REPORT SAYS ALBERTA TOPS IN HOME RENOS

Reno rage has truly hit the flush-with-bucks wallets of Albertans.
For the second year in a row, the province will record the biggest gains in the country in terms of the cash forked over by Albertans to renovate their home-sweet-homes, says a report by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Commission.

Resale records account for a big part of the surge, which will see Albertans spend $5.4 billion for home renovations in 2007; a steep 23.7% increase from the $4.4 billion spent last year.
"In terms of persistent resale records, people are very quick to personalize their new homes and bring them up to today's standards," said CMHC regional economist Richard Corriveau.
"The other big contributing factor is the very strong gains in home equity, with prices increasing an average of 39% last year," he said.

He said many homeowners have chosen to divert the windfall to refurbishing their properties.
Mirroring most sectors of Alberta's superheated economy, the big leap in renovation spending has spurred escalating renovation costs, another contributing factor to the overall jump.
However, Corriveau said the dominance of this inflation in the spending increase is difficult to quantify, with construction labour accounting for a larger portion of homeowners' reno tabs than materials costs.

The upswing in reno spending is not expected to cool down any time soon, with the CMHC report projecting another 19.4% jump in 2008 to almost $6.5 billion.
Despite the big year-to-year gains, Alberta is not the national reno king; residents in B.C., for one, are expected to spend almost $7 billion next year to fix up their homes.
By DOUG MCINTYRE, SUN MEDIA

Posted by Joe Samson, www.joesamson.com

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