Here is an article written by Garry Marr of the Financial Post. It talks about the real estate market in Canada and that we are starting to see signs that the market may have truned the corner.

We are seeing similar signs in the Vancouver real estate market and many are now saying that the price adjustments may have bottomed out sometime towards the end of 2008 or the first couple of months of 2009. And in fact we may have seen prices of Vancouver real estate bounce back a bit from their lows earlier this year.

New home construction rose for a second straight month in June, in what analysts say is another sign that the worst may be over for the Canadian housing market.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Thursday there were 140,700 new homes constructed in June on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis. Construction was up almost 8% from the 130,300 May figure.
“There are some pretty good signs that we are starting to see in the housing market,” said Bob Dugan, chief economist with CMHC. “We’ve seen it for quite a few months on the existing homes side.”
Existing home sales rose 42% from January to May across the country and the early indications are that June was strongest month this year. Sales in Vancouver were up 76% last month compared with a year earlier and Calgary and Toronto both recorded 27% increases during the same period.
Existing home inventories have begun to shrink across the country, convincing builders to ramp up construction. CMHC said urban single family homes — considered the best barometer of the new home market — climbed 7.3% in May from a month earlier.
“It’s well into seller’s market territory again with the May and April numbers,” said Mr. Dugan.
The optimism about the Canadian market comes despite the fact new construction at 140,000 units is way off the 200,000-plus figure the market in Canada has seen for the past seven years.
“I can only speculate, but maybe a lot of people are relieved we are not seeing the decreases we have seen in the U.S.,” said Mr. Dugan. “Peak-to-trough, the decline in the U.S. was something like 80%. In Canada, that would mean we’d have to have 55,000 starts. Some people may have thought that’s where the Canadian market was going.”
The consensus among economist is construction won’t return to pre-recession levels but will gradually improve in the coming months.
“This month’s increase is an important confirmation that the Canadian housing sector is past the worst and in recovery mode,” said Marco Lettieri, an economist with National Bank. “The recovery seems to be broad based with gains observed in both multiple [which includes condominium construction] and single units.”
Robert Kavcic, an economist with Bank of Montreal, said there could be some room for modest growth in starts in the coming months.
“Higher affordability and improved consumer confidence brought buyers off the sidelines this spring,” said Mr. Kavcic.
A report this week from RBC Economics said declining prices and lower interest rates led to one of the biggest quarterly improvements in affordability in history. The bank said monthly payments on a typical detached bungalow in Canada had decreased by almost 17% from a year earlier.
Royal LePage Real Estate Services was also forced this week to upgrade its forecast for 2009 because of the improved market conditions. It now expects 430,000 sales this year, an improvement from its previous call of 416,000, but still down 1% from a year ago.
“I think 2009 will go down as a moderate correction as opposed to the deep and sustained recession that we had first feared,” said Phil Soper, chief executive of the real estate company.
Royal LePage expects prices this year will still fall but not by as much as previously feared. It expects the average sale price in 2009 to be $297,000, a 2% drop from last year. It had previously forecast a 3.5% decline.
Mr. Soper said a decline is still tough to swallow after years of compound growth of close to 10% in the housing market but it’s proving to be a far cry from what has happened in the United States.
“We are long way from the 35% decline that a lot of regions in the United States are experiencing. It’s a very different kind of correction,” said Mr. Soper

http://bestmortgagesvancouver.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/worst-may-be-over-for-the-housing-market/

reviewed by Moishe Alexander, CFC  canadian funding corp CEO

Stephen Gordon on the housing market

Stephen Gordon – National Post

Here is part of what is hopefully one of the last of a once-robust breed – The Apocalyptic Canadian Housing Market Story, this one from Macleans:

Judging by the latest real estate data, the Canadian housing market could scarcely be better. Average home prices are up more than 16 per cent this year, and in May they hit an all-time monthly high, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association. By those numbers, Canada didn’t just sidestep the housing market crash that continues to plague the United States, it sailed right through it virtually unscathed. And yet, there are plenty of signs that the Canadian housing market is still sitting on some very shaky ground—and even the potential that Canada’s big housing crash is yet to come.

Yadda yadda yadda.

We all know that the proximate cause of the U.S. recession was the bursting of its housing market bubble: it blew up banks, laid waste to personal balance sheets, and left millions of people stuck in homes whose mortgages were more than their market value.

And then Canada went into recession. Unfortunately, this set up the following error of logic that was repeated in all-too-many Canadian newsrooms:

1. The U.S. is in recession because its housing market blew up.

2. Canada is in recession.

3. Therefore, Canada’s housing market must be blowing up as well.

And so it was the fate of any number of hapless Canadian journalists to be given assignments to bash out pieces that fit this narrative. But these exercises were all doomed to failure. The decline in house prices in Canada is a symptom of the recession, not its cause.

