https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL1DJWBNgDE

Christmas came early for the 69% of Canadians who own a home. The latest data released from the Canadian Real Estate Association shows national home prices inflated at the quickest pace ever, rising 25% from last year. The home price index which measures the price of a typical home in Canada now sits at $780,400, up from $582,700 or 34% from when the pandemic commenced in March 2020. Through the end of November 630,634 residential properties have traded hands via Canadian MLS® Systems, already surpassing the annual record of 552,423 sales for all of 2020. There is currently just 1.8 months of inventory on a national basis, tied with March 2021 for the lowest level ever recorded. Yes, the housing bull market is still in tact and growing more obscene by the day. Prices gains over the past 12 months: Greater Vancouver +16% Victoria +22.4% Calgary +9.3% Edmonton +4.1% Montreal +20.9% Greater Toronto +28.3% Winnipeg +12.8% As I wrote in last weeks piece, Canada is running wartime fiscal and monetary policy. There are no guns this time, but there is a virus, and so there is seemingly no limit on how much money we should throw at this. We just found

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKrdSeWNp3A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbXM_6wiFbg

Despite the market pressuring the Bank of Canada to begin liftoff and start hiking interest rates, they held firm once again this past week. The bank flagged the recent floods in BC and the emergence of the Omicron variant as air cover to stand pat. Per the official release,  “the Governing Council judges that in view of ongoing excess capacity, the economy continues to require considerable monetary policy support. We remain committed to holding the policy interest rate at the effective lower bound until economic slack is absorbed so that the 2 percent inflation target is sustainably achieved. In the Bank’s October projection, this happens sometime in the middle quarters of 2022.” In a follow up speech several days later, deputy governor at the Bank of Canada, Toni Gravelle, blamed supply chain bottlenecks as the root cause for stubbornly high inflation, suggesting these will eventually resolve themselves. There are a couple important takeaways here. First off, let’s be clear, the Bank of Canada has no desire to raise rates. They are delaying as long as possible, trying to find any excuse to keep rates glued to the floor. The emergence of the Omicron variant is likely to provide adequate air

It was a blockbuster year for the Vancouver housing market. Annual sales finished the year at just over 44,000, an all time record high. The previous high of 42,000 was set in 2015 during the last housing boom that was sparked by an inflow of offshore cash. This time around, the story is much different. Offshore investment is a fraction of what it used to be, instead it has been sparked by rolling lockdowns, and helicopter money. People are wanting more space, and bigger houses. These purchases have been financed through ultra low mortgage rates, enabled through fiscal and monetary policy. Canada is running wartime fiscal and monetary policy. There are no guns this time, but there is a virus, and so there is seemingly no limit on how much money we should throw at this. We just found out the federal government is forecasting a budget deficit of $144B this year. For context, in 2009, following the financial crisis, the deficit that year was less than $35B. Obviously the excesses are showing up in asset prices.

House shoppers are showing very few signs of fatigue. The latest data out of Vancouver & Toronto for the month of November suggests the bull market remains fully intact. Greater Vancouver home sales jumped 11% from last year, the second strongest November on record besides 2015. In case you forgot, the winter of 2015 was sparked by a frenzy of offshore buyers, pushing the market to dizzying heights before ultimately peaking a few months later in the spring of 2016. It feels a lot like that today, with sales up and inventory down a whopping 40% from last years levels. If you thought looking for a detached house last year was tough, well inventory has fallen another 25% since then and currently sits at its lowest levels ever. In other words, bidding wars and high prices. Detached home prices are now up 21% in Greater Vancouver and 36% in the Fraser Valley. There have certainly been better times to buy a house, and today isn’t one of them. Similar to the last bull market of 2015-2017, a rising tide lifts all boats. When the detached market peaked out in 2016, the condo market ripped in 2017 as buyers bid up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdPwtrct0Xw