Priced out forever?
I’ve spilled a lot of virtual ink on affordability on this blog and why I believe it matters. In short, there are generally two affordability stories: For condos, affordability has oscillated between bad and good...
Category: Weekly
Mortgage rates are up, does it make sense to pay it down?
Two years ago the average Canadian borrower was paying just under 2% for a new mortgage while bank accounts were paying near zero interest and GICs were in the 1% range. Convential wisdom was that...
What happened to the values of seniors-only condos?
Late last year the provincial government severely reduced the ability of strata corporations to restrict residents based on their age. Adult-only buildings were banned, while seniors-only policies remained enforceable. Some buildings that were previously unrestricted...
AI guest post: Is there seasonality in house prices?
Hello readers! While the usual author of this blog is off on vacation, sipping a well-deserved beer, I’ve been tasked to fill in. And who am I, you ask? Well, I’m an AI language model...
A mix of good and bad indicators on debt
There’s a new tool out there for monitoring indicators around mortgages, housing, and financial vulnerability on a national level. The Bank of Canada has a new page with indicators of financial vulnerability that shows...
Where’s the most action?
Just a brief update, if you missed it you can read more about the current state of the market in the monthly update posted last Thursday. We know that with only 2.3 months of inventory,...
The Vancouver Connection is Alive and Well
Vancouver buyers have been a significant force in the Victoria market in the last few years, starting to increase quickly in 2016 and playing a substantial role in the upswing in Victoria prices at that...
Stocks and flows
One of the theories of why there is a decade long downtrend in new listings is that it’s increasingly difficult to upgrade for existing owners. Faced with tough markets and high costs, those owners are...
Has the rental market peaked?
Right off the bat you can probably tell that Betteridge’s Law will apply here, but let’s dig into the rental market a bit and see if there might be some relief coming. First we have...
The (Garbage) New Home Price Index
It’s nothing but puzzles on the blog lately, and here’s the latest one: The New House Price Index (NHPI) is an economic indicator developed and maintained by Statistics Canada that measures the changes in the...