By Leith van Onselen According to Global News Canada, Chinese organised crime laundered around $1 billion through Vancouver property in 2016, and $5 billion since 2012, and this partly explains Vancouver’s explosive price growth: The study findings, obtained by Global News, are a startling look at what police believe to be the massive money laundering occurring
By Leith van Onselen The cognitive dissonance on display at Interest.co.nz over the weekend was clear as day with two contradictory articles appearing side by side: one cautioning against lowering immigration and the other lamenting the huge increase in Auckland’s housing shortage: The second article on Auckland’s housing shortage is particularly alarming as it shows
By Leith van Onselen The Teranet-National Bank House Price Index for October has been released, which shows that Canadian house price growth continues to bounce back from August’s post-Global Financial Crisis (GFC) low: Home values nationally declined by 0.4% in the month of October, driven by a 0.8% fall in Vancouver and a 0.2% decline
By Leith van Onselen Acadata has released its latest house price results for the UK, which shows that house price growth has fallen to its lowest level in 6.5 years: House prices rebounded in October, up 0.4% – the first increase since February. The annual rate of price increases continued to slow, however, dropping to
By Leith van Onselen Acadata has released its latest house price results for the UK, which shows that house price growth has fallen to its lowest level in 6.5 years: Most regions saw annual price rises although average month on month growth (apart from in August) continued to slow, with a 0.1% drop in September
By Leith van Onselen The Teranet-National Bank House Price Index for September has been released, which shows that Canadian house price growth has bounced from last month’s post-Global Financial Crisis (GFC) low: In the year to September, Canadian home values rose by just 2.1%, up from 1.4% last month. The rebound was driven by Toronto,
By Leith van Onselen Acadata has released its latest house price results for the UK, which shows that values in London are rebounding after a period of price falls. However, in real inflation-adjusted terms, property values are still declining across the UK: Monthly prices rose modestly in August. They were up just 0.1%, but it
By Leith van Onselen The Teranet-National Bank House Price Index for August was released overnight, which shows that Canadian house price growth has stalled, growing at the slowest annual rate since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC): In the year to August, Canadian home values rose by just 1.4% – the slowest growth since October 2009.
By Leith van Onselen Back in 2013, , the UK central government launched “Help-to-Buy“, a scheme that provided government mortgage guarantees to marginal borrowers that would not otherwise qualify for a loan. At the time, Help-to-Buy was denounced by the Office of Budget Responsibility and the Treasury alike, who claimed that the scheme would do nothing
By Leith van Onselen Toronto’s housing market is showing further signs of life after both prices and sales abruptly plunged. The Teranet-National Bank House Price Index for July was released overnight, which shows that house prices in Toronto are rebounding after plunging 7.4% between July and December 2017: As at July, Toronto values were 4.0% below
By Leith van Onselen Acadata has released its latest house price results for the UK, which shows that values in London have begun to rebound after a period of price falls, driven by the top-end of the market: Average prices in England and Wales were slightly down in June, falling by 0.2% from May, although
By Leith van Onselen Toronto’s housing market is showing signs of live after both prices and sales abruptly plunged. The Teranet-National Bank House Price Index for June was released overnight, which shows that house prices in Toronto have begun to rebound after plunging 7.4% between July and December 2017: As at June, Toronto values were 4.8%
By Leith van Onselen The Financial Times (FT) has published an interesting article on how young Londoners are fleeing the city for other regions of the UK, forced-out by exorbitant housing costs: Knight Frank, the estate agent, has analysed the latest migration data from the Office for National Statistics, which tracks internal moves within the
Canada may well be presaging the Australian property market with buying conditions in May falling well below expectations. And its the fault of the millenials of course: New mortgage regulations which are now in full swing have stymied fringe buyers, particularly millennials. According to new data from credit bureau TransUnion, new mortgage originations among millennials in Canada
By Leith van Onselen Toronto’s housing market appears to have stabilised after both prices and sales abruptly plunged. The Teranet-National Bank House Price Index for May was released overnight, which shows that house prices in Toronto have begun to rebound after plunging 7.4% between July and December 2017: As at May, Toronto values were 5.9% below
By Leith van Onselen History doesn’t repeat but it sure does rhyme. A decade after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), 100% mortgages have returned to the UK via the ‘Bank of Mum & Dad’. From Wolf Street: [The UK’s] all-important housing market is beginning to show signs of strain. In April house sales were down
By Leith van Onselen The CD Howe Institute has released a new study on how excessive land-use restrictions and planning barriers are driving up the cost of Canadian housing: In any competitive market without barriers to entry, regardless of the product being sold, the overall market price should equal its marginal cost of production. The
By Leith van Onselen Acadata has released its latest house price results for the UK, which shows that values in London continue to fall: The retreat in house prices continued in April, and this is now the eleventh month in which the annual rate of house price growth has slowed, albeit at an ever-reducing rate.
