Gregory Klump and the Canadian Real Estate Market Forecast

This video is part of REIN’s Video Insider newsletter, and here’s some of my notes, plus the video.

Gregory Klump is:
– Chief Economist for the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA)
– Senior Consultant with CREA and CMHC
– Contributor to the Economic Research Committee

This is the 2010 Market Forecast and the 2010 Canadian Economic Forecast part of the presentation. The intro to the presentation starts at 1:20. It’s a recording and slide-deck from a REIN meeting.

Greg’s elevator pitch:
– The market is becoming more sustainable, with small increases but it’ll cause pent-up inventory to shake loose and dampen price increases.
– The interest rate is being kept low longer than expected. In part this is because of the high dollar hurting exports, and will help ensure that rates stay low.

Here’s the video from the start of the presentation. You can see Russ’ intro by clicking here.

The consensus Economic Forecast is around 2.2% (as best I can see from the graph), and it’s kind of shaped like a square root sign.

The question if this is a dead-cat bounce is how long it’ll stay airborne, but there’s good potential for a virtuous circle of rising consumer confidence increasing economic activity. That’s a big part of what’s helping the housing market; a rebound in consumer confidence. The introduction of the HST will take a shot at the consumer confidence in BC and Ontario (bigger in BC). Go figure, it’ll cause a decline after it’s taken effect, and push activity back into Q2. (Don’s quip – don’t try to get a painter or plumber in spring next year while everyone’s trying to get things done).

The speed at which people got back into the market was internet-speed as well, but we’ll approach the fundamentals pretty quickly. There’s a big hole to fill in (in terms of delayed activity) but it’ll get filled in.

Job growth won’t pick up until the middle of next year because businesses are on the defensive and job growth is always the last thing to pick up.

When you have a significant decline in markets that are expensive the national average will go lower. The high-market price cuts are done and prices are starting to creep up again. The new supply for August was at it’s lowest in 5 years, and now it’s improving marginally.

This is a good quick video, and it’s kind of typical of what you’ll see at REIN meetings. Wish I could have been at this one.

Don, if you happen to read this, it’d be handy to mention just what date things are. If you’re a remote-REIN member like me, it’s hard to know just what day they updated the graphs.

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