Canada still going strong

Canada may be experiencing an overall slowdown, but some regions are still booming…

Canada came 12^th in Knight Frank’s recently released Global House Price Index with huge annualised price growth of 6.1%. According to the index, Canada has seen a slowdown in the rate of house price inflation over the lat 12 months, but despite this, some areas are still performing extremely strongly.

Liam Bailey, Head of Residential Research at Knight Frank, commented: “In Saaskatoon, house prices rose by almost 50%, whilst in Regina, and in Winnipeg, prices rose by 28% and 15% respectively. Vancouver saw price growth akin to the national average, with 6.1% over the 12 month period”.

Vancouver beating the credit crunch?

While many American and central Canadian cities have seen slowing sales and falling prices in the past year, the most pessimistic thing any real estate expert can say about Vancouver is that house prices are not expected to rise quite as steeply this year as they did in 2006 and 2007.

Robyn Adamache, senior market analyst with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, explained: "What we're expecting is a bit of moderation, but prices are going to continue to increase, but at a slower pace than we've seen over the past couple of years.

“Overall, we’re projecting an 8 percent rise in metropolitan Vancouver housing prices during 2008, compared with 11 percent last year. Keep in mind that we're coming off near-record-high levels of sales and new home starts.