Canadian real estate buying power is taking a real hit. Bank of Canada (BoC) April numbers show, new borrowers paid the highest mortgage rates in years. Fast rising rates mean people are shaving off serious amounts of borrowing room.
Here’s Why You Care About This
The higher the interest rate, the less credit is extended to mortgage borrowers. Generally speaking, for every 10 bps (0.1 points) mortgage rates increase, buyers lose 0.9 – 1% of borrowing power. That means the same family, making the same income can borrow about 1% less. Still unclear?
The same qualified pool of buyers competing for a home, can borrow less money. To the tune of 1% for every 10bps, which is a pretty light increase. We haven’t seen interest rates rise in a long time, so as these climb – expect big changes to how people shop for homes.
Uninsured Mortgages Are Up Over 60 bps
Uninsured mortgage borrowers are paying much higher mortgage rates. The average volume-weighted mortgage rate paid was 3.4% in April. This represents an increase of 63 bps from last year, shaving off ~6.3% of buying power. That million dollar mortgage you were planning on borrowing last year, is more like a $940,000 one this year. This is the highest rate people have been locking in over the past 5 years of data we could obtain.
Canadian Interest On Uninsured Mortgages
A volume-weighted index of mortgage rates paid by new uninsured borrowers.
Source: Bank of Canada, Better Dwelling.
Insured Mortgages Are Up Over 65 bps
Insured borrowers leave smaller down payments, so they pay slightly higher rates. The average volume-weighted mortgage rate was 3.54% in April. This represents an increase of 67bps from last year, shaving off ~6.7% of buying power. Once again, this is also a highest rate we’ve seen in the past 5 years of data.
Canadian Interest On Insured Mortgages
A volume-weighted index of mortgage rates paid by new insured borrowers.
Source: Bank of Canada, Better Dwelling.
The days of the ever expanding pool of credit may be coming to an end. Canadian real estate buyers were coming off of record low rates, so the minor hike may come as a shock. Up to 2017, if you waited a few months, your credit expanded. No rise in income needed, declining rates gave you more borrowing room. Now that the opposite is happening, home prices rising may be a little stickier.
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Does anyone know where we are in comparison to the 2008 US housing bubble?
Did they have rising interest rates in 08?
I feel like we are in worse condition, but I honestly don’t know.
Interest rates were being hiked into the US bubble, and topped in 2006. When prices started falling, they started slashing. Same with Canada. Big difference is we don’t have 400 bps to cut from rates this round, we have 1.75% – then we go NIRP. Canadian dollars don’t have enough demand to hold NIRP like some countries do.
The mortgage rates are finally increasing to more normal levels. 32 years ago mortgage rates in Toronto were 18% just to remind people.
A very intelligent senior real estate exec just told me “The price for 1 bedroom condos at $2300 a month is cheap. Should be closer to $3K” When I asked him how people could afford this considering average incomes for young professionals (typical 1 bdrm renters), he claimed “The market will weed out those who can’t afford.”
His long position is focused mainly around the immigration argument that 100K people come to the city with only 40K housing starts. Obv there are flaws with his thesis.
End of the day, those who go busto will have to move to small towns while the rich and foreign money pile into the Millionaire playground that has become Toronto.
lol @ it’ll become a millionaire playground. How much does a loaf of bread cost in this scenario?
First off, Canada hasn’t undergone monetary contraction. That’s the move where they have to raise interest rates to the point where it’s higher than CPI, and take the money they printed back. That’s when unemployment goes rampant, and people have to accept jobs lower in nominal terms.
Canada will hyperinflate to hide this. The city will have a ton of millionaires in Canadian dollars. It won’t be the same as a millionaire somewhere else in the world, and it won’t be comparable.
You actually took the bait and addressed someone that said “should be $3,000?” Why should it be $3,000, and houses not experience asset contractions?
Everyone that can get a mortgage thinks they’re an asset pricing expert, and the 30% rise was normal, and will never come down, yada, yada… missed this one. Sellers are never gonna give it up, never gonna see prices go down, never gonna run around.
The only joke is that even in actual millionaires’ playgrounds rents cost less than 3K.
You can get a 1bdrm in Monaco for 2100 euros…
Sad times we live in…People out there are just plain retarded. I tried to think of a more politically correct term, but I really can’t find the words to describe this cities populous and its views on real estate.
