ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
Steve Saretsky
Steve Saretsky is a Vancouver residential Realtor and author behind one of Vancouver’s most popular real estate blogs, Vancity Condo Guide. Steve is widely considered a thought leader in the industry with regular appearances on BNN, CBC, CKNW, CTV and as a contributor to BC Business Magazine. Steve provides advisory services to banks, hedge funds, developers, and various types of investors.
April 25th, 2022 | Not Bullish Sentiment
Steve Saretsky Blog - While this is probably getting tiresome at this point, inflation came in hot once again in March, hitting a 30 year high. Consumer prices are up 6.7% from last year, and are likely to hit 8% in April based on Stats Canada finally adding used car prices to the CPI basket. This is ramping up […]
April 18th, 2022 | Arsonist & Firefighter
Steve Saretsky Blog - For the first time in over 20 years, the Bank of Canada raised rates by over 50bps at their most recent meeting. Everyone is panicking, inflation is here and the Bank of Canada is acting tough, they’re no longer going to support the housing market, so naturally a housing crash is just around the corner, […]
April 15th, 2022 | Saretsky Report April 2022
The Saretsky Report - Last month I wrote about the early signs of the housing market beginning to turn. Fewer offers, less FOMO, etc. Again, none of this should have come as a surprise, we’ve had two years of record home sales and runaway price growth, and trees don’t grow to the sky.
April 11th, 2022 | Headline Grabbers
Steve Saretsky Blog - The Federal Government unveiled an updated budget this past week, and it included a wide range of housing policies. While many of these were good headline grabbers, some of them will never see the light of day, and others lack any real substance. Let’s dissect some of them further. Foreign Buyer Ban The media took […]
April 4th, 2022 | End of the Housing Bull Market?
Steve Saretsky Blog - It’s official, mortgage rates have hit 4% here in Canada. Several of the large banks have increased their popular 5 year fixed rate mortgage above 4%. You’d have to go back to about 2013 when rates were this high. Also worth adding that 2013 was a pretty slow year for housing and so I expect […]
March 28th, 2022 | Not Until Something Breaks
Steve Saretsky Blog - Happy Monday Morning! It looks like inflation might not be transitory after all, and the bond market is finally figuring that out. Bonds have been selling off hard lately, sending yields much higher, and tightening financial conditions in the process. This is particularly important for the Canadian housing market. If there was ever a catalyst […]
March 21st, 2022 | Purchasing Power is Getting Slaughtered
Steve Saretsky Blog - Consumer prices ripped to a thirty year high in Canada, rising 5.7% from last year. Shelter inflation was up 6.6%, the highest since 1983. Per ScotiaBank, much of that is being driven by the homeowners’ replacement cost, which was up 13.2% y/y. Unlike the US that uses owners’ equivalent rent, Canada captures housing primarily through […]
March 14th, 2022 | Stability in a World of Volatility
Steve Saretsky Blog - Inflation concerns continue to percolate. US CPI inflation ripped to 7.9% in February, the highest reading in over 40 years. So now we basically have inflation at 8% and interest rates at zero. Of course this has major implications not only from a financial perspective but a societal perspective. It’s also a fundamental driver behind […]
March 12th, 2022 | The Saretsky Report – February 2022
The Saretsky Report - I’m about to walk you through the usual Saretsky Report where we highlight all sorts of charts and data points pertaining to the housing market. What I want to emphasize is that the situation is changing rather quickly. A war has erupted in Ukraine, commodity prices are ripping- adding to inflationary pressures, and the Bank […]
March 7th, 2022 | Volcker Moment?
Steve Saretsky Blog - Brace yourselves, we have liftoff! The Bank of Canada officially raised interest rates a mere 25bps last week. This was the first move since 2018 and comes at a time when inflation is running at 30 year highs. Markets believe another 5-7 rate hikes are still coming this year and some are calling this the […]
February 28th, 2022 | Now What?
