The average home price in Canada in April was up 0.9 per cent from a year ago at $375,810.

“It bears repeating that the national average price was skewed higher last spring by record level high-end home sales in Vancouver’s priciest neighbourhoods, and that a replay of this phenomenon was not expected this year,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist.

Sales in Canada’s largest markets are having opposite effects on the national average, with slowing sales in Vancouver dragging, and soaring sales and prices in Toronto exerting upward pressure.

The average selling price in Vancouver was down 9.8 per cent compared with a year ago at $735,315, while the average price in Toronto was up 8.4 per cent at $517,556.

Read the full article is in the Vancouver Sun.

This post was submitted by qwistar.

Take the house price and divide it by what it costs to rent for a year to get the price-to-rent ratio: Price divided by (Monthly rent x 12) = X.

(Estimates for additional costs of homeownership, such as taxes, maintenance and insurance are factored into the equation.)

If the number is higher than 15, it’s generally not a good time to buy.

If the ratio is less than 15, buying is a better deal than renting, if you plan on living there for at least five years to offset moving and closing costs.

By the time the number hits 20, renting is apparently the way to go, except if buyers expect to stay put for at least 15 years, according to a formula used by trulia.com to rank major urban U.S. centres every year.

B.C.’s numbers, as shown in the graphic, are through the roof, from 29 (Prince George) to 73 (West Vancouver).

Compare that to a few little housing markets like Manhattan (20) and San Francisco (17).  That ratio doesn’t mean house prices are <i>low</i> it just means that they’re more reasonably priced compared to rents.

Since you can’t take on a big loan to pay rent it tends to show how much a place is actully worth in terms of desirability and local economics.

This post was submitted by Scott.

BMO Senior Economist Sal Guatieri says the price of homes in Vancouver and uncertainty over long-term mortgage rates are creating a buyer’s market.

He also says rich foreign investors who have driven up real-estate prices in Vancouver are now looking at cities that are less expensive.

“The sizzle is coming off the Vancouver housing market,” Guateri says.

Read the full article over at News 1130.

This post was submitted by Eddie.

-18k Inventory party!
-Updated inventory graph
-Taxpayers victims of ‘hot money’
-Welcome to Effluent Richmond
-1 month later Telus still not sold out
-special offer, $510,000 off
-CMHC dismisses bubble talk
-The CMHC board of directors
-Silver linings of slow growth economy
-Condo craze gets crazier
-Wolverine moves down under
-Huge drop in Chinese immigrants
-Building permits rise, just not here
-Pastrick thinks prices might fall
-Buying with 5% down?
-Time to cash out?
-Condo owner, why so glum?
-

So what are you seeing out there?  Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

“CMHC estimates that roughly 25 per cent of condominiums in the Greater Toronto Area are sold but sitting vacant — shades of Miami at the height of its collapsed condo bubble in 2007. Other analysts say the 25 per cent figure may be too low.

“This is the ghost city phenomenon,” Mr. Holt said.

Condo developers in Eastern cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, appear to be rushing to sell and build units before interest rates start to climb, and the market crashes.”

But if you visit that link you’ll no longer find that text and the headline has been changed to “Housing starts shoot higher on back of condo boom” (although as of this writing the URL still shows the original title).  Why the dramatic change in tone?

This post was submitted by doubleplusgood.

Anyone trying to understand the concern over a potential housing bubble in Canada need look no further than the debate among government officials over whether to exit the mortgage insurance business.

The board of Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. considered selling the home loan insurer last year, according to former Chairman Dino Chiesa, who’s term ended in March. CMHC, set up in 1946 to promote home ownership, also studied the sale of Australia’s government-owned insurer and presented the findings to the Bank of Canada, according to documents released to Bloomberg News under Canada’s Access to Information Act.

Here’s the full article.

But of course the CMHC is also saying they see ‘no sign of a market bubble’.

While the report did not make specific reference to the government’s changes in the oversight of CMHC, it did offer what could be characterized an strong validation of its role and operations.

“CMHC follows prudential regulations as set out by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, with CMHC maintaining more than twice the minimum capital required by OSFI,” it said. “As a result, CMHC is well positioned to weather possible severe economic scenarios.”

The report also highlighted the important role CMHC plays in the housing market, which it said accounted for 20%, or $346-billion, of Canada’s gross domestic product last year. It pointed out the agency “manages its mortgage loan insurance and securitization guarantee operations using sound business practices that ensure commercial viability without having to rely on the government of Canada for support.”

Here’s that article.

This post was submitted by Scott.

Well today was interesting. We left the house for an hour for a quick Costco run and when we were about 15 mins away from being home, my 16 year old daughter calls me really upset that some Chinese person just walked into her bedroom :O HER BEDROOM!!!! Apparently he closed the door and went on to wander through the rest of the house, and my son (11) noticed him when he got up from his computer to get his hourly snack and was in what I can only describe as state of shock.. Not every day you see some Chinese dude wandering around your house uninvited and unannounced.

Turns out this was the Realtor. (who’s name for know shall be withheld to protect the guilty, at least until I decide what my next course of action will be.)

Obviously I called the landlord and ripped him a new one. He said that he explicitly told the Realtor that they were not to disturb the tenants. Clearly the Realtor thought since our car was gone he would just waltz right in. :-O

We have an inspection scheduled tomorrow so the only thing that saved that Realtors a$$ from the cops being called was the fact that I needed a few minutes to confirm the inspection date and speak to the landlord.

All the while my daughter stood in her room scissors in hand ready to strike.

I definitely see a complaint being filed in the near future for trespass against this Realtor.

What would you do in this situation?

This post was submitted by Curious.

Both sales and prices are down at the top end even more markedly than in the rest of the region, which has also seen a general slowdown this spring.

A house on the 3000 block of West 24th Anenue, first listed at near $4.5-million six months ago, sold on April 15 for $3.35-million.

Fresh statistics from the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board show the number of sales on the west side is down by nearly 40 per cent for the first four months of the year. Only a third of the nearly 400 homes listed in April have sold – one of the lowest rates in the region.

Realtors say the slowdown appears to have resulted from a combination of tighter lending practices by local banks, which now want proof of income to service large mortgages, more restrictions on how much capital can be taken out of China, and fewer immigrants.

“Banks are now requiring borrowers to disclose incomes and assets before mortgages are approved, as of the last six weeks,” said west-side realtor Marty Pospischil, who specializes in selling single-family homes owned by long-term residents. Last year, he says 90 per cent of his 100 house sales were to “offshore buyers” – people not living here yet, who flew in to buy. This year, it’s less than a tenth of that. “We’re now seeing a 50-per-cent collapse rate in deals, when it’s usually more like 5 per cent,” he said.

Read the full article here.

-Vancouver housing slows to crawl
-Telus Garden sold out?
-Maybe not so sold out. 
-Inventory growth slows (chart)
-Metro van sees sharp sales drop
-REBGV Press Release (PDF)
-Agent grumpy about bubble talk
-Housing bubble sentiment chart
-1980′s all over again?
-Senators grumpy with Carney
-Housing market pumps GDP
-Australia down 10%
-China’s ‘epic’ property bubble

So what are you seeing out there?  Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

The word “bubble” was used in a discussion on a national news broadcast.

The CBC discusses the Canadian housing bubble with four economists and gets a fairly unanimous agreement: The Canadian housing market is overpriced and bubbly in many areas.

video embedded below:

This post was submitted by specuskeptic.