Author: Carli

OPINION: In Vancouver, after seven large monthly house price increases in a row, prices were virtually flat in September (top chart). This is consistent with the recent loosening in the home resale market…

OPINION: The last monthly increase in the composite index, the largest for a month of February since the recession, is totally due to the price jump in Vancouver. Without Vancouver, the index would have been about flat. The 12-month two-digit price gain in Vancouver is consistent with data reported by the Real Estate Board of […]

Changes in housing affordability from Q4 2014 to Q4 2015 show significant divergence among markets. Affordability deteriorated in Vancouver, Toronto, Victoria, and Hamilton and improved in the other six markets. The sharpest deterioration from a year earlier was in Vancouver, where the MPPI rose 3.4 percentage points, with home prices up 11.9% from a year […]

OPINION: The report confirms that housing markets in oil-dependent regions are reacting to the economic downturn resulting from the collapse of oil prices. In particular, prices declined for a fourth month in a row in Calgary, for a cumulative drop of 4.4%. Among the metropolitan areas covered, only Ottawa-Gatineau has a similar bad sequence with […]

Slim Pickings Despite Recent Sell-Off: This time last year, we acknowledged that the outlook for the Canadian housing market had changed dramatically on the back of a 50% decline in oil prices from their 2014 peak. We highlighted the adverse implications for the Alberta market in particular. Over the past 12 months oil prices have […]

OPINION: For Canada as a whole, 2015 saw the largest house price increase in four years (top chart), but only four regional markets were the drivers of that performance. At the other end of the spectrum, the collapse in oil prices has translated into house price deflation in Calgary and Edmonton, with the remaining five […]