Let’s look at how house prices have behaved since 2003:

Canadian and US price indices

U.S. house prices have fallen almost 40% (all changes are expressed in per cent log terms: 100 times the difference in the logs), while Canadian house prices are still within 10% of their peak. There are any number of lazy analysts who have swallowed the faulty syllogism enumerated above and have concluded that ‘Canada is following the U.S. with a lag’. This only makes sense if you think that Canadian house prices rose for the same reasons that US prices rose, and that they have fallen for the same reasons that U.S. prices have fallen. This is not the case. As has been documented at great length here and elsewhere, the Canadian economy has avoided the worst of the bubble and its consequences for the following reasons (among others):

1. We never had restrictions on interstate banking, so Canadian banks spread their assets and liabilities across Canada. (So it doesn’t matter if a local housing market goes bust).

2. We don’t have Glass-Steagal. The investment banks joined the retail banks some years ago.

3. We don’t have mortgage interest deductibility from taxes. So paying down your mortgage is a tax-free investment. So most people want to pay down their mortgages.

4. (Except in Alberta), mortgages are fully recourse. You can’t just walk away from a negative equity home and hand the keys to the bank; the bank will come after you for the difference.

Yes, house prices have fallen. But the linkages that make the U.S. story so compelling don’t exist here. We don’t have banks that are blowing up. We don’t have massive waves of foreclosures (even the Globe and Mail has given up on its series of articles that culminated in this silliness). Nor do we have much in the way of evidence that lower house prices are causing undue inconvenience to Canadians: when Maclean’s decided to jump on the OMGWTFBBQ housing market bandwagon, the best it could could come up with in the way of a victim was some flipper of 7-figure Vancouver condos who got caught mid-flip. Boo-hoo-freaking-hoo.

Moreover, it’s becoming pretty clear that the decline in house prices is not so much a national story as it is one of falling house prices in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto:

Canadian city house price indices

Vancouver is and always will be a special case whenever we talk about housing prices in Canada: its geography makes it extremely difficult for developers to respond to increases in demand. This is the sort of environment in which bubbles flourish so I’m not going to pretend that I can predict movements in Vancouver house prices. In Calgary, the incipient recovery in the oil sector will no doubt establish a floor on housing prices there fairly soon. And there’s even not-entirely-bad news out of Toronto these days. So I don’t see just how the national index is supposed to fall by another 30% or so.

It’s worth following the housing market numbers. But they are going to be at best a coincident indicator in this cycle.

Stephen Gordon is a professor of economics at l’Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada and a fellow of the Centre interuniversitaire sur le risque, les politiques économiques et l’emploi. He is co-author of the blog site, Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.

http://www.jeffreyteam.com/blog/toronto-real-estate-market/the-oversold-story-of-the-canadian-recession/

brought  by Moishe Alexander, CFC  canadian funding corp CEO

Herb C. Jahnke asked:

There has been fervent discussion about the impact of US recession on Mexico Real Estate and its future prospects. When talking about Mexican Property market, it may seem that it is closely related to the US real estate. Some may very well paint a gloomy picture for Mexico Real Estate market. But an in depth study of Mexico Real Estate will reveal a bright future for Mexican Real Estate in the coming year.

The real estate in Mexico has witnessed steady appreciation in the last 5 years. Both, homes and condos in Mexico, new and resale have contributed to this growth. The real estate market in Mexico is usually popular with American citizens who look for a second home or vacation home in Mexico. The reasons for this popularity have been its close proximity to USA, low cost of living, better value for money and a warm sunny climate. Recent years have seen thousands of American expatriates buying retirement homes in Mexico. Moreover, infrastructure in Mexico has improved to international standards. This has made Mexico a much sought after destination.

You may very well ask why Mexican Real Estate industry won’t suffer as a consequence of the recent fall of US economy.

Destination like Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Puerto Vallarta , Baja California region are very popular with real estate investors in Mexico. These areas are continually seeing new and grand real estate projects conceived and completed to meet the demands of the buyers eager to buy real estate in Mexico. With the introduction of Mortgage financing for foreign real estate investors in Mexico, the increase of foreign investment has strengthened the growth of real estate market in Mexico. Since, the lending process and criterion for foreign real estate investors has been simplified, it has served in increasing enthusiasm for Mexico real estate.

Mexico real estate market is much more stable than US real estate market. The residential mortgage backed securities, popular in the US property market, are not common in Mexico, so have a much less effect of the sub prime crisis afflicting US economy.

Another factor is that the buying market who are looking for the second vacation home is not really experiencing too much of the current recessionary effects in America.

One very interesting development seen in Mexican real estate market is the increase in real estate investors from Canada. Canada has experienced a very strong dollar in recent times. Strong economy and increased property markets, especially in the main areas of Toronto and Vancouver , have led to a large number of Canadian home owners able to spend money on a second or Vacation Homes in Mexico.

Mexican real estate market seems to be a promising and steady destination for investors throughout the coming years. Recessionary influences of the US have not shown any medium to long term negative impact so far on Mexico Property Market. Foreign investors from Canada and Europe are flocking to Mexico compensating for any dwindling of investment from USA. So go ahead and buy your dream vacation home in Mexico and secure your investment for the future.

Author: Insight Advisors

http://pcmexico.org/right-time-to-invest-in-mexico-real-estate/

reviewed by Moishe Alexander, CFC  canadian funding corp CEO