the rennie landscape KEY INSIGHTS FALL
rates INTEREST RATES HAVE SUNK TO HISTORIC LOWS as unprecedented interventions by the Bank of Canada have suppressed both short-term and longer-term rates. With rates expected to remain in their current neighbourhood into 2023, existing homeowners, new buyers in the near-term, and home builders will benefit. economy METRO VANCOUVER’S ECONOMY IS ON THE MEND, though it will be well into 2021, or even 2022, until the number of jobs returns to its full-employment level. Younger, part-time workers in the service sector have been hit the hardest by our response to the pandemic, though this segment of the economy is leading the recovery. For Metro Vancouver’s economy, it has been a bumpy ride since mid-March, a time when the unemployment rate was near its historical low, wages were rising faster than they had in years, and the housing market was returning to its longer-term equilibrium level. Since then we have experienced unprecedented swings in employment, the unemployment rate, retail spending, gross domestic product, and interest rates; in fact, some of the data points generated over the past six months have quite literally been off the charts. Below is a summary of the highlights from this edition of the rennie landscape. This guide presents a summary of key insights associated with the fall 2020 edition of the rennie landscape, a report focused on unpacking the myriad factors directly and indirectly influencingMetro Vancouver’s housing market. Through its first eight months, 2020 has been a year without a peer, at least insofar as recent memory is concerned. From the spread of the coronavirus and our response to it, to the ongoing fight for social justice, to the spread of wildfires, to the increasingly vitriolic political environs south of the 49th parallel (we could go on), we have collectively been forced to address how we are living and how we are thinking.
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