Amidst the seeming endless real estate mania taking place in Vancouver and the rest of the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley, I think it might be a prudent time to do some thinking about whether buying that house is really the right thing to do. Continue Reading…
In an effort to prop up the real estate market in 2008 (when affordability nosedived), the Harper government directed the CMHC to approve as many high-risk borrowers as possible and to keep credit flowing. The approval rate for these risky loans went from 33% in 2007 to 42% in 2008. By mid-2007, average equity as a share of home value was down to 6% — from 48% in 2003. At the peak of the U.S. housing bubble, just before it burst, house prices were five times the average American income; in Canada today that ratio is 7.4:1, almost 50% higher.
This is fairly interesting to me, and I wonder how accurate it is. I’ve had a couple of decent looking opportunities drop on my plate recently to purchase a couple of condos, but my gut keeps telling me to be patient, that I need to wait for a substantial and not-yet-here correction in real estate prices.
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