{"id":43014,"date":"2019-01-20T19:42:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T00:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43014"},"modified":"2019-01-20T19:42:24","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T00:42:24","slug":"mortgage-stress-test-blamed-for-25-collapse-in-british-columbia-home-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43014","title":{"rendered":"Mortgage Stress Test Blamed For 25% Collapse In British Columbia Home Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2019-01-16\/mortgage-stress-test-blamed-25-collapse-british-columbia-home-sales\">Mortgage Stress Test Blamed For 25% Collapse In British Columbia Home Sales<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Home sales in&nbsp;British Columbia, Canada&#8217;s westernmost province, collapsed in 2018&nbsp;is mostly correlated to the mortgage stress test that started in January 2018, which decreased buyers\u2019 purchasing power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The B.C. Real Estate Association (BCREA)&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bcrea.bc.ca\/docs\/news-2018\/2018-12.pdf\">reported<\/a>&nbsp;Tuesday that a total of 78,345 homes were sold on B.C.\u2019s Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in 2018, a massive drop of&nbsp;24.5% from the 103,758 units sold in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cB.C. home sales fell below the 10-year average of 84,800 units in 2018,\u201d said Cameron Muir, BCREA\u2019s chief economist. \u201cThe sharp decline in affordability caused by the B20 mortgage stress test is largely to blame for\u00a0decline\u00a0in consumer demand last year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/MLS%20Residential%20Sales%20.png?itok=lG6OxojQ\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/MLS%20Residential%20Sales%20.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe width=\"3\" height=\"7\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The slowdown&nbsp;in home sales is a government&nbsp;measure to&nbsp;cool&nbsp;the&nbsp;Greater Vancouver&#8217;s&nbsp;bubbly&nbsp;housing market that will take full effect in 2019, setting the stage for further declines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Numerous provincial policies, combined\u00a0with the federal stress test have clamped down on the buying power of borrowers, leading\u00a0to a possible near-term top in the housing market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/Zillow%20BC.png?itok=XzyBCqFM\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/Zillow%20BC.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite this rapid slowdown, the average&nbsp;sale price of all homes in the&nbsp;province was&nbsp;the same price versus the previous year,&nbsp;edging up +.40%&nbsp;to $712,508 \u2013 an increase of roughly $3,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The slight upward trajectory in prices masks the topping&nbsp;activity that&nbsp;was spotted&nbsp;in early 2018. Sales prices&nbsp;continued rising to record levels until late spring, and since, have been&nbsp;declining gradually, as fewer&nbsp;luxury homes sold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The province experienced&nbsp;the most significant slowdown in sales&nbsp;activity&nbsp;in Greater Vancouver (-30.4%)&nbsp;followed by the Fraser Valley (-26.3%). The only region within the province to see an&nbsp;annual jump in home sales was the&nbsp;Northern region, which saw a rise of 10.2%&nbsp;over 2017.&nbsp;All areas saw a slight&nbsp;year-over-year increase in the average home sale price, but momentum is undoubtedly waning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The BCREA also reported on December 2018\u2019s housing stats. A total of 3,497 were sold\u00a0on the province\u2019s MLS in December, down 39.1% from\u00a0December 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mortgage Stress Test Blamed For 25% Collapse In British Columbia Home Sales Home sales in&nbsp;British Columbia, Canada&#8217;s westernmost province, collapsed in 2018&nbsp;is mostly correlated to the mortgage stress test that started in January 2018, which decreased buyers\u2019 purchasing power. The B.C. Real Estate Association (BCREA)&nbsp;reported&nbsp;Tuesday that a total of 78,345 homes were sold on B.C.\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[94,103,10294,24059],"class_list":["post-43014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-home-sales","tag-mortgage-stress-test"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43015,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43014\/revisions\/43015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}