Global Demographics 2009: Shaping Real Estate’s Future explores how demographic trends are affecting real estate investment and development decisions worldwide. The publication, the second in an annual series from the Urban Land Institute, examines major factors that affect land use, namely population growth, urbanization, aging and migration.

Some of the book’s highlights include:

* The greatest population increases worldwide in the next 40 years will occur in China, India and the United States.
* The population of Europe will decline between now and 2030.
* Mature but still growing economies, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, will offer attractive real estate investment and development prospects once the recession subsides.
* The developed world’s large workforce is aging rapidly while the young labor pools in the Middle East, Africa and South Africa are expanding.
* Fertility rates have dropped globally, even in developing countries.

The report states that demographics are the foundation of real estate decision-making. Population, household and income characteristics, along with the direction of future trends, determine whether demand will exist for new housing or retail space. Growth in the labor force and its composition strongly influence the success of office and industrial properties.

http://www.realestateindustrywatch.com/book-describes-impact-of-global-demographics-on-real-estate%E2%80%99s-future/

brought by Moishe Alexander, CFC Canadian Funding Corp CEO

B.C. real estate – and specifically Vancouver real estate – has long been subject to boom-and-bust cycles. Speculation arrived on the Granville townsite with the railway in the 1880s, flourished with the influx of investors from Asia in the 1980s and gave legs to the mortgage scams and leaky condos of the 1990s. This time round, easy credit fed the boom – most spectacularly stateside, but also extending to the U.K. and the emergent economies of eastern Europe and Asia.

Vancouver took its place on the global stage as developers and marketers turned here for expertise in selling their latest projects, and in short order “super, natural British Columbia” became the best place on earth to buy property. While the first cracks in the global property boom started appearing in 2005, it wasn’t until the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. on Sept. 15, 2008, that the problem of tightened credit really hit home, cutting off the lifeblood of local developers – most notably Millennium Development Group, builder of the Vancouver Olympic Village – and driving a nail through the heart of consumer confidence.

In our 2009 review of the local real estate market, we look at three themes or projects that defined the boom – the international marketing of Vancouver, transit-related densification across the Lower Mainland and the landmark Olympic Village development – and ponder how well they might hold up in what could be the toughest year for B.C. real estate in over a decade.

KENORA, ON, June 8, 2009

Canadian Funding Corporation – CFC – posts CMHC update. Mr. Greg Rickford, Member of Parliament for Kenora, joined with Naotkamegwanning First Nation and Chief Warren White to celebrate the grand opening of a new 10-unit seniors residence today, which was officially opened by Chief Warren White and will be home to more than 30 elders.

“The Government of Canada is committed to creating safe and affordable housing for Aboriginal people in Ontario and across the country.” said MP Rickford, on behalf of the Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and Minister Responsible for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). “This project provides area elders with access to safe, quality housing at an affordable cost.”

CMHC provided a housing loan of $1,064,000 to facilitate the construction of this seniors residence. CMHC will also provide housing subsidies for this project, which are estimated at $2.1 million over the term of the 25-year loan agreement.

“It’s been a long, prosperous journey and now we can express the wishes that our elders voiced years ago to develop a seniors residence in Naotkamegwanning First Nation,” said Chief White. “Through hard work, determination and negotiations with CMHC, it has become the greatest accomplishment for our community. We’re a community that believes dreams can become reality when we work very hard to achieve them.”

CMHC’s On-Reserve Non-Profit Housing Program assists First Nations in the purchase, construction, rehabilitation and administration of affordable on-reserve rental housing, and provides subsidies for First Nations people living on-reserve. The Government of Canada provides approximately $270 million in on-reserve funding each year to address housing need.

In April, the Government of Canada announced as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan that it is providing $400 million in additional funding over the next two years to support on-reserve housing. These funds are dedicated to new social housing projects, the remediation of existing social housing and complementary housing activities through programming from CMHC and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC). This funding will also provide an economic stimulus for many First Nations and rural areas by creating jobs, developing skilled trades and supporting small businesses.