Of note, Canada has zero sub prime problems. Seems they don't allow them.
It's a real estate market with "astounding momentum." Conditions are "healthy." They are "robust." In some areas, home prices are expected to show double-digit gains this year.
No, the good old days haven't returned -- at least not here. But the real estate business is roaring in Canada.
Who knew?
Certainly not most of us blinders-wearing residents of the United States of America, where the general knowledge of life in Canada all too often is limited to unfortunate stereotypes that involve Mounties, fur-trappers and the late John Candy.
But Canadians seem to be in the throes of a home-buying frenzy, a condition that seems downright quaint from a south-of-the-border perspective.
To wit: The number of home-sale transactions in Canada is projected to rise by 8 percent this year (as opposed to a 5.7 percent decline in the U.S. seen by the National Association of Realtors).
And the average price, nationwide, should pop up by 9.5 percent, to around $285,000 U.S. (The NAR doesn't calculate a U.S. average sale price; it predicts that the 2007 median, the point at which 50 percent of homes sold for less, 50 percent for more, will decline 1.4 percent this year, to $218,800.)
The Canadian data come from a recent report from Royal LePage Real Estate Services, a leading real estate franchiser based in Toronto. Independent data from the Canadian government tend to second those findings.
The most intense activity is in cities in western Canada, said Phil Soper, president and CEO of Royal LePage, who says that the market in the rest of the country nonetheless can be described as healthy. Still, he says, even he is surprised at the buoyancy.
"In 2006, we saw a slight decrease in the number of homes trading hands, just down 1 percent, and the consensus forecast was that 2007 would see a decline, too -- not in prices but in the number of homes trading hands.
"What occurred, instead, was a real turnaround in activity," Soper said. "We see many areas of the country now having record numbers of homes trading hands."
What's fueling the pace of trade, he said, is an unemployment level at a 20-year low and a boom in the Canadian dollar, which is nearly on the par with the U.S. dollar.
"Five years ago, it was worth only 65 cents," Soper said. "This has increased purchasing power here."
And so, the Canadian housing market hums along, though he said some of the momentum is beginning to wane on the West Coast, which has been powered by the local oil industry.
"The really rapid price run-up that we're seeing in Calgary and Edmonton, and to a lesser extent Vancouver, will price people out of the market, particularly first-time buyers," he said. "It's already starting to happen. We're starting to see some price moderation as a result.
"As prices rise too quickly, people just have no alternative."
Now, of course, I had real estate experts in Florida and California tell me the same thing in 2003. And 2004. And 2005. It wasn't until 2006 that the U.S. housing market hit the fan. So, it's anybody's guess how long sales in Canada will continue to chug along.
Soper says his nation has a couple of factors that would mitigate the "big, big correction" there that is going on here. For one thing, Canada's market hasn't seen much of the delirious speculator activity that propelled our housing run-up for about five years. And then there's that subprime thing.
"The whole subprime lending fiasco can't happen here because there is no subprime lending market," he said. "And we've had nothing like the kinds of [mortgage] products that have drawn people, particularly lower-income people, into high levels of indebtedness."
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