"Canada's real estate boom turns 10 years old"...BUT..."Toronto realtors report big drop in sales"

[El Pinko]

http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/305878

Canada's real estate boom turns 10 years old
Toronto prices up 78% to average of $376,236
Feb 22, 2008 04:30 AM
Tony Wong
business reporter

The past decade has been one of the best on record for residential real estate in the Toronto area. While the question remains whether the next decade will even come close, historically, home buyers have never had such a prolonged period of rising home prices, according to a study released yesterday by ReMax. Prices of resale homes from 1997 to 2007 increased by 78 per cent for a 5.9 per cent compounded annual rate of return, according to the real estate firm. Unit sales were also 61 per cent higher in 2007 over 1997.

"The Canadian real estate market has surprised a lot of people, especially given the challenges we've faced from a high-tech meltdown, the 9/11 crisis, SARS and a credit crunch south of the border," says ReMax spokeperson Christine Martysiewicz. "Over the past 10 years, real estate has shown incredible resilience."

The run-up in prices is the longest sustained increase in house prices in recent history, the realtor says. The average price of a home sold in Toronto in 1997 was $211,307. That has risen steadily every year, reaching $376,236 at the end of 2007. ReMax says good economic growth and consumer confidence, fuelled by low interest rates, created the buoyant conditions.

....

The big unknown is how much of an impact the slowdown in the U.S. economy, which buys 80 per cent of Canadian exports, will have on our domestic economy. House prices in the U.S. have tanked spectacularly. Economists are now nervously looking south to see what kind of an impact that may have on the Canadian real estate market.





If you keep looking south of the border, what you see won't be pretty....



Well, whaddaya know!


http://www.thestar.com/article/305513

Toronto realtors report big drop in sales
Purchases in city down 18% since Feb. 1, when land tax kicked in
Feb 21, 2008 04:30 AM
Tony Wong
business reporter
Home resales in the Toronto area fell significanty in the first half of February after a new city land transfer tax was implemented, giving more ammunition to opponents of the levy.

The Toronto Real Estate Board says 3,240 sales were recorded in the first two weeks of the month, down 14 per cent from the February last year.

The board has not attributed the drop directly to the tax, saying it is impossible to statistically correlate the two. But it made sure to point out in its report yesterday that the decline was more pronounced in the City of Toronto, where sales were off by 18 per cent compared with an 11 per cent drop in the suburbs.

"It's important to recognize that the mid-month report provides an indication of market conditions based on a very brief period," TREB president Maureen O'Neill said.




I know there was a tax change, but could the unraveling up north be in its infancy?

[tuvor]

1. Maybe in Toronto.

In my experience in Vancouver, prices were totally flat from at least 1998 until Vancouver was announced as the Winter Olympic Games host in 2003.

Since then, it's been nuts--about 100% increase since 2004.