Home buying intentions at 'lowest level in several years,

没心没肺 · 发表于 2008-3-6 16:56

Home buying intentions at 'lowest level in several years,' RBC finds

Eric Shackleton, The Canadian Press
Email Story IM Story Printable View By Eric Shackleton, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - High real-estate prices and concerns over the impact from a U.S. economic slowdown appear to be undermining home purchasing intentions, although Canadians seem to be generally optimistic about the market, a Royal Bank of Canada study suggests.

The Royal Bank's annual home ownership survey found the proportion of Canadians planning to buy a home in the next two years has dropped by five percentage points from a year ago to 23 per cent.

In addition, the online survey found that the number of respondents who said they were "very likely" to buy a home within two years had slipped by two percentage points to seven per cent, the lowest level since the survey began 15 years ago.

The survey released Tuesday also found 52 per cent of those polled would buy now rather than wait until next year, down from 58 per cent last year, "suggesting a potential slowdown in the housing market," RBC said.

But 85 per cent said a home is a good investment. That's down from 90 per cent in 2007, although up from 76 per cent a decade ago.

Catherine Adams, RBC's vice-president of home equity financing, said that after the flurry of activity over the last few years, "this year's results definitely signal a change."

However, Adams added: "Canadians continue to be generally very optimistic about our housing market and it's merely the degree of optimism which is down from last year."

The online survey last month of 3,023 adults conducted by polling firm Ipsos Reid for Royal Bank, which claims a 95 per cent likelihood of representing the whole population within 1.8 percentage points, found 56 per cent expect housing prices to rise, compared with 59 per cent last year.

All this "points to a moderation in the level of housing activity as opposed to any significant retrenchment as we see south of the border," Aron Gampel, deputy chief economist at Scotiabank, said Tuesday.

Gampel said the Canadian housing market is likely to soften in the months ahead, as "globally, there's a sense of caution increasingly evident in financial markets."

The stock market declines "that we continue to see are suggesting that all is not well with the global economy. It's that concern about future prospects ...which is probably contributing to a less-than-healthy outlook for the housing market."

While Canadians are lucky in the sense that there's still tremendous job opportunities in this country, "when they see the headlines in Ontario and Quebec ... that manufacturing and forestry are under severe compression, it does send warning flags out," Gampel said.

Along side the stock market weaknesses "that we're seeing on a more consistent basis this year Canadians are probably a little bit less confident than they were a year ago."

However, he said there is "a tremendous amount of money that is flowing through our economy in a variety of ways that will continue to underpin Canada's relative outperformance vis-a-vis the U.S."

But, as recent economic numbers have indicated, "if the U.S. setback intensifies, obviously we get pulled down as well."

The U.S. slowdown prompted the Bank of Canada to take the unusual step of reducing its key overnight lending rate by one-half of a percentage point on Tuesday, rather than the normal practice of making adjustments by one-quarter of a point.

The country's commercial banks, including the Royal, followed the central bank's lead by lowering their prime rates by 50 basis points to 5.25 per cent. The prime rate is a benchmark for variable mortgages and some other financial products.

The Royal's study found purchasing intentions for prospective home buyers were down across the country, except in Quebec, where those "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to buy a home within the next two years increased to 21 per cent from 19 per cent.

The Greater Toronto Area could see a slowdown, with the poll finding a 10-point slump to 26 per cent in the proportion of GTA residents saying they are very likely or somewhat likely to buy a home in the next two years.

Richard Sam, a market analyst with Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. in Vancouver, said "looking at the B.C. sales that we forecast, we're looking at a seven per cent decline provincewide."

The reason for this is lack of affordability. The "average price is still fairly high especially on the single detached side. This has deterred people from wanting to do home purchases," Sam said.

The survey points to a "hot market" as the main reason for the softening in intentions, said John Wright, senior vice-president of Ipsos Reid, which conducted the survey for Royal Bank.

The housing market, for instance in B.C. and Alberta, "has reached a level where maybe ... it's not such a good time to be purchasing a house because the cost has exceeded (people's) ability to pay," he said.

Don Lawby, president of Century 21, said while the market up until now has performed pretty well, he predicted it will be down this year from last year "probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of five per cent down in units."

"We're going to have a good year. It won't be record breaking."

Said Adams, "we'll have to wait and see" if what the intentions were earlier this year, when the study was done, end up being true in the rest of year.

"We kind of expected that (a slowdown) last year, and it ended up being one of our best years ever."

Meanwhile, the Canadian Real Estate Association welcomed Tuesday's one-half of one percentage point rate cut by the Bank of Canada, saying it will help home owners and buyers. The central bank's overnight rate now stands at 3.75 per cent.

"The threat of inflation is being eclipsed by concerns about slower economic growth," CREA chief economist Gregory Klump said in a statement.

Lower lending rates will help offset the effect of tightening credit conditions and allow homeowners to obtain better mortgage terms, he said.

老杨 · 发表于 2008-3-7 09:08

谁来翻译？我出200鲜花。

浪里黑条 · 发表于 2008-3-7 10:07

原帖由老杨于 2008-3-7 09:08 发表 7 g# x8 r3 l+ b" B
谁来翻译？我出200鲜花。

价格有点低。

彼岸花 · 发表于 2008-3-7 14:04

等着翻译。。。

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