93,000 new jobs in June for all of Canada. Mostly in Healthcare and Service industries, which are not really revenue generators.
Also most of the new jobs came in Central Canada whereas BC actually lost jobs and the unemployment rates inched up 0.3%.
The Canadian dollar ramped up the last few days (probably on leaked numbers) and then finished it's foray up today- all on the expectation that the B of C will push rates up another dizzying 0.25% when they meet on July 20th.
What now? Can the B of C Not raise 0.25%? Does it really matter either way? Will it effect housing in the slightest.
Who knows? It may bring out the last chicken little's squeezed into buying by the rapid rate rise 0.25% all the way up to 0.75%!
In any case, whether they raise or not, probably depends on what happens to the stock-market and price of oil and Re between now and then (only two weeks away I know) , since Central Bankers main job has now become proper-uppers of asset prices.
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The BC Government has finally admitted that they spent 50% more than budgeted on the Olympics. Nearly a Billion bucks. Which is a lot, but is the same as the price tag for the do-nothing-G20-summit we had in Toronto.
Of course they did ignore all the money Crown corporations spent on the Olympics and the hugely expensive infra-structure projects because...well because...they could be ignored.
As Colin Hansen said - it was money well spent. Look at the huge rebound in RE because of the Olympics. Wait a minute, RE has been on a down-ward track since the big-O ended.
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Victoria's not-so-Secret
The numbers from Victoria are out too. Much higher inventory and Much lower sales while prices stagnate.
A very odd state of affairs. Imagine you go to buy a hand-made Christmas ornament at a fair. You see the fellow has five for sale and you ask the price. "It's a bit expensive..I will think about it".
So you come back next week and the fellow has sold one ornament and meanwhile he has made 5 more. So now there are nine. You ask him the price and he sheepishly tells you the same amount. What do you do:
A) Pay the price he is asking.
B) Bargain a bit since he is obviously asking more than the market is willing to pay and his inventory is building up rapidly.
C) Forget about buying for now and wait and see what happens next week, or in a few weeks even.
The buyers now are doing A! Counter-intuitive IMVHO.
Here is the report from the VREB for June 2010:
Greater Victoria home buyers have a growing number of properties from which to choose as inventory levels rose to 4,730 properties available for sale at the end of June - up 25 per cent from the 3,794 available properties a year earlier. Sales, meantime, softened last month while overall prices showed little change.
A total of 625 homes and other properties sold in June through the Victoria Real Estate Board’s Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®), down from the 695 sales in May. There were 946 sales in June of last year.
25% more inventory than last June.
10% Less sales than May.
34% Less sales than last June.
Marginal pricing applies to housing too. It just moves slow enough to expose how eventual price drops are (obviously) always due to a lack of buyers.
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