We will be tallying up the human and economic toll this covid 19 virus has taken for some time yet. But it appears the Alberta economy is in the midst of another imported disaster. What I predicted was going to be a good year as of January is looking a lot more difficult. Will the builders emerge from this stronger, or not at all? There are some big challenges ahead for the industry and a lot of pain before we can recover. I do think the builders can reboot much quicker than other sectors like hospitality because we have less overhead and we can ramp down to idle speed (or at least I can). The feds seem to be bailing out the mortgage industry first to prevent the financial system from imploding, but lower rates have stopped trickling down to the borrowers. There are clear liquidity concerns emerging for builders with excess inventory, and sellers who’d like to move their own property to buy one of my new ones. Too hard to imagine how this shakes out as we are nearer the beginning than the end of this.
When the Canadian dollar hits 68 cents USD it massively impoverishes us all. Imports will be way more expensive. That means inflation for essentials, yet the economic situation is deflationary. Worst of both worlds for Canada.