following graphic from Statistics Canada shows:
Canadian consumers are highly leveraged and thus cannot continue supporting the growth of the economy like they have done over the past decade unless jobs are added at the same pace as they are in the U.S. The housing sector is also fully valued.
And FWIW, with the dollar's skyrocket, the overseas buyers and investors in Florida have all but dissappeared. We are runing on bankster best western winrock inn albuquerque and .gov vaporloans right now to generate any sizable best western winrock inn albuquerque increase in vacation home, time-share, or primary residence sales in Florida.
I ran a typical ad in several Alberta cities - strangely the one in Calgary slid to page 32 - when I looked the kijiji ads were crazy - people would come take a pick-up truck of your 'garbage' for $40. Of course this barely covers best western winrock inn albuquerque the fuel to haul to the dump and further best western winrock inn albuquerque inspection revealed there is an exodus of people leaving Calgary that are just dumping their belongings as they go back east where the EI is better. The other ads were for resume preparation services..
But the first to go of course are all the toys - kijiji.ca has quads, 'compensator' trucks, and motorbikes, older vehicles best western winrock inn albuquerque at insane discounts.... Following that I expect best western winrock inn albuquerque a housing price carnage to ensue about August to September best western winrock inn albuquerque right when the people trying to hold out for a recovery run out of savings, EI, or both..
It's not just AB. Friends best western winrock inn albuquerque from Vancouver (BC) told me they've receive their 2015 notices of assesment (property tax value) reduced with up to 7%. And that's as downtown Vancouver as you could get. At the same time, there is an insane number of "developments" about to be finished, in work, or (even better) ready to start ! No more Chinese money for them though...
There is absolutely no way the municipality would lower property tax so quickly (and voluntarily). You normally best western winrock inn albuquerque have to go to them with proof that recent sales in the neighborhood have decreased the value of your place.
yeah there's a huge fundamental mistake that's being made when talking about Canadian housing in that there basically are 3 separate best western winrock inn albuquerque markets... speaking to the "Canadian" best western winrock inn albuquerque market you might as well be speaking to the economics of North Dakota, China and California, and the general USA... Toronto is at risk for the same reason best western winrock inn albuquerque the U.S. was before... too much debt at low interest rates, and while most of these mortgages are much more secure, they're still at great risk relative to, say, mortgages 10 yrs ago. Alberta is basically best western winrock inn albuquerque wholly dependent on oil... mortgages in Alberta are much more secure and typically get more cash upfront than anywhere east of Saskatoon, but often are secured at lower duration because the much higher employment salaries... the banks felt safer giving short mortgages at X rate because everyone and their dog was making 100K a year or more
Vancouver tho... Vancouver may have a blip but if Vancouver goes down even 15%, that's just a buying opportunity for the ridiculous amount of Asian (mostly Chinese but also Iranian, Saudi) cash that's liquid in Van...
the Canadian average can crash all it wants, Vancouver has enough cash in the sidelines just WAITING for Van to drop a little because they see it much more attractive best western winrock inn albuquerque than China (with the high borroring rates now and uncertain renminbi policy), stricter real estate controls of Australia, and geneneral immigration problems of California...
that said, I am I am wrong because I would personally benefit from a -30% or more drop in Vancouver real estate .... but I'm not betting best western winrock inn albuquerque or planning for it ... anecdotally I just know (or have met, seen) far too much Chinese and Iranian cash in Van to believe anything more than -20% is just a BTFD
combined with the renminbi strengthening against the loonie by over +20%, any -20% housing crash + further loonie weakness is going to be a huge buying best western winrock inn albuquerque opportunity... even more so as the Chinese economy slows, investment opportunities at home decrease, capital flight continues.... and Australia continues to crack down on Chinese investors... basically even MORE renminbi will flow into Vancouver as it becomes the best place to take Chinese wealth, and Vancouver housing best western winrock inn albuquerque could be anywhere between 15% and 35% cheaper than 2-3 years ago based on a -20% housing crash
btw by that i mean basically anything east of nicola or north of barclay... i don't really know that corner well so maybe some of those little townhouses are town because no one with any liquidity wants so much trouble for parking for their luxury cars but basically everywhere best western winrock inn albuquerque else is up because it's in much more demand that that qaint little corner.. same with anything near the water, kits, etc that i've seen. anything in west van... anything in burnaby pretty much that's with 15k of kingsway... anything near no2 in richmond best western winrock inn albuquerque or the housing out east... it's all up that i've seen.
The reason classic cars are so expensive in Toronto, is the copious amount of steel dissolving salt they layer on the roads every winter. Very hard to keep a car on the road for 20 years in this shit-hole province.
Agreed, It was bad when they were throwing rock-salt, now they pour this liquid salt-brine which makes the streets of Toronto look like one big glazed vanilla cake. I have a prestine Dodge Challenger best western winrock inn albuquerque which I don't dare drive from December to April because of the roads. Worse, it's affecting our health as when it rains and the ice starts to thaw, the run-off goes straight into the lake and in