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The troubles facing highly indebted property developers in China have dominated conversations about the Asian nation’s economy and markets this year. Yet according to Rayliant Global Advisors’ Jason Hsu, there’s an important distinction between this and past housing crises elsewhere which is guiding policymakers’ response to it: The developers are the ones who are over-leveraged, not the households.
China’s property sector has yet to see the worst of the crisis that has cast a pall over the nation’s economy and helped drive an exodus of global funds from the world’s second-largest stock market.
Real estate developer Post Brothers landed a $312 million refinancing for a major apartment building in Philadelphia.
French billionaire Bernard Arnault’s dealings with a Russian businessman are being investigated for possible money laundering, the Paris public prosecutor’s office said Friday.
Shopper Park Plus Zrt., an investor in retail parks in both Hungary and the Czech Republic, aims to raise as much as €53.1 million ($56.2 million) in the first euro-denominated initial public offering on the Budapest Stock Exchange.
Apr 19, 2023
, The Canadian Press
Construction of new homes picked up in several of Canada's major cities last year, said the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC), but the agency foresees a slowdown as interest rates weigh on building costs.
Growth in residential construction was mixed across six key areas the CMHC studied in 2022, but the bulk saw more shovels hit the ground, the national housing agency said in its annual housing supply report released Wednesday.
READ: Will homes ever be affordable again in the Greater Toronto Area?
Housing starts — a measure of when construction on homes begins and a key indicator of how Canada is addressing housing supply gaps — increased in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa, CMHC said.
In Toronto alone, housing starts rose 7.7 per cent last year to reach their highest level since 2012, as strong presales spurred higher condominium apartment construction.
Residential construction set a new record in Ottawa as the city further densified. CMHC found 2022 was the first time in more than 20 years that apartment starts accounted for more than 50 per cent of total housing starts in the city.
However, housing starts remained unchanged in Vancouver and decreased in Montreal.
“In some centres, seasonally adjusted housing starts began moving lower at the end of 2022 and early 2023," said Francis Cortellino, senior specialist for housing market analysis at CMHC.
"The higher interest rate environment will likely slow construction activity in more centres in 2023."
Yet demand for housing remains high.
Even with the COVID-19 pandemic triggering more construction, inventories of new and unabsorbed homes — homes that are done being built but not yet sold — are currently at historic lows. CMHC warned that might make it harder for people to access housing.
The housing supply report was released the same day as CMHC published monthly housing start numbers that showed the annual pace of housing starts in March fell 11 per cent compared with February.
The seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts in March came in at 213,865 units, down from 240,927 in February.
Meanwhile, the annual rate of urban starts in the month fell 12 per cent with 192,545 units.
The annual rate of multi-unit urban starts fell 11 per cent to 151,769 for March, while the pace of single-detached urban starts fell 16 per cent to 40,776.
The annual rate of rural starts was estimated at 21,320 units for the month.
The six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate was 240,669 in March, down six per cent from 254,658 in February.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 19, 2023.
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