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"It's A Bloodbath" - Here Is The Biggest Casualty Of Canada's Recession
In the past year, we have extensively profiled the collapse of ground zero of Canada's oil industry, Calgary, as a result of the plunge in the price of oil, in posts such as the following:
- "Canada Crude Contagion: Calgary Home Prices Drop Most In 2 Years"
- "Canada's Biggest Oil Casualty To Date: Calgary's Nexen Shutters Oil Trading Desk"
- "The Canadian Housing Bubble Has Begun To Burst"
- "Canada's Oil Patch Confidence Crashes"
- "Canada Mauled by Oil Bust, Job Losses Pile Up – Housing Bubble, Banks at Risk"
- "The Stage Is Set For A Massive Housing Market Correction in Canada's Oilpatch"
Since then it has only gotten worse for Canada, and as of two it culminated with the first official recession in 7 years.
Additionally, in September we profiled the expected collapse of the Calgary commercial real estate market when we reported that in Alberta Canada now has 1.7 million square feet of empty office space, the most in North America, with another 5.2 million under construction! After years of booming construction, the natural resource rich country is starting to feel the pinch.
Overnight Bloomberg followed up on this stunning deterioration when it, too, reported that "office-tower owners in Canada’s energy hub are about to feel the full force of the oil-price crash."
Using data from real estate brokers including Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. and Avison Young, Bloomberg calculates that vacancy is already at a five-year high in Calgary and rents are the lowest since 2006 after thousands of office jobs were cut. Energy company tenants have now begun to ask for rental relief and are offering subleases for as little as half the going rate.
The backlog is even worse: five new office towers with about 3.8 million square feet (353,031 square meters) of space hits the market in the next three years.
End result: if one ignores shadow vacancy rates, it is "only" as bad as 2010. If one adds shadow vacancy, or space leased but sitting empty, the rate jumps to 16%, the highest since the mid-1980s.
In downtown Calgary, the vacancy rate jumped to 14 percent in the third quarter, the highest since 2010 and compared with 5 percent for downtown Toronto, according to CBRE Group Inc. Companies are subleasing a record 2.7 million square feet, the brokerage said. That doesn’t include as much as 2 million square feet of so-called "shadow vacancy" or space leased but sitting empty, which would push vacancy to 16 percent, the most since the mid-1980s.
As for Canada in general, the vacany rate has already surpassed the 2009 highs.
The following comment from Alexi Olcheski, an office-leasing principal at Avison Young from his office in downtown Calgary, says it all:
"It is a bloodbath. We’re at the highest point of fear and uncertainty now."
The real estate mauling is impacting the public stocks of office REITs: "caught in the downturn are tower owners including Dream Office REIT, Artis REIT and Morguard Corp., whose shares have dropped about 27 percent, 14 percent and 5.1 percent respectively over the past 12 months. The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Capped REIT Index is down 8.7 percent over the same period compared with a 8.2 percent drop in the broad S&P/TSX Composite Index. U.S. crude has dropped more than half since its peak in June 2014 to hover around $45 a barrel."
Some more examples of how the collapse in oil prices is spreading through the economy, which is on the verge of grinding to a halt:
Penn West Plaza, owned by developer Morguard, is among the buildings with empty floors. About 38 percent of its 621,628 square feet of office space is on the market for sublease, according to leasing documents. The going rate for the penthouse of the West tower is “negotiable” while occupancy is “immediate” for other floors, according to the ads. Morguard didn’t return phone calls and e-mails seeking comment.
Employment at Penn West Petroleum Ltd. shrank to less than 800 workers this year from about 2,250 three years ago. Athabasca Oil Corp., which eliminated more than 25 percent of its workforce last month, has been subleasing from Penn West and is also trying to find tenants to take some space off its hands, according to listings.
Even Calgary’s most iconic tower, completed just a few years ago, isn’t immune. The 58-story Bow, Canada’s second-largest office building at 2.0 million square feet, is owned by H&R REIT and leased until 2038 to Encana Corp., the real estate firm’s largest tenant by revenue. Encana subleases 1 million square feet to Cenovus Energy Inc., which in turn aims to vacate and sublease half of that, according to Reg Curren, a Cenovus spokesman. Together, the firms cut about 1,500 jobs this year, part of the 36,000 job losses at energy companies across Canada since the oil rout began.
Perhaps it is time for Canada to implement double seasonally-adjusted initial claims reports too and to pull a BLS, showing how despite reality, the job market is flying.
