Just as we've seen for many months in a row, housing starts in Edmonton in January remained low. Total starts in January were 413 – 147 were single family homes and 266 were multi-family. Only 86 single family starts were within the city limits.
Compared to other parts of the province, multi-family starts were down 72% in Edmonton, 89% in Calgary, and 60% in Lethbridge compared to last January. Looking at single family homes, Edmonton was down 30%, Calgary down 44%, Lethbridge down 58% and Red Deer 47%. Obviously this is not something unique to Edmonton.
Looking at the rest of the country, urban starts declined 8.6% in Atlantic Canada, 1.4% in Quebec, 14.6%, 30.3% in the Prairies, and 29.1% in British Columbia.
“Provided new home inventories decline in the months ahead, we remain optimistic that a modest uptick in single-detached starts should occur during the second half of 2009,” noted Richard Goatcher, CMHC’s Senior Market Analyst based in Edmonton.
We also expect a "modest" increase in single family starts as we get closer to the end of the year. We are finding certain price ranges are over supplied, while others seem to be under supplied – a well priced home in a good neighbourhood will sell very quickly.
Thanks for this post – what price ranges are oversupplied? I’m assuming the high end homes?
Sara,
Can you give us an example of a well priced home in a good neighboorhood?
Does well priced mean at a discount?
It’s a good news for the RE market-
why build, when no one or very few buying….
..on the other hand, if I was a landlord right now, I would squeeze every penny out of these poor folks, as they do not wish to buy this time…okay, then double the rent.
To rent is way too low now, that’s why the low sales.
You say, than you leave town.
Okay.
Where do you move??
Calgary?
It’s the same.
Lethbridge?
Too windy, low paying jobs, more like agriculture.
Windsor? – just to pay the some much and being unemployed?
BC? -You must be kidding, right?
Toronto? – It’s nice, but expensive and you must like big cities.
So you stay here and pay my rent my friend.
hehe-he-he-ah-ahh-eh
Karl,
why would it be in a landlord’s best interest to turn renters into home buyers?
Anyway, being landlords does not give us the right to take tenants for every penny they have.
Ethics aside, as a landlord with just a handful of properties it’s not in my best interest to even try that approach.
Outrageous rents lead to high tenant turn-over with potential loss of revenue and additional costs.
I would also would not elicit the kind of goodwill I need from my tenants to keep my properties in decent shape, over the long run.
I like to sleep at night, knowing that my tenants appreciate the homes I provide, at rents they can afford.
Even if I did screw them over by doubling the rent, I would still not turn them into first-time home buyers…
There are reasons why many people keep renting. No down-payment, relatively low-paying jobs, just to name a few.
Can’t help you kick-start sales, I am afraid.
http://www.greatwestendhome.com< “>http://www.greatwestendhome.com> – went pending in one day and is now sold.
Higher end homes for sure…. condo conversions… downtown condos if there is nothing special about them… anything that is overpriced!
Seems like a steal to me. Not many of those out there – are you saying that most houses out there are way overpriced?
“on the other hand, if I was a landlord right now, I would squeeze every penny out of these poor folks, as they do not wish to buy this time…okay, then double the rent”
So, instead of renting being the SAME price as buying, renting will be DOUBLE the price! Karl, you’re a genious! But seriously, out of genuine concern for you – don’t drink any more today.
P.S. If your biggest fantasy is being a ruthless E-town “flipper-come-landlord”, that just makes me sad for you. Sad sad sad.
Thanks. Definetly better priced than most listings.
Karl,
two things to say to you:
1) Have you heard of carma? Plenty of bad stuff coming your way my friend;
2) Not sure if you have kids, but on the off chance that you do, consider how you would feel if they had a landlord like you.
MDM and E-town
Would rents be higher,
people would buy houses to rent them out (or) occupy them not to spend any more for rent.
Does it make sense?
Spud,
You are being too personal,
we are strictly talking about real estate and numbers only and not about family and wishes.
Fair point Karl, feelings don’t play a part in economics and business. However what you are saying is actually illogical. You would need every landlord to raise their rent by 100% in tandem. If only you choose to increase your rent and hope others follow you will end up with empty houses. Supply and demand will dictate rental prices, not the wishes of landlords.
Okay, let me rewright my sentence I have posted earlier and – apologize to demonstrated such amount of greed – of course you can not double the rent, but say, rents go up significantly due to unforseen market forces or conditions etc. than many more people would buy (invest?)
as buy a house and carry the expenses would not make that much of a difference.