Toronto is a massive city, meaning it’s not a little municipality like Monaco that can sustain incredibly high real estate values because it’s a tiny city that can still get workers from the outside as the commute is not impossible.
How can a big city like Toronto sustain high prices on RE if the guy serving you the Timmies coffee needs to commute from two hours away? That is never going to happen. Either the values go down significantly or peoples salaries are doubled…guess which is going to happen?
New York has Manhattan, playground for the rich, and that is fine, because a one hour commute to New Jersey gets you a house for 250k.
This is all going to crumble and fall so badly that I need to consider finding a job in the states somewhere…
The greatest hustle ever invented is Canadian real estate…why bother selling dope, you could have made a ton selling RE with nothing but a grade 10 education and a license and its all legal.
Also curious is what is going to happen to all these tradesmen when it all goes down? Many of these electricians and carpenters are the people with multiple mortgages going, and sooner rather than later they will all have to take a massive pay cut…whose going to pay for all that?
Sad but true.
Toronto isn’t even in the top 20 Canadian cities in terms of average household income!
When you get a cheque in the mail for $500,000, for no other reason than having lived in your house for the past ten years and taking out huge HELOCs, wouldn’t you think “hmm, there must be a catch.”
When the artificially priced $1 million homes tank to $500K over the next few years, millionaire’s row will be eating millionaire’s crow.
2,100 Euro equals
3,156.60 Canadian Dollar
LOL! Describing the type of thinking that is going to bring our economy down. That is when someone brokering a mortgage looks at what someone’s max monthly payment is and works backwards from there. “The down payment for a loan this size? Borrow it from your parents or I can find you another lender.”
Very dangerous game to play in a record low interest rate world, that’s how you get a Brampton margin call.
But sleep easy Andy, there will always be a silly immigrant to bail you out. If we have a big recession they will still try to pile in here right? That’s probably more of an immigrating opportunity. “If you wait until the economy picks back up, you will have a lot more competition trying to get in. Go now and buy a home”
My mistake you were talking about rents. The second part about you thinking immigrants will be dying to jump aboard a sinking ship to bail you out holds.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but business immigrants (the biggest class) are very investment savvy. Immigrants on average are more intelligent than the average Canadian (they have to be, in order to meet the points criteria). It is not the immigrants who will be making dumb decisions, it will be Canadians.
It is exactly the reverse – it will be immigrants that come out far ahead in the new economy. But lets hope they do not round up the old stock Canadians and put them into reserves, the way it happened with the original-old stock Canadians that first settled this land.
Racist.
Don’t forget “old stock” Canadians built the country that all these “intelligent” immigrants want to flock to….
And dont kid yourself, when the shit hits the fan, the number of immigrant “investors”, “mortgage brokers”, and “real estate agents” that have committed mortgage fraud in Canada will be mind numbing.
Starting with all the NINJA loans, and money launderers from China.
Go soak your head Justin, you are an ignorant racist, and you do no favours for the hard working people of this country.
One of us is an ignorant racist.
One of us sounds like a white supremacist as well.
>>A very intelligent senior real estate exec just told me “The price for 1 bedroom condos at $2300 a month is cheap. Should be closer to $3K” <<
If he were even vaguely intelligent, he wouldn't say that.
Toxically stupid more like.
An obviously fictitious cartoon character.
I don’t understand why ppl need to pay 3,000 rent????? I’m currently renting a one bedroom and den apartment in Etobicoke for around 1,100 ( two parkings included)..The building is rental units only ..its not fancy but you will never be able to save money for your own place if you pay these rents..
And btw – seen a lot of ppl move in last year so vacancy is not such a problem as ppl say
They don’t. I see the same thing; decent rental rates all over the place but a consistent narrative to entice investors is “being a landlord is easy and rents will only go up because people gotta live”. It is hard to justify the silly condo appreciation as of late unless you’re all in on the idea that renters will just shell out more and more. There are a number of issues with this obviously with the main being; no money = no mas. Also, as more and more inexperienced landlords enter the fray with ridiculous expectations just to avoid running neg or eeking out a little CF, predatory RENTER practices take off because a cohort of renters, who could never afford the rent, will unfortunately begin to game the system just to live. The laws have changed to protect renters. In some markets the rents may be high but the game will be; get in around the fall, string along until the winter (you cannot kick anyone out) then string along the tribunal in the spring and then move on. Desperate landlords will just be happy to have someone on the lease are do not have the means to do proper background checks. It is all going to get messier and messier. Tick tock. BD4L.
