Canadian Real Estate Imploding?

Coming on the heels of weakness in Australian property markets, evidence is pouring in of a housing bust in the frozen north: Statistics Canada reports a 10.8% drop in building permits. In addition, home sales in June fell 30% in Vancouver and 42% in Calgary. These trends may be blips and reverse, but the sharpness of the drop mirrors the US experience in 2006.

The commodity countries like Canada and Australia trade on Chinese growth. With China tightening, a fall is not surprising. Home sales in China itself were down 50% in May. More predictions are coming in of this tightening popping the Chinese housing bubble. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports:

Standard Chartered has told clients to prepare for a fall in property prices of up to 30pc in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzen, and other large cities in China as the delayed effects of monetary tightening begin to bite.

About Duncan Davidson 228 Articles

Affiliation: NetService Ventures

Duncan is an advisor to NetService Ventures, where he focuses on digital media and the mobile Internet.

Previously he was at four start-ups: Xumii, a mobile social service based on a Social Addressbook; SkyPilot Networks, the performance leader of wireless mesh systems for last-mile access, where he was the founding CEO; Covad Communications (Amex: DVW, $9B market cap at the peak), the leading independent DSL access provider, where he was the founding Chairman; InterTrust Technologies ($9B market cap at the peak), the pioneer in digital rights management technologies, now owned by Sony and Philips, where he was SVP Business Development and the pitchman for the IPO.

Before these ventures, Duncan was a partner at Cambridge Venture Partners, an early-stage venture firm, and managing partner of Gemini McKenna, a joint venture between Regis McKenna's marketing firm and Gemini Consulting, the global management consulting arm of Cap Gemini.

He serves on the board or is an adviser to Aggregate Knowledge (content discovery), Livescribe (digital pen), AllVoices (citizen journalism), Xumii (mobile social addressbook), Verismo (Internet settop box), and Widevine (DRM for IPTV).

Visit: Duncan Davidson's Blogs

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