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Trends in the Housing Market - Housing's become a powerful commodity

626 views · Published 15 November 2016 · 31:39 · Indexed 21 September 2026

Channel: Mike Martins · 2016 · News & Politics

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"Housing speculation doesn't remain confined to Vancouver. When governments make one market less attractive, investment capital searches for another city or region." - Mike Martins

Hello and welcome to another Monday edition of Trends in the Housing Market. I'm Mike Martins broadcasting from Vancouver, British Columbia, and today is November 14, 2016.

We're going around the world again because housing affordability isn't just a Vancouver problem anymore.

We start in Hong Kong, where a social-welfare organization is considering converted shipping containers as temporary housing for people waiting years for public housing. We're talking about approximately 200-square-foot units with bathrooms, small kitchens, air conditioning and windows.

It's innovative—but why are working people reaching the point where shipping containers are being discussed as housing?

Then we're heading to Australia, where housing investors appear to be returning to the market. I'm asking whether some investment capital could be moving out of Vancouver following British Columbia's 15% foreign-buyer tax and looking toward Toronto, Australia and other markets.

There's another huge question for Australia: What happens if Donald Trump's economic policies push American inflation, bond yields and interest rates higher?

Could higher global borrowing costs finally put pressure on Australia's enormous housing market?

From there we go to New Zealand, where housing problems are colliding with social problems, tenant disputes and concerns about drug contamination.

Then it's over to London, where the expensive end of the housing market has been slowing following Brexit and changes affecting investment properties. Could London be moving toward something bigger?

Back home in Canada, housing starts have declined from their recent highs. Here in Vancouver I'm seeing groups of houses assembled for redevelopment sitting for sale while buyers appear more cautious.

We also need to talk about homelessness.

Tent cities are appearing because people simply don't have anywhere else to go. Whether we're talking about Vancouver, Victoria, Abbotsford, Portland or Seattle, governments need to remember that the people living in these camps are human beings with lives, families and futures.

We're also looking at the Canadian average home price, housing pressures in Mountain View, California, the affordability crisis spreading into the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, and families in Peel Region, Ontario, facing extraordinary waits for affordable housing.

The pattern keeps appearing:

Low vacancies. Rising rents. Expensive houses. Investors. Displaced renters. Working people struggling to establish themselves.

Housing has become an incredibly powerful commodity.

And I keep asking the same question:

Where does this eventually end?

Thanks for watching Trends in the Housing Market.

I'm Mike Martins. Big hug to everybody watching.


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