Actually, in Calgary they started already, according to Bob Truman’s site.
“Feb 10 Good News
During the week of Jan 22 – 28, 2009, 92% of the pending sales became firm sales. Compare that to the week of Oct 10 – 16 when only 72% of pendings became firm sales. Very few sales are falling through because of financing problems.
Are people still looking for places to live in Calgary? I recently helped a couple with the purchase of their move-up home. When they placed an ad on Feb 4 to rent their present house, they received 25 calls in the first day. They are also receiving a rental amount which covers their carrying costs.”
Talking about market forces, could anyone explain, why gas prices went up to 85.9 this afternoon, when oil dropped from $42/barrel to $38/barrel.
Canadian dollar got nuked.
Canadian dollar follows oil not the other way around. The only thing about to get nuked is the US dollar. Just watch as they print 2 trillion thanks to Obamanation.
^ Depends, many of the large industrialized nations are pouring billions into their economy, essentially doing the same thing.
What I am somewhat concerned about is what happens after our governments pour billions / trillions into the economy…..inflation 2010?
Canadian dollar dropped against the USD yesterday because internationals were flocking to that currency. It’s been a safe haven for several months. Even with several trillion in bailout cash being printed, they US gov can’t keep up with the destruction of wealth that’s happening. Deflation is the problem, not inflation.
Hyperinflation is likely due to the trillions and trillions being pumped into the US system. Defined:
“The main cause of hyperinflation is a massive and rapid increase in the amount of money, which is not supported by growth in the output of goods and services.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation
They also have many examples of countries (20+) who have had this happen in history. Whether this is going to be a reality in the states is yet to be seen, but they are definately singing dixie down this road.
Buy Gold or Silver.
If you bought Gold a couple months ago when it was in the 700′s, you’d already be up over $200/oz! As of today, the price is $940/oz.
HyperInflation is soon to come… maybe around 2011.
I wouldn’t advise anyone to touch the real estate market until a few years down the road when things bottom.
Sorry realtors… i know you hate to hear this, but it’s the truth!
Hi Cindy, just what silver and gold have to do with the real estate?
And remember, before gold was $700s a couple of month ago, it was up at $900 last summer, so if you have bought at 900 and started to panic as prices slid and sold it when prices hit 700 than you lost a lots of money.
And by tomorrow this time, gold maybe at $880 again and $5-600 by year end.
But it won’t be down next year… Think about it – All this massive money printing HAS to result in inflation…
The US dollar is FIAT – it has not been backed by gold since 1971… which means that the federal reserve can print as much money as it wants without requiring any savings to back it up….
The hidden tax is INFLATION. Gold will be one of your best bets to Protect your money.
Gold always retains it’s purchasing power… in the times of Julius Caesar, 1 oz of gold bought you a toga, leather belt and pair of shoes… in the 1920′s 1 oz of gold bought you a high quality men’s suit. TODAY, 1 oz of gold can still buy you a high quality men’s suit.
The same Cannot be said about the dollar.
Wake up… I hate to sound like a ‘doom-and-gloomer’, but we’re headed for DISASTER!
look at what happened in Zimbabwe, Iceland and Argentina. Savings will be wiped out!
Keep smoking that Gold and crying for hyper-inflation.
You won’t be seeing it anytime soon.
Peter Schiff is wrong 70% of the time…
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/01/peter-schiff-was-wrong.html
Fine. Take Peter Schiff out of the equation.
You still have Robert Kiyosaki, Gerald Celente, Bob Chapman, Michael Maloney, Max Keiser, Bill Murphy, James Turk, etc. etc.
Just watch.
Nearly Everything else is down substantially… Gold has already bounced back and is approaching it’s high from last year… it’ll surpass it within the next few months.
Even if there isn’t hyperinflation, there’ll still be substantial inflation.
I just wanted to warn people – please do some research and try to understand what’s about to happen here. it’s looking very bad.
Well Nate, yes that is currently the case but when there is no recovery from the joke bailout and you have 2 trillion in over produced cash just watch the the lemmings dump US dollars. History is saftey in the ” world currency” US dollar but the rules have changed. Did you realize that treasury bills in the US are paying negative returns. That sounds good to you? Deflation hasen’t happened yet with the exception of real estate and cars but once you dump that much cash into the system you are only waiting for run away inflation bud.
Canada is a way better place to be. That said what Province is the best one to be to ride out this storm? You got it, Alberta.
So what is your prediction since you don’t feel either gold increasing or inflation are going to happen?