the rennie landscape - Fall 2021

economy

PUTTING HOME PRICE GAINS IN PERSPECTIVE The declining and low interest rate environment established over the past year-and-a-half has certainly boosted home values— but, as always and with most things, context is important.

House prices have been rising unsustainably. Not to be flippant, but...what else is new? For many years nowMetro Vancouver has posted out-sized growth in home values. The reasons why have been, and continue to be, debated, but due to word count contraints, we will not be exploring this further at this time. The fact remains, though, that home prices in Metro Vancouver rose considerably in the past 12 months: in the Fraser Valley board area in particular, the median sold price rose 10.3%. Notably, however, this was both in line with

the past 5-year average annual increase of 10.2%, and much more modest than the 31.2% increase in the S&P 500, the 72.2% increase in crude oil prices, the 112.2% increase in bond yields, and the—oh my—342.1% increase in the value of Bitcoin. The bottom line is that loose monetary policy including ultra-low interest rates, combined with generous fiscal supports, have fuelled asset values. Enjoy it, or loathe it, while it lasts, because these extraordinary conditions won’t be around forever.

SHOULD’VE INVESTED SOONER

400%

350%

342.1%

300%

250%

200%

150%

136.1%

112.2%

100%

72.2%

50%

31.3%

16.4%

8.3%

10.3%

10.2%

7.9%

6.5%

5.7%

2.4%

4.1%

0.6%

0%

-6.4%

-50%

GOLD WTI CRUDE BITCOIN CADUSD EX. RATE

S&P  YR GOC BOND YIELD

MEDIAN SOLD HOME REBGV

MEDIAN SOLD HOME FVREB

AVG ANNUAL CHANGE, PAST  YEARS

PAST YEAR CHANGE

DATA: RECENT CHANGES IN ASSET/COMMODITY VALUES SOURCE: VARIOUS

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