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Is this the “great moderation”?

That’s a question that RBC Economics asked about the housing market following two rounds of interest rate hikes by the Bank of Canada.

Bank economist Carrie Freestone noted in a report that home sales are “softening” in major urban centres.

“All evidence points to the Bank of Canada’s rate tightening cycle starting to have an impact, as recent data released from Canada’s four largest housing markets show early signs of softening demand,” Freestone wrote.

A massive residential tower planned for Vancouver’s downtown core will be the world’s tallest “passive house” building, a Canadian developer says.

According to Brivia Group, a 60-storey residential development called Curv will break the record in the category of low-carbon, energy efficient buildings. “Passive house” is a standard for efficiency that includes use of insulation, natural sun, shade and ventilation, airtight construction and other methods to reduce noise and ensure minimal energy use.

Montreal-based Brivia said in a news release that this building “contributes to a healthier planet, mirroring the environmental ethos of the city of Vancouver.”

Those behind the project say the Curv development will “harness its own energy” in a way that makes it “the most energy efficient structure of its type ever built.”

Metro Vancouver sky-watchers should mark their calendars for the first of two total lunar eclipses this year. 

The full moon, known as the full “flower moon,” will take place on Sunday, May 15, reaching its fullest point at 9:15 a.m., according to timeanddate.com.

But the full moon won’t be the highlight of the night. As the moon reaches its fullest size, the celestial body will move under Earth’s shadow, blocking sunlight from reaching its surface. 

The lunar eclipse will commence on Sunday at 8:44 p.m., with the eclipse reaching its maximum point at 9:11 p.m.; it will end at 11:50 a.m. In other words, Vancouverites will see the maximum eclipse only a few minutes before the moon will be at its fullest point in local skies. 

A major change to how real estate purchases will work in British Columbia was quietly passed by the legislature this week, enabling new “cooling off” periods for home buyers. 

But nobody — not even the government that wrote the law — is sure how it will actually work.

When will it start? How many days will the cooling-off period be? Will you have to pay a financial penalty if you back out of a deal to buy a home? If so, how much? Will it apply in every community in the province or just Metro Vancouver and Greater Victoria?

There were no answers to those questions, and more, during two hours of debate by MLAs on the legislation this week.

That’s mainly because the four-page bill that creates the new cooling-off periods has a gigantic blank space in the middle where the details should be.

It’s effectively one large IOU note for Premier John Horgan’s cabinet to, in the months ahead, set all the rules it wants, when it wants, how it wants by regulation.

The right and left apparently agree on one thing: municipalities need to let developers build more new homes

Federal Conservative leadership hopeful Pierre Poilievre, BC NDP housing minister David Eby and a University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO) professor of economics are all on the same page.

Municipalities and NIMBYs need to get out of the way and let developers build more housing.

The issue was underlined this year as B.C., which has the highest housing costs in the country, saw residential construction fall.

A total of 405,750 immigrants were recorded throughout 2021, with 138,182 in the fourth quarter alone. Immigration flows grew throughout the year, with 70,467 in the first quarter, 74,353 in the second quarter, and 122,748 in the third quarter, the second highest quarter ever.

The record volumes for the first and second quarters of 2021 beat the previous quarterly record of 119,956 in the second quarter of 1957, when Canada accepted tens of thousands of refugees during Hungary’s revolution against Soviet Union governance.

The final three months of the year typically see lower levels of movements than other periods of the year, with immigration and emigration usually highest in the second and third quarters. But that was not the case for 2021.

In contrast, there were 333,090 immigrants in 2019, including 65,957 in the first quarter, 94,281 in the second quarter, 103,719 in the third quarter, and 69,133 in the fourth quarter. Canada as a whole recorded 184,586 immigrants in 2020, the lowest in decades, due to the pandemic’s impact on movements across borders.

According to the provincial government’s breakdown of new date from Statistics Canada, net migration in BC reached 100,797 people in 2021 — the highest annual total in 60 years since 1961. This figure is equivalent to roughly the population of the City of Delta.

This includes 33,656 people who moved to BC from other Canadian provinces and territories, the highest number experienced since 1994 and the highest in Canada.

Another 67,141 people came to BC in 2021 from other countries, marking the second-highest level of international immigration to BC on record. In 2021, BC was second to Ontario’s global immigration volumes.

It should be emphasized that these significant numbers represent net migration — the number of people who moved to BC from another province/territory or from another country, minus the number of people who left.

The heated real estate market in Metro Vancouver shows no sign of abating, with the latest example being the complete sell-out of the future Radley condominium development within the northeast corner of Surrey City Centre.

Over the first weekend of April, according to Key Marketing, all 193 units in the six-storey wood frame project by West Fraser Developments at 13832 108 Avenue sold out in just 48 hours.

The project team claims 99% of the successful buyers came from within jurisdictions under the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board (FVREB) — which includes easternmost communities of Metro Vancouver such as Surrey and Langley — and that there were 5,000 registrants interested in buying a home in the development. The project is expected to reach completion in 2024.

According to the March 2022 National Rent Report by Rentals.ca and Bullpen Research & Consulting, rent went up by 23% in Vancouver between 2021 and 2022.

Even though rent dipped last year, dropping 6%, asking rents have since roared back to life with a vengeance.

This graph shows the annual change in rent across Canada’s major cities. Vancouver came in first, followed by Toronto, Etobicoke, and Victoria.

Rental and purchase housing unaffordability will be the top-of-mind determining factor in our next provincial and federal elections. The federal political parties are indistinguishable when reviewing their respective solutions. None understand the core fundamental causes of unaffordability, nor do provincial housing ministries and CMHC.

Who’s driving unaffordability? All tenant advocates and most politicians and media blame the obvious culprits: landlords and investors. But who really benefits? Who stands to profit most from increased prices? Follow the money.

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