The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) says national home sales activity continued to trend down in July 2010. The decline was almost entirely the result of fewer sales in British Columbia and Ontario. A slowdown in demand in these two provinces had been widely expected in July, as many purchases were brought forward into the first half of the year in advance of the introduction of the HST.
National home sales activity continued to trend down in July 2010. The decline was almost entirely the result of fewer sales in British Columbia and Ontario.
Canada’s real estate market is due for a “moderate correction†with homes that are anywhere from 10 to 15 per cent overvalued, says the TD Bank.
“The excessive pricing of Canadian housing in relation to fundamentals is now clearly correcting,†TD Bank economist Grant Bishop said in an economic note Monday. “We expect a moderate correction in prices over the coming year.â€
When he first moved to Whistler 11 years ago, Mike Wilson was a seasonal resident who would head home to Mississauga, Ont., come summer because the restaurant he worked for closed its doors when the snow melted.
Canada avoided the brutal financial meltdown that plagued the U.S. economy, but there are some red flags that make recovery for this country “by no means a sure thing,†says a leading U.S. economist.
Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner, New York Times columnist and renowned economic pundit, described Canada as “a very calm, very happy story†during the world economic crisis.
Canada escaped relatively unscathed, through a combination of good luck and sound, conservative regulation of banking and consumer debt in which “it is not so easy to use your house as an ATM,†Krugman told the Canadian Bar Association.
Simon Fraser University’s pipe band has hit a sour note in its hopes for a three-peat world bagpipe title.
The malaise in Canada’s housing market is deepening, as record-low interest rates and a vast selection of homes prove to be insufficient incentives to draw new buyers into the market.
Just days after the Canadian Real Estate Association downgraded its sales forecast for the rest of the year, data from British Columbia and Alberta show sharp double-digit decreases in the number of homes sold in July compared to a year ago.
Vancouver has vowed to become the greenest city in the world by 2020. New condos in Toronto are going up without any parking spaces. Regina is doing away with one-way streets to improve public transit access in a revitalized downtown.
A Vancouver charity is collecting discarded soaps and lotions from B.C. hotels and hiring at-risk Downtown Eastside women to repackage them for donations around the world.
On Monday, Mission Possible will launch the soap recycling program at their Powell Street location.
The Downtown Eastside charity will collect the discarded amenities from participating hotels, at a nominal fee of $1 per room per month, said Brian Postlewait, executive director of the Mission Possible. The soaps and bottles will then be newly sanitized and repackaged, ready to be sent to homeless shelters locally and worldwide.
For 2009 and subsequent years, the HBTC is a new non-refundable tax credit, based on an amount of $5,000, for certain home buyers that acquire a qualifying home after January 27, 2009 (i.e., generally means that the closing is after this date).