Tell me name and address of your building . It really sounds inexpensive and good deal.
You can’t really compare Etobicoke and heart of downtown Toronto.
Where there is employment and transit, people will always pay a premium to live.
I also think the condo market is a major pump and dump scheme. The fact that an investor putting down 20% on a $500K condo + mntc fees + taxes, works out to roughly $2200 monthly.
So the investor is cashflow negative just hoping that the value will appreciate more than the interest payment on the mortgage.
Furthermore, those who seek private loans usually receive a 1 year term or face hefty renewal fees oftentimes 2-4% of the outstanding loan. Those people are playing with grenades.
Rental prices in Sydney, Australia are coming down and vacancy is skyrocketing as all of their new construction floods the market and residents flee to more affordable communities. I expect the same will happen in Vancouver and Toronto in the next six months or so.
Could be starting in Van already.
Downtown Vancouver has a very different problem. It’s called a lack of bridges. Anyone who works downtown pretty much has to live downtown. No flocking to the suburbs. The bridges have only so much capacity, before it takes longer to get to and from downtown than there are hours in the day.
We are right at the door of a financial crisis folks, and remember when the govt passed legislation allowing them to “bail in” the banks? A bail in is where the bank literally steals your money from your account in the interest of “system security.”
Don’t think it will happen? You’re living in a delusion, and it is about to end.
Anyone have a link to the “bail in” legislation? I like to read up on it.
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/fsr-june2018.pdf
Pages 21-22.
It will take effect in Sep 2018.
Ken Wu is providing misinformation here. Deposits are 100% safe. Only holders of banks’ bonds may take financial hit. (investors).
This is 100% right thing to do. Taxpayers should be the least responsible if risks are calculated incorrectly by the banks and they become too greedy.
Thanks!
X: As ever a voice of reason
More details here:
https://www.fin.gc.ca/n18/data/18-029_1-eng.asp
Thank you Xelan
Anyone find any details on these rule changes? https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-cmhc-aims-to-make-it-easier-for-self-employed-to-get-a-mortgage/
‘That means the same family, making the same income can borrow about 1% less.’
Therein is the catch. Hidden, but nonetheless still there.
Traditionally, rates go up in an inflationary period. Not just prices are going up, but incomes as well. Rising interest rates are offset by rising wages
But this time, it is different.
If BD really wanted to do some investigating, they would compare the historic change in interest rates mapped against the historic change in income levels, and map both against changing employment figures – not just unemployment rate, but the change in the number of actual jobs. Higher wages, but fewer overall jobs, means overall a net loss in disposable income.
This job was already done by National Bank. Wage growth does NOT offset purchasing power drop due to interest rates increases.
” If our scenario for interest rates out to the end of 2019 materializes (+75 basis point on the 5-year mortgage rate), and assuming historically average income growth, prices would need to fall on the order of 2% to keep home affordability from deteriorating further. That being said, we do not rule out declines between 5% to 10% over this horizon in these two markets due to the lagged effect of macroprudential measures that have been put in place. ”
https://www.nbc.ca/content/dam/bnc/en/rates-and-analysis/economic-analysis/housing-affordability.pdf
Please not that all those calculations by National Bank do NOT take B20 into account at all because B-20 doesn’t affect monthly mortgage payments.
True affordability to purchase property in GTA and GV is worse than during 1989 bubble peak.
I believe I already said that. This time around, the interest increase is not being matched by wage increases. Interest rates are going up without substantial inflation.
What I am after, is the historical record going back, say, 150 years.
What happens, historically, when wages do not match interest increases? What is the historical association with inflation, wage increases, and interest rate increases? How different IS it this time around?
I don’t think it’s different this time around. I don’t have deep knowledge about every rate hike cycle but from what I read here are 3 scenarios:
1) Central Bank is hiking too slowly, economy overheats and central bank has to catch up and hike aggressively which causes recession
2) Central Bank is hiking too aggressively from the beginning and that causes recession
3) Central Bank is spot on and delivers “Soft Landing” for economy.
