News articles for week of April 21

• It's been a great week to be an Albertan again, with the new provincial budget being released on Tuesday.
• $1.6 billion surplus, and the lowest taxes in Canada - a savings of $3000 to $5000 per person over the other provinces!
• No more health care costs. that's a savings of $1056 after tax dollars for a typical family.
• valuing oil at only $78 per barrel, the budget still leaves a surplus of over 1.6 billion dollars
• For every dollar that a barrel of oil goes up, Alberta pockets an additional $130,000,000. On the day the budget was announced oil closed at over $119. If oil averages even $100 per barrel this year, Alberta will bring in an additional $2,860,000,000 this year (that's $2.86 Billion!)
• With a HUGE surplus like $4 billion, there will be new schools, roads, and jobs, jobs, jobs. When taxes go down, and more jobs are created - people move here.

• "Rising inventory levels, coupled with falling interest rates, are giving buyers a "favourable advantage," says the Re/Max Affordability Report 2008."
• "The housing slump in the U.S. has so far left Canada's real estate market unaffected."
• "Doom and gloom reports coming from south of the border have yet to hinder overall momentum," said Re/Max executive Michael Polzler."
• Last week the headlines were "The market is over" and "The bubble has burst". This week, all the articles are indicating what a *great* time to buy it is.
• And while it's a great buying time, prices are still very high, meaning less people can afford to stop renting and buy their first place.

• "A boom of unprecedented dimensions is sweeping Canada's spectacularly scenic western province of Alberta, the Texas-sized territory with a population of 3 million that is home to a pair of world-class cities -- Calgary (population 1.2 million) and Edmonton (population 1.1 million)."
• "As a result, the economy of Alberta since 2002 has been growing an average 12.2% annually. That's not far from China's average, 14.8 %. In the past decade, Alberta's per-capita GDP has almost doubled, to $66,000."
• "Demand for labor is so intense that Alberta has basically run out of people. Fast-food emporiums, for example, are closing down because managers cannot find folks willing to work for their modest wages."
• This is far-and-away my favourite article this week because it's from New York, and shows us just how the rest of the world is seeing Alberta right now.

• "Nearly one in three Canadian employers has difficulty filling skilled job openings, a new survey suggests"
• "The demographic shift that fuels the challenge shortage is not going to change," she said"
• Simply, there’s not enough people in Canada – specifically Western Canada – to fill all the jobs. This brings more people, causing more work shortages in the supporting markets, and further fuelling the fire.

• The International Monetary Fund recently released their newest report on the world’s housing situation. This report s huge, and looks at many aspects of housing around the globe.
• On section of the report, also visible at http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10974135 shows that housing prices in Canada are still undervalued compared to the fundamental market indicators of the Canadian Economy.
• The US, with incredibly weak fundamentals, is still 12% over priced – even after the huge pricing drops they have seen in the last year.
• This is one more indicator that the US housing prices are nowhere near levelling out, and also that Canadian housing prices are still a bargain, and will continue to rise.