CMHC Switches to Predict Rising 2015 Canada Home Starts
Greg Quinn – Bloomberg News
Canada’s federal housing agency now predicts work on new homes will increase this year and next, compared with an August call for declining starts, in another sign of unexpected strength in the real estate market.
Comment: More of a sign of the wide variability in housing starts from month to month.
Work will begin on 189,500 units in 2015, up from 189,000 this year, which would be an increase from 2013 levels, Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. said in a quarterly forecast from Ottawa today. In August the agency predicted starts would fall this year and next from 2013.
Bank of Canada Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins said yesterday in testimony to the Senate Banking Committee that although elevated household debt remains a risk, real-estate in Canada were probably headed for a “soft landing.” In September the central bank said in a statement the housing market had advanced faster than policy makers anticipated, and it dropped a reference to the constructive evolution of real estate.
CMHC is working to reduce the impact on government finances of any downturn in the real estate market, Chief Executive Officer Evan Siddall said in an Oct. 20 speech. While some parts of the market are definitely overvalued, in general Canadian housing is “robust,” Siddall said in Toronto. “We are not alarmed.”
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Laurin Jeffrey is a Toronto real estate agent with Century 21 Regal Realty.
He did not write these articles, he just reproduces them here for people who
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