As far as I know scenario 3) only happened 1 out of 20 times in US so just make your bet which option BoC is heading now 🙂
But in all cases, there is inflation, and the rate hike is to contend with inflation. This time, there IS no inflation, just a modest hint of a slight rise in inflation sometime in the future. The CPI has been fairly flat at under 2%. Normally, that would never trigger an interest rate hike.
This interest rate hike is for some other reason than inflation. The BoC has something up its sleeve. The dollar?
Hey all, first time commenter here and I need some help understanding something. To make my position clear I’m a renting millenial that moved to Toronto just a few years ago from the States. I am in line with all of the bearish looking metrics.
I had this thought, and maybe I’m over simplifying the math. When we talk about negative carry on an investment condo, is it really that bad? If I could put in $200-400 every month, and someone else will foot the other $1800-2000, AND I can afford that, is that bad? I’ve spent a few hundred dollars and someone else is paying the majority of my mortgage. Clearly I’ll never be wealthy because it’s not cash flow positive, but in a stable housing environment that kind of gain seems fine to me.
I totally understand in the current situation, and if you go underwater that’s a different story. You can’t be underwater AND negative carry. But if market is stable, why not?
It depends on ow much mortgage INTEREST you are paying. If that $200-$400 extra out of your pocket is going entirely to principal, then you are paying into your own bank account every month, You are building up equity. If the value of your property never goes below what you paid for it, and your rental income is completely paying the carrying costs, maintenance costs, interest costs, then you are marginally ahead, and need to compare this investment to other investments (of which there are not a lot of options lately). Starting your own business, for instance.
However, if any part of that money from your pocket is going to non-equity payments, then it is like putting money into a savings account and paying the bank negative interest for the privilege of holding on to your money. Not a good investment.
But remember, high rise condos are NOT a long-long-term investment. Unlike houses, there is no land equity. After 50 years or so, the building is heading in the direction of essentially scrap (maintenance costs exceed the cost of replacement) and you may end up owing more money in shared costs to demolish the building. So unless you can get a good rate of return over that 50 years, to essentially write off the original investment, in the long term you will always loose.
High rise condos are about the only real estate venture that ‘capital cost depreciation’ is a very big factor in investment decisions. Very few investors realize this. High rise condos (the way they are built today) wear out and have to be eventually replaced.
The Globe and Mail reported last week that it’s both a “calm” and a “sagging” market in the same article, and reluctantly suggests the frenzy of the past 2 years in unlikely to reoccur anytime soon.
This is the moment when the fuse has burned down into the top of the dynamite stick, and we’re waiting for the explosion. The RE industry wants us to believe it’s a dud, and it will soon be back to business as usual.
Some analytics on Vancouver market produced by MLA.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gey9fbxxaln7br5/MLA%20Advisory%20Mid-Year%20Market%20Review%202018.pdf?dl=0
Graph on page 15 is particularly interesting because it’s showing how fast inventory is growing in condo sector.
New construction sales are also slowing down and I have a feeling that assignments trade is not so liquid anymore as well.
Good luck, Vancouver, you will need it, especially with 60% chance of another rate hike in October 2018.
Sorry clean, I can’t open the link. Could you provide some info on the inventory stats?
If this is correct and vacancy is up, then rents will be coming down, partner this with rising interest rates, and we have all three warning signs from the real estate cycle that we are fully in Phase 4–recession .
https://www.extension.harvard.edu/inside-extension/how-use-real-estate-trends-predict-next-housing-bubble
Sport I meant Xelan my autocorrect changed it to clean.
CS, that is a fascinating graph.
Look at it with an open mind. Especially, phase III, the point of hyper supply. The graph is discontinuous. It comes to a cusp, then suddenly and drastically changes. The author posits that it is because of the intersection of two curves – the rate of change of new construction and available supply, and the rate of change of the vacancy rate. Not the actual vacancy rate, but the rate of change. This means that the vacancy rate curve is falling, and the rate of new construction is rising. The curves the graph is based on are moving, until they come to a cusp, and the entire equilibrium suddenly changes,
From the start of phase one, through phase two, the graph appears linear. Very little change in the rate of change. Is it linear, or is it curved? Since it is purely imaginary, theoretical and not empirical, not based on real numbers, nothing can be said about its shape. Also, the cusp is purely hypothetical. Is it a hyperbolic shape, or does it come to a critical point and then suddenly switch direction? I posit that the curve is non-linear, that the rate of change is itself changing, At the cusp, the rate of change is increasing for one metric, decreasing for another (the graph curves). What exactly are the magic values for the ‘rate of change’ numbers, when the equilibrium shifts? What is the intersection point?
