Appropriately, the Bloomberg ‘Chart of the Day’:
The CHART OF THE DAY shows the relationship between growth in China’s gross domestic product and home prices in metropolitan Vancouver, Canada’s most expensive city, where Statistics Canada data show 15 percent of the population has a first language that’s a Chinese dialect.
The most recent Chinese data signal Vancouver may get fresh support from across the Pacific Ocean. Annual growth in Asia’s largest economy was 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter, up from 7.4 percent in the prior quarter, marking the first acceleration in two years, the National Bureau of Statistics said Jan. 18 in Beijing.
Part of me wonders whether or not this relationship is because of a global economy and that we’re a bit too focused on housing.
i.e. Would Winnipeg’s GDP, or grain futures, or North American GDP in general, or European GDP, generally speaking, exhibit similar trendlines to Chinese GDP?
Exactly what I was thinking. Also as the “gateway” to China, as trade with China goes up, one would expect people here to have more money.
More money? Where, do you say? lol. I’m a Canadian-born citizen of Chinese descent and I don’t see any extra cash of late… However, I am aware of more recent Chinese immigrants possibly bringing their cash over with them and inflating the housing market as a result.
Correction: should read “more recent and wealthier Chinese economic immigrants”
Could be one of those correlations that breaks just when it gets noticed – China is continuing to pick up, but Vancouver real estate is still heading down steeply.