For now one thing is preventing an all out real-estate disaster: subleasing, but even that is at best cutting losses by half, with subleases done at 50% of the original cost. This had lead to rents dropping to C$20.75 a square foot in downtown Calgary, the lowest since at least 2006.
Subleasing is in overdrive and has helped buffer landlords from the impact of the oil slump. Avison Young’s Olcheski said he made his first quadruple sublease earlier this year, when a technology firm rented space from a company several leases removed from the main energy tenant.
But the subleases are being done at as little as 50 percent of the original cost, according to Damien Mills, executive vice president and managing director of Western Canada for JLL. Rents have dropped to C$20.75 a square foot in downtown Calgary, the lowest since at least 2006, according to the brokerage.
Which means one thing: more equity downside, and more layoffs: "Landlords now are forced to compete with somebody that’s looking for a very different return on their real estate cost," Mills said. Some owners are already feeling the pain. Two-thirds of Dream Office’s space in Calgary expires in the years up to 2019 and only 13 percent has been picked up, according to company documents.
"With a smaller tenant size relative to most landlords, we believe this reduces leasing rollover risk as these tenants tend to be leaner, resulting in less headcount reductions during an economic downturn," Rajeev Viswanathan, chief financial officer of Dream Office, said by e-mail. The company is also aggressively pursuing smaller tenants, he said.
But the worst news: another influx of soon to be completed office space means another 2 million square feet in rental availability are about to hit the market, sending rents to what may soon be record lows.
Artis REIT, which has 20 office buildings in Calgary with tenants including power generator TransAlta Corp., has 2.2 million square feet uncommitted starting in 2016, according to company documents. Artis executives didn’t respond to requests seeking comment.
In addition to the current glut of space, five office towers -- each with at least 430,000 square feet -- are due for completion in the next three years in Calgary, some only 36 percent leased as of October.
Olcheski, who’s worked in Calgary for about 10 years, is trying to remain optimistic amid the uncertainty. It’s going to be his best year yet for leases to smaller, non-energy tenants, for example.
What happens then? Nobody knows, or rather, only god does: "God only knows what’ll happen if oil doesn’t rebound," he said. "I try not to let that penetrate my mind" Olcheski concluded.
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Anything that keeps politicians from feeling pain is probably not a good thing:
Kicking the can becomes the default action.
And Canada just elected a socialist numskull - have fun with that.
Socialist numbskull lives matter.
I need $10 gallon gas like I need $10lb hamburger.
Fuck the oil industry.
Long soylent green.
An old finance boss of mine was good at down to earth talk. He stated during a big market crash no one saw coming “…the big guys can stretch the water balloon much farther than anyone thought possible. Everyone notices the stretch marks on the water balloon in small ways. But very few will warn of the coming flood now that the water balloon is over a thousand feet high. That is why when I hear more than 2 or 3 reputable warnings I head for I ground because I know the flood is coming…”
I have heard more than 2 or 3 reputable warnings…
There's a massive housing bubble in Canada,especially in Vancouver and Toronto.When it corrects and it will,watch out below.Most of it has been fueled by hot money coming in from communist China that was getting out fast.That hole has been plugged.The jobs being created are like the U.S just service sector BS.She'll come crashing down because it's uncompetitive with the U.S. economy and any machinery coming in,in order to better the economy is very expensive.Labour is expensive.Food has gone through the roof.They have food banks throughout cities for the poor because governments don't have food stamps like the U.S. and have cut back drastically on welfare payments.They have also set up homeless shelters in major cities that are like flop houses where you sleep on the floor with a vinyl matress.There's little if no housing being built for the lower income groups.They even have advertisements on radio and television to feed and home veterans that have nothing that went to war.Society in Canada has turned very selfish and self centered.Nobody wants to admit that a problem exists and quite frankly most people live where they don't even know their neighbours at all.The other people that have been treated like shit are indigenous peoples by the former Harper Cabinet.Some native reserves don't even have proper drinking water or sewage treatment and unresolved land claims for 200 years.On the surface it looks good but it is actually a very sick and one of the most highly indebted materialistic societies on the globe.
Blade Runner here we come.....
Your comments about treating indigenous people poorly is BULLSHIT.
How much MORE money should be thrown at reserves? I have PERSONALLY seen state of the art water treatment plants built on reserves that only remain in operation for less than a year. Why? Because those indigenous people have NO DESIRE to maintain them, despite being given a HEALTHY annual budget to do so.
