Expert Offers Forecast for Canadian Market

While the Canadian market is faring slightly better than the United States, Peter Norman, senior director and general manager, Altus Group Economic Consulting, pointed out that this market is facing its share of challenges as well. He presented his outlook of the Canadian market during Win-door 2010 held last week in Toronto.

Norman started by showing attendees a chart of housing starts throughout the past several years and said the Canadian market faced its worst quarter last year when housing starts was at a 135,000 low.

He pointed out, however, that the Canadian market is on its way up while the United States is in worse shape.

"The United States is going through what Canada went through in the 1990s which lasted about 10 years," said Norman.

But, overall, it seems that the neighboring countries are facing many of the same problems—namely excess inventory.

"One of my worries is the excess supply," he said." We know that this always creates an adjustment problem."