Steve Saretsky Blog - I have long argued that a sell-off in Canadian housing will not be self-induced. In other words, policy makers are not going to willingly tank the market. If / when you have a downturn it will be due to something out of our control, likely a crisis in emerging markets that ripples through global financial […]
February 22nd, 2022 | Bullish Government Incompetence
Steve Saretsky Blog - I know you probably don’t need another reminder on inflation so i’ll keep this brief. Inflation figures ticked higher again in January, with consumer prices rising 5.1% from last year. Prices are now rising at their quickest pace since 1991. In other words, so long as you don’t eat, drive a car or own a […]
February 14th, 2022 | Not So Fast
Steve Saretsky Blog - Inflation in the United States surged to 40 year highs in January, with consumer prices growing by 7.5% year-over-year. The last time inflation was rising this quickly the fed funds rate was sitting at 15%, today it sits at zero. This is ramping up calls for aggressive interest rate increases in order to quell inflation, […]
February 9th, 2022 | The Saretsky Report – January 2022
The Saretsky Report - For regular readers of this report you will remember that 2021 marked a record year for Greater Vancouver home sales, smashing through previous highs set in 2015. That momentum has carried over into 2022. Sales remain incredibly strong, still running more than 30% above the long run average. Meanwhile, inventory in the month of January […]
February 7th, 2022 | Home to The Middle Class
Steve Saretsky Blog - Everyone is well aware of the great reshuffling throughout the pandemic. People migrated away from the city, opting for more space and privacy while they worked from home. Everyone rushed out to the suburbs. Similar to the toilet paper crisis at the onset of the pandemic, housing inventory in the burbs was swiftly plucked bare. […]
January 31st, 2022 | Truth is Like Poetry
Steve Saretsky Blog - To the dismay of prospective home buyers hoping for a cool down in the nations housing market, Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem left interest rates unchanged this past week. It was an odd move considering a 25bps rate hike was already priced into the markets, and there would have been no justification needed, given […]
January 25th, 2022 | Worst Buying Conditions on Record
Steve Saretsky Blog - Consumer prices continue to rip higher in Canada, officially growing at their fastest pace in 30 years per Stats Canada data this December. Consumer prices were up 4.8%, while shelter costs, which make up a part of the CPI basket, were up 5% from last year. Of course this is stirring the ongoing debate on […]
January 20th, 2022 | Broken Supply Chains
Steve Saretsky Blog - As of this week, unvaccinated US truckers will not be able to cross the Canadian border. This decision by the Trudeau government is going to have significant economic impacts. COVID politics aside, let’s discuss the economic ramifications moving forward and how this could ultimately come full circle for the housing market. More than 70% of […]
January 11th, 2022 | The Saretsky Report December 2021
The Saretsky Report - It was a blockbuster year for the Vancouver housing market. Annual sales finished the year at just over 44,000, an all time record high. The previous high of 42,000 was set in 2015 during the last housing boom that was sparked by an inflow of offshore cash.
January 10th, 2022 | It is a Matter of Policy Decision
Steve Saretsky Blog - Here’s a wild stat to start your week off, Canada added 410,000 new immigrants in 2021. In the United States, a country nearly ten times the size, added just 500,000 new immigrants. Canada is built on immigration, and it is certainly needed. However, perhaps it’s worthwhile to discuss the tradeoffs, which seemingly no media outlet […]
January 5th, 2022 | As Prosperous as Your Real Estate
Steve Saretsky Blog - It was quite the year for the nations housing market. As I highlighted a few weeks ago, this shouldn’t come as a surprise considering our monetary base has expanded by about 23% over the past eighteen months. We are undergoing the largest monetary experiment in modern history. But enough of that, let’s take a look […]
December 22nd, 2021 | Monetary Imprudence
Steve Saretsky Blog - Christmas came early for the 69% of Canadians who own a home. The latest data released from the Canadian Real Estate Association shows national home prices inflated at the quickest pace ever, rising 25% from last year. The home price index which measures the price of a typical home in Canada now sits at $780,400, […]
December 14th, 2021 | The Saretsky Report – November 2021
The Saretsky Report - It was another painful month to be a home buyer in Greater Vancouver. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did. Sales increased 12%, rising to their second highest levels on record, falling just short of November 2015. Meanwhile, inventory collapsed a whopping 40% from last years levels. Obviously this is creating […]
December 13th, 2021 | Wartime Fiscal and Monetary Policy
Steve Saretsky Blog - Despite the market pressuring the Bank of Canada to begin liftoff and start hiking interest rates, they held firm once again this past week. The bank flagged the recent floods in BC and the emergence of the Omicron variant as air cover to stand pat. Per the official release, “the Governing Council judges that in […]
December 6th, 2021 | This is What a Crisis Looks Like
Steve Saretsky Blog - House shoppers are showing very few signs of fatigue. The latest data out of Vancouver & Toronto for the month of November suggests the bull market remains fully intact. Greater Vancouver home sales jumped 11% from last year, the second strongest November on record besides 2015. In case you forgot, the winter of 2015 was […]