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The Surrey Building Boom

Steve Saretsky -

The Surrey building boom is in full swing. As mentioned in Daily Hive the other day, there was a record $2.3B worth of building permits approved by the municipality of Surrey in 2019. That number includes residential, commercial, and industrial building permits.

“The economic confidence in Surrey has reached new heights and breaking the $2 billion mark in building permits is uncharted territory for our city,” said Surrey mayor Doug McCallum.

Residential permits were actually down slightly from 2018, but still near record highs. However, that won’t slow the number of new homes coming to market soon. As of December 2019, there are 5579 housing units under construction in Surrey.

Surrey homes under construction
All housing units under construction in the city of Surrey.

Adding to that, we should expect to see housing starts remain fairly robust, assuming several large high-rise condo towers get off the ground. There remains quite a few unsold units though, potentially delaying the construction of these projects. There are clear signs of price sensitivity above $800/sqft.

Surrey condo pre-sale data
Source: Altus Group

 

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The Canadian Economy

Steve Saretsky -

Happy Monday Morning! We got a string of new data this past week confirming inflation in consumer goods, and housing are proving to be more than transitory. Canada’s consumer price index continued to drift higher with prices hitting an 18 year high, up 4.7% from last October. The recent floods in BC...

Steve Saretsky -

The calls for impending interest rate hikes continues. CIBC’s chief economist, Benjamin Tal, was out recently suggesting the Bank of Canada could hike its benchmark interest rate at least six times beginning in early 2022. “I think there is a risk of getting into the market at today’s rates,” noted Tal....

Steve Saretsky -

The BC Government announced it is looking at several cooling measures for the housing market in 2022. They have highlighted two measures. The first is an end to the blind bidding process, and the other is a mandatory “cooling off period” which will allow any buyer a 7 day recession...

Steve Saretsky -

The Bank of Canada continues to slowly drain liquidity after flooding the system with a firehose of cash during the pandemic. Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem announced the end of Canada’s QE program (also known as money printing). Furthermore, in Macklems words, “We expect to begin increasing our policy...

Steve Saretsky -

Consumer price inflation ripped higher in September, surging 4.4% year-over-year, the fastest pace of price increases in 18 years. Let’s discuss this further. We have an inflation problem and the Bank of Canada remains of the view that inflation will be transitory. Although they really can’t say otherwise, for if...

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The Saretsky Report. December 2022