Economy

Housing demand to drop as COVID-19 hit on economy deepen

Published

4 years ago

June 23, 2020

OTTAWA — Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. expects a drop in home prices in the country’s biggest cities amid “severe declines” in home sales and construction.

The federal housing agency says a combination of factors related to the pandemic, such as higher unemployment and lower income, will slow housing starts and push sales and home prices below pre-COVID levels.

CMHC says the market likely won’t see a return to pre-pandemic levels before the end of 2022.

Average home prices in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa are expected to rebound sooner, starting in late 2020 and rolling into early 2021.

Prices in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary likely won’t rebound until later in the forecast period, it added.

Calgary and Edmonton will see average home prices decline, it said, due to uncertainty around oil prices and economic recovery in the region.

CMHC deputy chief economist Aled ab Iorwerth says COVID had “unprecedented impacts” on the country’s urban centres, and could lead to “severe declines in sales activity and in new construction.”

Greater cultural shifts may also affect the housing market, he said, and many of those developments are so recent that they’re hard to fully comprehend or quantify.

“We do not yet have a grasp on the answers to questions, such as the impact of greater work from home, differing impacts across industries, the effect of less mobility across provincial boundaries and the decline and immigration following cutbacks and international aviation,” he said.

There are also substantial questions about how rental markets will be impacted.

He noted that a decline in immigration and interprovincial activity will lower demand for rental units, which combined with a “significant new supply in rental properties close to being completed,” could mean that vacancy rates are likely to jump.

“Such increases in vacancy rates, however, will be from historically low levels in Toronto and Vancouver, in particular,” he noted.

Source:- BNNBloomberg.ca

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Economy

PBO projects deficit exceeded Liberals’ $40B pledge, economy to rebound in 2025

Published

2 days ago

October 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.

However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.

The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.

The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.

The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

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Economy

Statistics Canada says levels of food insecurity rose in 2022

Published

3 days ago

October 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.

In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.

The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.

Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.

In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.

It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.

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Economy

Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales fell 1.3% to $69.4B in August

Published

3 days ago

October 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.

The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.

The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.

Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.

Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.

Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.

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