VACATION ALERT
From January 26th-Februaury 2ndI will be away on a family vacation. I will have FULL SUPORT and COVERAGE while I’m away. I’m thankful to be part of a trustworthy and skilled team.
I will be communicating more details in the coming days.
Good day everyone;
2014 has started with an icy chill and the weather has made it difficult for both home buyers and sellers to get around. None the less this year is expected to be robust and surpass 2013 sales figures both in volume and in pricing.
Despite the holiday season typically being a slower time of year, the GTA still had a healthy real-estate pulse over the December time frame. The December numbers are in and the year finished off with the same theme i.e. Prices inching higher with no real inventory. See below and the full report attached.
Economy/Interest Rates
From week to week different economic indicators and analyses predict which way interest rates may be heading. The majority of which are predicting that interest rates will stay where they are (and may even go down short term) until 2015.
This week the Canadian dollar has declined in value. Today, Canada reported a job loss of 42,000 jobs (a gain of 16,000 was expected). The Federal government is now possibly considering lowering the short term interest rate or at the very least not increasing them. Although lending rates to consumers are based on many factors, this is may also indicate that indeed low mortgage rates will be here for some time to come.
GTA REALTORS® Report Monthly Resale Housing Market Figures (Full Report)
TORONTO, January 6, 2014 – Greater Toronto Area REALTORS® reported 4,078 residential transactions through the TorontoMLS system in December 2013 – up by almost 14 per cent compared to 3,582 sales reported in December 2012. New listings entered into the TorontoMLS system were down by almost four per cent over the same period.
Total sales for calendar year 2013, at 87,111, were up by approximately two per cent compared to 85,496 transactions in calendar year 2012.
“After a slow start to the year, sales growth accelerated to a brisk pace in the second half of 2013. Despite the inclement weather in December, we finished the year with a respectable gain in transactions compared to 2012. Looking forward, I believe that home ownership in the GTA will remain affordable as borrowing costs stay low. The result could be a further increase in sales in 2014,” said Toronto Real Estate Board President Dianne Usher.
“The average selling price will be up again in 2014 and by more than the rate of inflation. The seller’s market conditions that drove price growth in the second half of 2013 will remain in place in many parts of the GTA. Some neighbourhoods, especially those characterized by low-rise home types like singles, semis and townhomes, will continue to have less than two months of inventory,” said Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis.
The average selling price for December 2013 sales was $520,398 – up by 8.9 per cent compared to the average of $477,756 in December 2012.
The average selling price for 2013 as a whole was $523,036, which represented an increase of 5.2 per cent compared to the calendar year 2012 average of $497,130.
Bank of Canada head says rates on hold until data improves
Tue, 07 Jan 2014 18:41:48 GMT | By Reuters, Reuters
OTTAWA (Reuters) – The Bank of Canada should keep its key interest rate on hold until economic data persuades it otherwise, central bank chief Stephen Poloz said on Tuesday, adding that he was not worried about calls from some international players to tighten policy.
By Louise Egan and Randall Palmer
His comments follow controversial remarks by Canada’s finance minister on Sunday suggesting there would be pressure to raise interest rates in 2014.
“For us, minimizing the risks of making a big mistake here is what we’re trying to do, and that tells us that we should be holding rates where they are until the data flow changes our mind,” Poloz said in an interview with CBC television.
Asked about the potential for higher rates in 2014, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told CTV television on Sunday there would be some pressure to tighten because of the U.S. Federal Reserve scaling back its bond-purchasing program.
He also cited reports by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Monetary Fund recommending rate increases.
“I think the pressure will be there because the Fed in the U.S. should stop printing money, and taper off as they say … And the OECD and the IMF have both said to Canada, we ought to let our interest rates go up a bit, so there will be some pressure there for that to happen,” Flaherty said.
Flaherty’s remarks spurred some criticism that he appeared to be meddling in the day-to-day implementation of monetary policy, which is the domain of the Bank of Canada and supposed to be off limits to the government.
His comments on the outlook also appeared to contradict the central bank chief, who has been signaling rates are on hold for the foreseeable future.
Poloz, who took the helm at the central bank in June, oversaw a sharp policy shift in October when he abandoned any talk of rate hikes after 18 months of signaling that a tightening of policy was on the horizon, pointing to inflation that has been below the bank’s 2 percent target for a year and a half.
Analysts in a Reuters poll have forecast the Bank of Canada will begin raising its main policy rate in the second quarter of 2015. <CA/POLL>
LONG-TERM RATES UNDER PRESSURE
The CBC cited Poloz as saying he was not worried by international calls for rate hikes and that his decisions would be based on Canadian economic factors. In November, he disagreed with the OECD’s assessment that rate hikes could start in 2014.
Poloz did say on Tuesday there would be upward pressure on rates this year, but he referred specifically to long-term market rates, not the rate set by the central bank, as the U.S. and global economies strengthen and stimulus is curbed.
“So as a tapering occurs we might expect to see, as we saw in the summer, some increases in long-term rates, (although) most of it seems to be priced in,” Poloz said.
Adjusting the central bank’s target for the overnight rate, on the other hand, is a tool that is available “but we have to consider in the broader context what impact would it have,” he said.
Higher rates would have a negative impact on highly indebted Canadian consumers, he suggested.
“Would it be the same size impact we normally would expect? Probably not, given the situation,” he said, referring to the record high household debt-to-income ratio and a situation that he called “fragile from a consumer point of view.”
It is my hopes that you all have a wonderful 2014,
Anthony
Photo by ransomtech.