We know that the horizontal axis is time, but exactly what is the vertical axis? It is a cycle, but a cycle of what? Prices of new units? Availability? Rent? Turnover? Investment? Psychological perception? What is ‘cycling’? The nebulous concept of ‘real estate’? How do you quantify ‘real estate’?
The graph is over-simplified. No actual ‘metrics’ numbers are given.
Yes, the graph describes catastrophe theory precisely, but it is also just as nebulous as catastrophe theory. Looks really nice as an illustration, but there is no meat behind it. It is a starting point. It highlights how the mechanics are working, but it does not offer much in the way of the details. What, precisely, is happening at the cusp?
Catastrophe theory, and this graph, both posit that there IS a cusp, but give no specific details on the specific numbers and intersection points. They are a theoretical framework that illustrate what to look for, what to investigate further, rather than a fleshed-out analysis.
JT, now your talking. Imagine a bucket of water sitting on a table, in the rain, filling with water, while someone is pulling on a stretchable rope attached to the rim of the bucket, the rope being made of a material that changes tension depending on how wet it gets. Consider the “tipping points” — when the bucket might topple over, or when it might be dragged to the edge of the table and fall off. Two nodes of catastrophe, when everything falls off a cliff.
How hard and how variable is the rain?, add human psychology: does the person pull harder when he gets wet and wants to get indoors. Does the bucket rust and develop a slow leak?
The scenario is way too complex to model mathematically as the rain varies in the passing storm, and the psychology of the rope puller comes into play.
The math can potentially help understand the forces and work,
and describe how discontinuous topplings might occur, but
that’s about it at this stage.
And of course the economy is infinitely more complicated a situation.
A very good analogy. But it needs a clarification. Once the bucket starts to tip, there is a point at which it can not be stopped, even if the chord is withdrawn or cut. This is the catastrophe – the sudden change to a new equilibrium, the cusp. Once the center of gravity of the water in the bucket moves outside of the base of the bucket, there is a new equilibrium and there is no stopping the water from flowing out until the bucket is empty, rain or no rain, chord or no chord, leak or no leak, no matter what the level of water in the bucket. The system is no longer driven by outside forces, but by internal dynamics of the force of gravity and the opposing force of the table. However, before the center of gravity moves beyond the base of the bucket, then relaxing on the chord returns the bucket to the stable equilibrium position – the water will stay in the bucket, and the bucket will continue to fill, and the more the bucket fills, the harder it is to tip. Even when the bucket overflows, the bucket itself is stable, and the volume of the water in the bucket will stay constant.
That is where we are in housing prices. Consider the water in the bucket as the average price of housing. Has the bucket yet gone past the new equilibrium? Has the center of gravity gone beyond the base of the bucket? Or will a cooling in the market just cause the bucket to return back to the stable position – sitting on the table, continuing to fill up? How close are we, really, in the housing market, to that cusp, that point of no return, that point at which the equilibrium point shifts from stable bucket to an unstoppabley tipped bucket?
And how do we tell the difference between the bucket just overflowing, but stable, and the bucket actually tipping, and emptying? When the bucket tips slightly, but not past the point of no return, the water volume in the bucket will be lower than when it sits properly, but there is no crisis. Any new water from the rain just spills out. The soft landing. Lower prices, but still a stable system. The bucket returns to filling up if it is still raining.
My feeling is, that the bucket is full, or very close to full. We are in a transition from expansion to maintenance, where more water in the bucket is just going to overflow. It is fake wealth, fake money. Yet the volume of water in the bucket is static, but stable. However, a lot of people are trying to tip the bucket, to reduce the volume, so that it can return to wealth accumulation – the bucket can resume filling up. Very dangerously close to the tipping point of no return. That pretty much describes the American economy – in 2008, it was a full bucket, and it was tipped to empty some water out, and now it is filling back up again. And people are tipping it again. But make no mistake, the bucket is near full.
