Economist predicts cooler housing market

Deteriorating home affordability a factor
by John Clinkard
Consulting economist John Clinkard of Reed Construction Data writes that housing demand in Canada will shrink in 2008, due to deteriorating home affordability.
Record year-to-date sales of existing homes in June, along with double-digit increases in house prices, reflect a still-very-hot Canadian housing market as we reach the midway point in 2007.
According to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), 31,000 homes were purchased in June through the MLS system in major markets in Canada. In fact, June marked the third consecutive month that seasonally adjusted sales have reached a record high. In the month, the total dollar volume of home sales, the number of new listings and the average price also reached unprecedented levels.
The pattern of sales across the country shows that sales were not all concentrated in the West either. For example, while the number of homes sold in Regina was up by 43.3% year over year and by 32.8% in Saskatoon, it was also up by 25.7% in Kitchener-Waterloo, 19.7% in Toronto, 18.5% in Montréal, 37.5% in Thunder Bay and 35.6% in Saint John.
The strength of housing demand appears to have been the result of two key drivers. First, the economy added 168,000 full-time jobs in the first half of the year, 22% more than were created during the same period in 2006. Second, recent increases in interest rates —and concerns that they will go higher — have given first-time buyers a strong incentive to purchase before their carrying costs become prohibitively high.
Looking forward, we expect that housing demand will shrink due to further deterioration of affordability.
According to a recent Royal Bank study, home affordability fell in the first quarter and is likely to move lower in the second half due to three factors.
First, average house prices have increased at double-digit rates through June and show few signs of slowing markedly before the end of the year.
Second, interest rates have already increased by 25 basis points and are likely to increase at least once more before the end of the year.
Third, higher land transfer taxes, the introduction of which were recently postponed temporarily in Toronto (which accounts for approximately 20% of Canada's home sales), will dampen housing demand in the metro area and force up prices in the surrounding regions.

Alberta cools Canada's house price growth

OTTAWA -- Canadian new housing prices rose at a slower pace in March than in February as a slowing market in Alberta was only partially offset by a real estate boom in other western provinces, Statistics Canada said on Monday.
The price of new homes edged up 0.2% in the month compared with a 0.3% rise in February, in line with market expectations. Year-over-year price growth slowed to 6.1% from 6.2% in February.
"This deceleration continues a downward trend that started in September 2006 due mainly to the softening market in Alberta," the state-run agency said.
Although it is cooling down, Canada's housing market has avoided the dramatic downturn affecting the U.S. economy. The milder price growth helps the Bank of Canada keep inflation on target as it plans to reduce interest rates again on June 10.
Builders in the Albertan cities of Calgary and Edmonton reported lowering their prices to attract buyers in a market that has slowed from frenzied levels seen earlier amid the region's oil industry expansion.
However, that weakness was offset by sizzling demand for housing in Saskatoon, Regina and Winnipeg.

Home Prices Fall Record Amount in Quarter

U.S. home prices fell at an annualized 6.92% rate in the first quarter, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's purchase-only quarterly index. This is the largest decline in the index's 17-year history.
Housing prices have fallen 3.1% in the last year, according to the index.
"These substantial home price declines bring positive and negative news," said OFHEO Director James B. Lockhart in a release. "For homeowners and financial market observers, these declines spell further erosion in home equity levels and potentially more trouble for mortgage markets. To prospective home buyers who have been shut out of homeownership because of affordability constraints, these declines may be welcome news, as are continued low mortgage rates."
As home prices fall, many mortgage holders have found themselves with their debt exceeding their home's value. Negative equity has left them unable to pull money out of their homes or to refinance when subprime balloon payments come due, causing foreclosure rates in many areas to skyrocket.
Another OFHEO index, which includes data from appraisals for refinancing, showed that home prices held steady: The all-transactions House Price Index was flat over the last year and fell only 0.2% in the last quarter.
Other indices have shown big declines over the last year. The 10-city Case-Shiller composite index showed an 8.8% drop; there was a 7.4% drop in the 20-city composite index in February from the same month the prior year. The nationwide median price of single-family homes fell 7.7% in the first quarter from the year-earlier period, according to the latest quarterly survey of the National Association of Realtors.
The OFHEO numbers include only new conforming mortgages: mortgages of less than $417,000 purchased by Fannie Mae(FNM - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Freddie Mac(FRE - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr). Conforming loan limits were temporarily raised in February, but Fannie and Freddie did not start buying the larger mortgages until after the end of the first quarter.
The survey's results might have been more pronounced if it included nonconforming mortgages: Some areas that have experienced drastic price volatility in recent years have median home prices above the conforming loan limit.
Between 2000 and the nationwide height of housing prices in 2007, home prices rose almost 70% nationwide, according to the OFHEO index. Rent of primary residence only rose 30%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The gap suggests some of the run-up in home prices may have been the result of a bubble and that housing prices have a long way to go before fully correcting.
But housing prices aren't falling evenly across the country. Many of the areas which saw the greatest run-ups in housing prices are also experiencing the greatest declines. Housing prices in California, Nevada and Florida, for instance, more than doubled between 2000 and their heights in 2006. Housing prices in those states have since fallen 12%, 11% and 8%, respectively, according to the OFHEO's all-transactions housing price index.

Average House Prices In Canada

One of the major attractions of a move to Canada is the cost of housing compared with other western countries. As happens everywhere, prices are higher in Canada's big cities than they are in the surrounding towns. Canada's highest house prices are found on the west coast in Vancouver / British Columbia, where the country's mildest weather is found. Severe winter weather or remoteness from major markets usually results in low house prices - for example property prices are low in Manitoba and Prince Edward Island. In 2007 prices in booming Alberta rose above prices in Ontario for the first time and, in the same vein, prices in Calgary rose above those in Toronto.

Rics reports house price fall

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) house price balance dropped for the ninth consecutive month in April, with 95.1 per cent more of its members reported a fall than a rise in house prices.For some regions the picture is worse, with chartered surveyors in East Anglia, the north and the north-west unanimous in reporting that house prices were falling.Meanwhile Scotland, which has shown house price growth up until now, saw its net balance turn negative last month.However, despite these depressed results, Rics has predicted that a large decline in prices will be prevented by strong employment, low mortgage arrears and a lack of housing supply.Ian Perry, a spokesperson for the group, commented: "Although most surveyors are now seeing price declines, the extent of the fall, is at this stage, quite modest.""The real issue is the collapse in the number of housing transactions," he added.The Council of Mortgage Lenders released its latest data on the number of loans taken out for house purchase yesterday, which showed it was down by one per cent in March from the previous month.

Property

Property means Right of Action for things that can be exchanged. Important types of property include real property (land), personal property (other physical possessions), and intellectual property (rights over artistic creations, inventions, etc.). A right of ownership is associated with property that establishes the good as being "one's own thing" in relation to other individuals or groups, assuring the owner the right to dispense with the property in a manner he or she sees fit, whether to use or not use, exclude others from using, or to transfer ownership. Some philosophers assert that property rights arise from social convention. Others find origins for them in morality or natural law (e.g. Saint Irenaeus).