Canadian Inflation in March 2022
Posted on Apr 21, 2022 in Economics
Canadian prices, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose 6.7% on a year-over-year basis in March, up from 5.7% in February. This was the largest gain since January 1991 (+6.7%). According to Statistics Canada, price rises were broad-based, with groceries up 8.7% year over year, gasoline up 39.8%, durable goods up 7.3%, restaurants up 5...Canadian March Home Sales Posted Their Biggest Decline Since June
Posted on Apr 20, 2022 in Economics
Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show that rising interest rates were already dampening housing activity well before the Bank of Canada's jumbo spike in the key policy rate in mid-April. National home sales fell back by 5.4% on a month-over-month basis in March. The decline puts activity back in line with whe...Canadian Housing Starts for March 2022
Posted on Apr 19, 2022 in Economics
Canadian housing starts fell by 4.0k (-1.6%) to 246.2k units in March at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate (SAAR). Comparing year-over-year, starts were down from March of 2021 (-25.4% y/y). Single-detached housing starts rose 7.1% to 83.9k, while multi-family and others declined 5.6% to 162.3k (SAAR). In British Columbia, starts were down 6.7% in...
Affordable Housing Is A Key Theme In Federal Budget 2022
Posted on Apr 12, 2022 in Economics
Today's budget announced a $10 billion package of proposals intended to reduce the cost of housing in Canada (see box below). The fundamental problem is insufficient supply to meet the demands of a rapidly growing population base. Thanks to the federal government's policy to rapidly increase immigration since 2015, new household formation has risen...Canadian Inflation
Posted on Feb 16, 2022 in Economics
Canadian prices, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose 5.1% on a year-over-year basis in January, up from 4.8% in December. On a month-over-month basis, the CPI rose 0.9% in January (0.6% seasonally adjusted). The Bank of Canada's preferred measures of core inflation (which use techniques to strip out volatile elements) rose an averag...Extremely Tight Conditions Persist in the BC Housing Market
Posted on Feb 14, 2022 in Economics
The British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) reports that a total of 6,138 residential unit sales were recorded by the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in January 2022, a decrease of 14.7 per cent from January 2021. The average MLS® residential price in BC was $1,042,169, a 23.5 per cent increase from $843,918 recorded in January 2021. Tota...