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What’s the Housing Market Going to Do?

Posted by kmancer on September 3rd, 2010

Over the last couple of years, slumping housing markets in Canada and the US have most definitely affected occupancy levels in seniors’ housing projects.  We have posted about this issue before. One of my concerns has always been that even after housing markets recover it will take older people even longer to forget the reversals experienced in the market. To use some technical jargon, they may well be spooked and continue to delay taking any kind of action on moving to more supportive environments.

Housing markets in the US looked a bit more robust for a while, but the expiration of special incentive programs has resulted in more gloom. New home sales in the US recently hit a 40 year low while sales of existing houses hit a 15 year low. That is not good news for the seniors housing industry. Past posts have discussed the very close correlation between the state of the housing market and occupancy levels in seniors housing projects.

In Canada, the housing market has also definitely slowed down, although we are light years away from the debacle in the US. Nevertheless, the roller coaster-like movements in Canadian housing markets over the last couple of years will not be comforting to seniors contemplating a move.

What’s going to happen over the next 6-12 months? Who knows, but I always think back to the last significant “adjustment” in BC housing markets. It seems like a very long time ago, but the last half of the 90s was a very slow period in terms of starts, sales, and prices.

Players in the industry would be well-advised to factor a relatively long-lasting “relaxation” in provincial housing markets into their business plans.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2010 at 3:46 pm and is filed under Future, Market Studies, Seniors' Housing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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