This week, I read a story that CMHC was working some magic statistics in the Okanagan housing market.
I am sure every homeowner is ecstatic now they know that CMHC has told them their single family homes have increased almost 50 per cent in the past 12 months to an average of more than $1 million per single family home.
In the same article, it indicated that single family homes according to OMREB have seen single digit inflation — more realistic in any economy.
American President Harry Truman, in a moment of frustration, once asked for a one-handed economist. He was tired of hearing “well, Mr. President on the one hand this could be happening, but on the other…” you know the answer.
The question is how can we have two such disparate numbers. In taking a look at the current listings, I would immediately refute CMHC’s numbers with nothing other than a quick glance.
Yet, that institution is what guides our government for goodness sake. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. That is a big fancy name that carries a lot of weight.
It carries a lot of weight when it comes to forcing Canadians to qualify on a five-year mortgage rate with an additional two per cent or so.
It carries a lot of weight when the federal government targets regional specific measures to cool heated housing markets — like Kelowna at 50 per cent growth in values.
It carries a whole pile of weight when the NDP government makes nonsensical decisions on arbitrary regional taxation of second homes.
For goodness sake, it is frankly time that we fired a whole pile of statisticians who seem to have no practical idea of what is happening and get to the bottom of where we are going.
When I was a realtor, I recall being at an economic development meeting where the city proudly showed off its top industries.
There was confusion and silence when I explained that they were wrong. The biggest industry in town (if anyone cared to crunch the numbers) is real estate.
Why was it left off the charts? Probably because nobody would like to admit it is the most significant industry in town.
Somewhere between OMREB’s numbers and CMHC’s numbers lies the truth. What I do know is that on one hand, we have a normal looking economy and on the other, we have a super-heated housing market.
As we get excited about selling our homes for the new and improved value, bear in mind that everyone from outside the province is not reading that headline, they are reading the one that says they are not welcome.
Somebody find a one-handed economist quickly and sort this mess out.
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.