And yet, when the government wants to step in and run it for them, they REFUSE help.
How about the reserve that was all up in arms because the fire department from a neighbouring (non-native) community wouldn't come to the rescue because their previous bills hadn't been paid, and a couple kids burned to death? The truth? That reserve was given notice more than a month previous they would get no help until their deliquent bills were paid, The parents of those kids were out DRINKING (drunk), and that reserve has a couple brand new fire trucks and a HEFTY budget for fire fighting. However those fire trucks had NEVER BEEN USED. And their brand new pumper truck was SCAVANGED for PARTS for a "private project".
Funding per person on reserves is 30% to 50% higher per person than the rest of the country.
And yet you blame Harper for the "mess"? You are delusional.
Herdee, I grew up in suburban Toronto area and Toronto and last few years in rural area of Ontario. The people and life here is more like I remember it in the early 80s...people are mostly all decent eh! I dread having drive on the 401 headed towards Oshawa because it is like another world in the GTA. The Toronto area is filled with a lot of angry, aggressive but well dressed people and a growing "underclass" and poor. I can't wait to get out whenever I go in...
space key broken?
I knew we had grammar nazis, but now we have space nazis? Or is this a riff on the new Canadian Prime Minister's quote about reconsidering the concepts of time and space? Either way I got you an up arrow for taking it to the next level.
Space Nazi, I kinda like that. NO soup for you!
Herein lies the main problem with a globally interdependent global society.
When any country (or region of the world for that matter) becomes overly dependent on one thing (natural resource, cheap labor or financialization for example), it makes itself weak and subjected to the whims of those who endeavor to conquer the world and subject it in slavery. They cannot exist independently because of the interdependent economic structures.
Why is the world going through trouble now? Because there is a power that can control both money and price and they want it to go through trouble. If anyone in power values their freedom above comfortable slavery (and being a member of the bad-guys club, willingly or unwillingly they are still slaves), then they need to objectively look at their situation and decide what is right for them... and maybe the human race.
Looks like the Saudi cheap oil policy is bearing desired results.
Anyone who beleives that global cheap oil prices are because of the Saudis, and only the Saudis, is a moron.
Yes. It has.
Riyadh and Wall Street dearly wanted to be rid of Vladimir Putin and figured dumping oil and cutting off Russian export revenue would do the trick.
Of course, it didn't work on the Russians, but for now they've settled for Stephen Harper as a consolation prize. Our masters never completely trusted him---too smart, too quick to take Canada's side---and Israel 's---against the House Negro and the House of Saud. Muttering darkly about Islam during the election was the last straw.
Our new overseer has much nicer hair and is much dimmer---not so dim that he won't forget who he works for though.
And for this Canadians died in France.
Interesting how oil prices have dropped by more than half but gas prices are barely down a third (or less) by the time it reaches the pumps. Very convenient
What is the crude oil component of gasoline? 60%? So a drop of 50% of the crude component, means gas prices drop 30%.
The rest hasn't dropped, refining, transportation, retailing, and TAXES.
Just like saying that the price of steel has dropped by 70%, so why hasn't the price of a car dropped by 70%?
I guess that explains why it goes up penny for penny the instant oil prices rise
You have a choice, don't buy their gasoline if you don't like the price. Get a bicycle, a horse or a Tesla.
they are mostly plastic. made from oil.
It's more a yield than component and it can vary depending upon the goal of the run. With the heat and pressure available, you can vaporise asphalt. Without the rocks, that's a blend...
where i am it hasn't dropped. at. all.
and besides, their own industry spokeswoman came out a few years ago stating, 'prices correspond by $1 a barrel to 1cent at the pump either direction'
hasn't happened
Refineries are minting money.
They only shut 'em down when they break...Maintenance? Not really...
Well they'er just practicing for the NDP and Trudeau government. During one of the debates, Harper told the entire nation that a carbon tax was nothing more than a money grab for .gov and wouldnt have any empact what-so-ever on climate change. And then someone pops up with a poll that said the majority of Canadians would'nt mind paying a tax to "clean up the environment". So suck it up buttercup, ya'll aint seen nuttin yet.
Grow ops!!! Hey Justin Trudeau said he'd legalize pot so this is a perfect opportunity!!
Stop bogarting that joint, you hoser.
