Tuesday, October 09, 2018

Metro Vancouver Housing Construction Activity Update September 2018

The stalwart Metro Vancouver housing starts and completions graph (conceived by Van Housing Blogger over a decade ago) has been updated for including preliminary housing starts data from September 2018:



The total number of starts has continued to be very strong through 2018. Completions have increased to record highs the past year, and it is reasonable to assume that many of these have started showing up, directly or indirectly, on the MLS-brokered market and have contributed to a moderate increase in new listings for used homes. In my previous post I noted that the market has cooled and we may not be free of this weakness for some time (though who knows for sure?). Developers might be "building into" a protracted downturn.

These graphs highlight how unprecedented current construction activity is. This activity has led to acute shortages for trades and backlogs in approving permits and inspections. This should come as no surprise to anyone — this is how market cycles are supposed to work. 

What is of interest to policymakers and governments here is how long it takes to render new supply onto the market. Not shown here is the time required to acquire land, plan the site, rezone, and get approval; the actual "project start" is far in advance of the starts shown in the graphs above. Ramping up supply takes years, but a sudden change in demand can occur in a single season. In addition, historically when units don't sell, there is significant impedance to commence new starts or even the preamble work, which makes it very difficult to keep a steady supply of abundant housing in the pipeline to prevent shortages, at least not without significant supplementary government intervention. I am concerned some facile interpretations of housing economics may not be well versed in the grim realities of recessions and how difficult it is to maintain over-supply and thus bypass the shortage portion of the cycle. Food for thought.

Tuesday, October 02, 2018

REBGV Sales Update Through September 2018

REBGV released their stats package through September 2018. Here are the numbers:







And by popular request, here is the months of inventory and Greater Vancouver composite HPI on a time series graph. The stark increase in MOI and accompanying change in price can be seen.

Sales are very weak. Months of inventory has increased to the point where at least a mild price correction is likely. The MLS-HPI is dropping.

The market is very slow. This is on the lower side of my prediction from the beginning of the year; a more significant slowdown after a near-unprecedented run-up in prices in 2015 through mid-2017 was always going to be a possibility. I am now formally on housing correction watch. More housing supply is coming onto the market, remember, and that will help with increasing for-sale inventory in 2019. Corrections do not last forever, but that does not mean there are not some lean times coming. Some people are calling for a substantial correction and some people were anticipating price corrections back in 2014 before prices proceeded to increase another 50%, so for all we know we are very removed indeed from a bottom. I have no evidence to suggest calls for a more substantial correction are fundamentally incorrect, but that does not mean such a call is certain. Nonetheless, I think the next order of business should be to figure out where the bottom is going to be.