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Stable housing market predicted until 2010 |
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Wednesday, 15 November 2006 |
Stable housing market predicted until 2010
The outlook for British Columbia's housing market looks stable until 2010, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Tuesday.
Canada Mortgage and Housing regional economist Carol Frketich said she expects overall housing sales and construction starts to decline, but prices will continue rising on continued economic strength.
Frketich said low inflation and mortgage rates, along with continued population and employment growth, will outweigh the negative effect on B.C.'s resource sector of a slowdown in the United States housing market .
The forecast picture "[bodes] well for the province's housing sector," she added.
Provincially, Frketich is forecasting 95,000 Multiple-Listing-Service-recorded sales in 2007, down five per cent from 2006.
Her forecast of 35,000 housing starts across the province in 2007 is also down from 2006.
Canada Mortgage and Housing is the latest agency to release its 2007 forecast, and it is consistent with previous predictions by Credit Union Central B.C. and Re/Max in estimating lower housing sales and new-home construction, yet with higher prices.
Frketich added that construction intentions for the next several years, which stand at $58 billion, helps bolster prospects for continued low unemployment levels and increasing wage gains among workers, which she said have been outpacing inflation.
Declining housing starts in the U.S. will hurt B.C.'s forestry sector, but will have little effect on the overall provincial economy, she said.
Frketich is forecasting 3.5 per cent economic growth in 2007. Without the U.S. slowdown, and its drag on lumber producers, her projection might have been four per cent.
Charles King, Canada Mortgage and Housing's regional manager for business development, said that while a U.S. slowdown "is a problem in and of itself" in Greater Vancouver, the region's economy will protect the housing market from a downturn
(prepared by Derrick Penner/Vancouver Sun) |