The overall effect is well known and well understood. But it has to be calculated for each bucket, and each chord. If the bucket is wider at the base, for instance, the inevitable is postponed. If the bucket is tall and thin, then the inevitable happens sooner.
Catastrophe theory can explain in an overall sense what will happen, but the details and actual values are event specific. That is why catastrophe theory has not gained much traction in predicting events – there are just far too many variables and not enough known quantified equations. But that does not mean that, eventually, there will be enough knowledge that catastrophe theory will not be specifically predictive, and it does not mean that catastrophe theory is incorrect or faulty and therefore worthless.
Catastrophe theory is still in its early infancy, but it is still very useful in understanding how things shift in equilibrium, and how, when the equilibrium shifts, the process is unstoppable. There is no return to the old equilibrium. No change in fiscal or monetary policy by the government, or the central bank, can stop it. No legislation can legislate it away. No alteration in interest rates, either higher or lower, will have any effect. Tightening or loosening the money supply is futile. The shift is completely internal to the changed dynamics of the system, and immune from external forces.
But predicting exactly where that tipping point is, is still beyond human analysis. We know it is there, we just don’t know where. Until we reach it, it can be prevented with very careful changes. However, movement towards it can also be accelerated by the wrong responses. For instance, there is a tendency, when the bucket is full and overflowing, to tip it slightly to let out the water. But if tipped too far, it passes that critical point. We know that the fuller the bucket is, the easier it is to move the higher center of gravity over the bucket base. The more empty the bucket is, the more likely that tipping it too far to empty it will push it beyond the point of no return. So do we just let it overflow? Are we forced to just let it fill up?
Opening up new areas for growth – China, for instance, or space colonization, or huge investments in new transportation systems (the hyperloop, for instance, between cities) puts an outlet, a tap as it were, into the bucket, and allows water to be drawn off safely in new investments. Exactly what America is NOT doing, and China IS. (Yet even China is vulnerable – can it build enough taps to draw off enough water to safely prevent the bucket from overflowing? They seem committed in their belt-and-road initiative to do so – a huge investment in infrastructure.)
But one thing is for sure. If we are passed the tipping point of no return, we are just along for the ride.
No problem 🙂
In short:
%Pre-sale units sold dropped from 94% in Jan 2018 to 49% in Jun 2018
In Vancouver downtown only 37% of pre-sale units were sold YTD
In resale market sales-to-active for condos dropped from 60% in Feb 2018 to 20% now.
You can find it here:
https://mlacanada.com/newsfeed
“Mid-Year Market Review 2018 ”
Should be in the news as well if you search using this title.
Not sure which Vacancy that study is using but in any case Vancouver is pretty close to correction now. Condo market is the last pillar and it doesn’t look strong at all.
The other thing to note, is the discontinuity of the 18 year cycle between 1907 and 2006. The cycle completely broke. Note that this was the period when world population went from under two billion to over six billion. The American population increased from around 100 million to around 250 million. The last 100 years or so were an aberration. Since around 1990, this aberration has moderated. Things are returning to the long-long-term normal. We are changing from an expansionist period back to a slow-growth period, but in the interim, going through a maintenance period – the only replacement is due to normal maintenance issues, not growth (be it slow OR rapid).
So the table from 1818 to present illustrates a return to normal cycles, but the normal cycle has not yet been completely established. Will the cycle from 2006 be an 18 year cycle? A ten year cycle? A seven year cycle, or (more likely) something else?
The equilibrium has changed, and until the new equilibrium is established, there can be no accurate predictions made of the short term based on the metrics and indicators of the last 50 years.
The system is broken, and anything is possible, We are just along for the ride.
If anything don’t your numbers prove there was never a stable system in the first place?
They indicate that, in order to actually posit an 18 year cycle, one must go back hundreds of years and study the trend, not just 150 or so.
Unfortunately, there just is not the data to really analyase back that far.
But we DO know that the world economy was fairly stable for thousands of years, with only minor rises and falls, nothing like the last 150 years.
The Roman empires (Republic and Imperial), for instance, spanned over 2000 years, with slow growth and stability. Unfortunately, detailed records of the general economy (real estate prices in Rome, for instance) are not available. There was obviously a real estate market in Rome during the empires, with properties being bought and sold on a regular basis, and new housing construction on an ongoing basis. Oh, but to have access to these records!!!!