A survey by the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals (CAAMP) has found that more than twice as many Canadians today, compared with last spring, expect real estate prices to drop even further. In hard terms, that means 35 percent of us now believe that housing prices are on their way down.
“Almost one-half of those surveyed gave a neutral answer, while the number who thought prices would go up fell from 40 per cent to 20 per cent,” CAAMP stated in their recent press release. “Westerners, who have endured particularly hot housing markets, are most negative, and in British Columbia, 48 per cent of those surveyed said they expect prices to fall, far above the national average.”
The CAAMP online poll surveyed approximately 2,000 Canadians in October, 2008.
In line with these results, the Canadian Real Estate Association announced recently that the average price of resale homes across Canada in October plunged to a 26-year-low, dropping 10 per cent from last year. This marks the fifth month in a row for price declines on a year-over-year basis.
Interestingly, the CAAMP survey also revealed that those surveyed were mostly unaware that the Canadian government no longer guarantees mortgage insurance on mortgages with 40-year amortization periods, or for homes bought with down payments of less than 5 per cent, or those granted to borrowers with low credit scores.
Specifically, CAAMP reported that only about a third of those surveyed were aware of the first two changes and a mere 17 percent were aware of the third change.
Nevertheless, despite this low level of awareness regarding mortgage policy changes, a whopping 60 percent of respondents “strongly” or “somewhat supported” the government’s actions.
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