By Leith van Onselen The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) has released research examining “Home Prices, Housing Wealth and Home Equity Extraction”, which reveals that US home prices has finally rebounded above their pre-GFC peak: Home ownership has returned to is long-run (lower) ‘normal’ level: But like in Australia, has collapsed for younger
By Leith van Onselen Canada and Australia have a lot in common. Both economies are commodity exporters. Both countries have experienced high rates of immigration. Both countries largely dodged the global recession that shocked the developed world. Both were said to have world-beating banking systems. And both nations have amongst the developed world’s most expensive housing, when measured
By Leith van Onselen Toronto’s housing market appears to have stabilised after both prices and sales abruptly plunged. The Teranet-National Bank House Price Index for April was released overnight, which shows that house prices in Toronto have been stable for five months after plunging 7.1% since July 2017: Annual price growth in Toronto has also
By Leith van Onselen Acadata has released its latest house price results for the UK, which shows that values in London continue to fall: The rate of annual house price growth slowed for the tenth successive month in March to 0.7%, compared to 5.1% a year ago. The average house price in England and Wales
By Leith van Onselen The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has released a new report which shows that global forces have been a major driver of growth in house prices in Australia and abroad over recent decades. The report notes that house price growth has become increasingly synchronised at both city and country level, particularly since
By Leith van Onselen The wheels continue to fall off Toronto’s housing market, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB): Greater Toronto Area REALTORS® reported 7,228 residential transactions through TREB’s MLS® System in March 2018. This result was down by 39.5 per cent compared to a record 11,954 sales reported in March 2017 and down
By Leith van Onselen This time last year, Transparency International ranked Australia as having the weakest anti-money laundering (AML) laws in the Anglosphere, failing all 10 priority areas. By contrast, the UK was ranked as having the strongest AML laws in the Anglosphere, failing just one out of 10 priority areas. Despite the polar opposite findings,
By Leith van Onselen CNBC has published an interesting report on the large number of Californians that are leaving the state due to crippling housing costs: Californians may still love the beautiful weather and beaches, but more and more they are fed up with the high housing costs and taxes and deciding to flee to
By Leith van Onselen Earlier this month, it was suggested that the wheels were falling off Canada’s biggest housing market – Toronto- with the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) reporting that house sales had fallen by around a third year-on-year in the Greater Toronto area, with average sales prices for all dwelling types also down
By Leith van Onselen From Bloomberg comes news that London’s house prices are falling at their fastest pace since the Global Financial Crisis: London house prices are falling at the fastest pace since the depths of the recession almost a decade ago, with the capital’s most expensive areas seeing the biggest declines. Average prices fell
By Leith van Onselen It looks like the wheels are well a truly falling off Toronto’s housing market. From the Financial Post: Home sales in the Greater Toronto Area plunged 34.9 per cent in February compared to the same month a year ago as buyers adjusted to new mortgage rules and government policy interventions, the
By Wendell Cox, cross-posted from New Geography: Housing affordability is what largely drives the standard of living the United States. The 14th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey showed that, in 2016, there was a 0.83 correlation between the housing unaffordability, measured by the Median Multiple (median house price divided by median household income) and
