HISTORY & READINGS at Brian Ripley's Canadian Housing Price Charts & Plunge-O-Meter

Perma What?

4/10/2017

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If you are headed north to get away from the crazy real estate prices and the even crazier Tomahawk hurling sociopath in the White House, make sure you choose solid ground. Don't build on or near permafrost.

Permafrost, mostly found in high-latitude regions like the Arctic, stores large quantities of carbon dioxide and methane, which are released when it melts. sbs.com.au APR 11, 2017

"An increase in global warming by 2 degrees Celsius would thaw more than 40 per cent of the earth's permafrost, according to the study... An estimated 35 million people currently live in cities or towns on top of permafrost..."

5 Year Study: Snow, Water, Ice
and Permafrost (SWIPA) April 25, 2017
Thanks to Peter Sinclair

Jennifer Hynes Interview
with Dahr Jamail April 2017

Climate Watch Shorts: Melting Permafrost

Chasing Methane' with Mark Bittman

Ok, now you can go back to your obsession with Canadian housing prices and where they go from here.

$35 Oil Stress Test

12/2/2015

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Imagine $35 Oil for 5yrs

A US-Style Canadian housing correction possibility is a potential that CMHC's CEO Evan Siddall discussed at a private audience presentation in New York, November 30, 2015 if oil remained at an average price of USD$35 per barrel for 5 years.

The top chart are oil prices since the OAPEC (Arab members of OPEC plus Egypt & Syria) oil embargo. Note the 22 year period of sub-$35 oil prices not long ago.

The bottom chart is Bloomberg's energy sector projections from their annual New Energy Finance Summit, April 14, 2015.

SCENARIO 1:
Oil averaging $35/bbl for 5 years

26% drop in Canadian home prices
12.5% peak unemployment

SCENARIO 2:
Global deflation and a US-style Housing Correction

30-44% drop in Canadian home prices
12-16% peak unemployment

"Canada’s home price growth since the 2008 recession has outpaced that of the U.S., Australia, and the U.K. It also reiterated risks to housing include high debt-to-income and concentration of net worth in housing." Financial Post November 30, 2015 (My Household Debt and Earnings charts are updated monthly - BR)

Donald Sadoway "Science Serving Society"

Energy 2064 with Professor Donald R. Sadoway

The Bill Gates Backed Canadian Building a Better Battery

"How do you store the energy generated by turbines when the wind isn’t blowing, the power from solar panels when the sun isn’t shining?” Read the Globe & Mail June 2015 report.

Polar Shmortex

2/20/2014

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Cold Enough For You?

Anyone with a Twitter feed knows that this year a lot of correlations are being made with the weather. The bottom panel of the mashup shows the latest housing start data in the midwestern U.S. The chart came via Joe Weisenthal at the Business Insider with the question "Think the weather isn't having a major effect on the economy?"

Well yes the weather does "effect ... the economy"; snow tires are doing a booming trade but the chart is housing starts in the midwest and I noticed by looking at a 24 year chart (top panel inset) of U.S. mortgage applications that since the Pit of Gloom in 2009, mortgage demand has dropped even more across the U.S. into a 5 year well defined narrow range similar to but more extended than the mid 1990's.

Yes it's cold out there but as I have highlighted on the lower panel midwest chart, the winter of 2012 saw a spike in starts as dramatic as the current slump and according to a USA Today news item in December 2012 "...parts of 17 states are (were) under winter weather advisories as far west as Washington state and as far east as Maine." At the time of the news, 7 people had already died from weather related events, thousands of flights had been cancelled and tens of thousands were without power. Housing starts peaked that winter.

Multi-unit buildings count each unit as a start and if current weather delays the footings being poured then potential multiple units don't make the "start" count. For the last 5 years, midwest starts have been trending up to a peak in 2012 regardless of weather and this year starts have plunged. It could be a drop in demand for the midwest as a correlation with the rest of the U.S.

In real estate, location and employment opportunities can trump weather.