Vancouver Real Estate Market Insight

Interesting to note from Gary Mason’s Globe & Mail article yesterday that about 20 people camped outside the sales office for a new building called The Mark last week. By the end of business the next day, 163 of the 214 available condos had been sold.A couple of years ago this might not have seemed strange.Indeed it was de rigeur to camp outside a condo sales office in Downtown Vancouver, if you wanted your little piece of Vancouver real estate. Well times have changed, of course, and any economic recovery (provincial or national) could at best be described as ‘nascent’.That’s why it’s troubling to see people queuing for condos again.Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada is speaking today at the Canadian Club of Toronto and Empire Club of Canada on the “Current Issues in Household Finances”.The speech will be available on the Bank’s website later today.The Bank want to take their message of prudent borrowing ‘to the streets’. This direct appeal to the public to watch their household borrowing may be prudent but it’s also worrying. It suggests the Bank sees potential trouble ahead for over-leveraged households-and if the problem is big enough-for the wider economy and financial system.