Today CMHC released their "Housing Now" press release for Edmonton; it outlines the amount of new home construction going on in the greater Edmonton area.
As we’ve seen in many of the months this year, far more multiple family units are going up than single family homes. From our own listings we can see that condos are far more popular these days than their higher priced counterparts; we are receiving far more requests for information on our condo listings than our other listings.
Why are condos more popular?
1. Because condos are typically less expensive that single family homes.
2. There are fewer condos currently for sale than single family homes. (OK, it’s mostly #1 but supply has something to do with it too).
Anyway, back to the press release. Here are the hard facts:
- Housing starts are up 5.7% over August 2006
- Semi-detached starts are down 26% and single family down 11% while multiple family are up 37% over August ’06
- So far multiple starts are 17% ahead of Jan-Aug ’06
- All the multiple starts were in the city of Edmonton
"CMHC expects to see a continued slowdown in single starts relative to last year as prospective buyers react to surging new house prices and an improved inventory of resale homes now available in the Edmonton area.”
At the risk of being branded ‘chicken little’, I remember reading a while ago, a publication from the US’s Centre for Economic and Policy Research taking a restrospective analysis to the housing situation there to come up with 10 Economic Indicators for a pending correction. It was a really interesting read. If you found time could you browse the list of 10 and post on those. Pretty much calling each of the 10 as you see them. Here is the link:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=64&Itemid=8
CEPR was co-founded by economists Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot. Our Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum, Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University.