Canada's housing market is plunging significantly but a U.S.-style collapse is not expected in the future, according to a report released by the country's top economists Thursday.
The Scotia Economics report said that Canada's housing market is finally tilting towards the buyers after the longest postwar housing boom for the past decade.
Home prices in Canada appreciated 61 percent during the past 10 years and in 2008, real price growth has turned negative, like in other nine major developed countries, says the report.
Notably, the hot markets of Western Canada is experiencing significant slowdown.
However, the downturn in Canada is not a "U.S.-style bust caused by overbuilding, speculative buying and imprudent lending, but rather a cyclical slowdown accompanied by a valuation adjustment in several large centers where booming demand conditions and temporary supply constraints led to an overshooting in prices," the report states.
The bank expects the correction in national average prices in Canada, from their late-2007 peak, will be in the 10 to 15 percent range.
The bank says the market adjustment in Canada has been hastened by the sharp downgrading in global economic prospects and severe turbulence in financial markets.
None of the factors behind the U.S. housing market collapse, including record unsold housing inventories, mounting foreclosures, overbuilding and credit constraints, will be "major concerns" in Canada, it says.
(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2008)