Gee, who knew putting all your expensive-to-refine tar sands in one basket could end badly.
actually the main problem was 40 year low interest rates that created an over supply in the building industry. And Harper caused them to be lowered more in order to win re-election but that backfired on him. Now that building glut is about to roll over
that basket is a real sticky mess
Re: hydrocarbons:
http://youtu.be/ldoT2mHubGE
Lots of "bargain" rentals in Calgary area for $10,000 - $25,000 per month.
(-:
Those are luxuries.
Actually housing in Calgary is way cheaper than in Toronto despite (normally) higher incomes. Fewer limits on building imposed by old money worried about the value of Daddy's pile if proles are allowed to build something decent to live in just like that.
That's the nice thing about Alberta. You can own a home and raise a family in it on one modest income. Needless to say, where that's an option, most people need and want much less government. And they vote Social Credit, Wildrose and Conservative.
I'm sure the NDP and federal Liberals are working on solving this problem.
If you've ever been to both cities, its readily obvious that Calgary housing construction quality is junk compared to that of Toronto.
This article---"OMG OMG The oil price sky is falling! Danger Will Robinson, Danger Danger!"
What a bunch of bullshit propaganda. Inferring that without high oil prices the earth will disintegrate. Give me a break.
Oil price per barrel has been low forever, only went up in the last decade due to the efforts of criminals.
Oil price NEEDS to be LOW. Thank you.
Oil price screamers running around with their hair on fire get a f-ing life and deal with the price of oil where it should be, low.
Grimaldus
+100. We had $40 oil (and even less) for the better part of 20 years from 1980 - 2000. During this time drillhands (rough necks were making $19/hr, derek hands about $23, and pushes - $60k to $70k per annum. Vehcle prices were less than half of what they are today, as were the price of houses and property taxes, city, provincial and federal salaries. A nurse earned $40k - now make $90 - $100K, teachers earned about the same, now over $100K, and most bureaucratic salaries have crested the $100K mark. Administrative and desk clerks that were once $30K - are now about $60K - and all of these with defined benefits.
Point is, will the price of oil catch up to salaries and the general price level, or, will salaries and the general price level catch down to the price of oil. Current government expenditures for services, relative to government receipts are currently unsustainable regardless to what extent the left decides to go after the so-called 1%. You need a lot of 1% to make that work, and there just aeren't enough 1% to even begin to subsidize the current cost structure.
Salary rollbacks are inevitable in my opinion - but - they take time. Still, as long as government's are allowed to borrow money to operate, and the voters encourage it, this disconnect can go on a lot longer than people think. The private sector will make adjustments because of the market, but the government won't - and this is where the divide - the contradiction - will really start to be noticed.
Eventually, the math will force salaries and prices to catch down to key economic drivers. We are already seeing it - and that is a good thing. But government has to recognize that it too has to make adjustments - at all levels and for all services.
Vehicle prices certainly weren't half of what they are today. Especially if you compare similar sized/quality vehicles. What has changed is that instead of people buying 'stripper' pickups (sometimes called "Custom" in Ford nomencalture), they've turned to buying pickups fully decked out in leather, crew cabs, roof mounted AC units, truck nuts, in-truck beer fridges, and the full "John Wayne" package complete with glow-in-the-dark branding.
Jackscrews were solidly out-earning even engineers in most of the O&G sector as well by a significant margin.
Actually, I know that oil is not going to rebound, and God, I am pretty sure, failed in math of the Quantum Behavioural Economics kind. In brief, don't count on God to pull your collective asses out of this controlled demolition implosion that will wipe out the entire financial world soon enough. Moreover, this economic implosion is on track to destroy the entirety of all wealth throughout the entire world before anyone, aside from myself, can figure it out.
Bottom line is that the Oligarchs, illuminati, and Mafia, are effin' screwed from here to eternity because they never understood even basic mathematics, postulates, or theorems, let alone common sense.
Oh, oil will rebound. The real question is who will get rich when it does---Albertans or Bay Street thieves.
Oil and gas has always rebounded, and to spare.
http://www.mining.com/160-year-study-of-real-commodity-prices-23066/
Why do you think our masters will do almost anything to secure supplies of cheap oil?
(Answer: most economies couldn't function with fair oil prices as well as the debt and tax burdens they carry now.)
You are dismissing Supply & Demand in so far as Demand is decreasing exponentially in the overdeveloped world. In brief, longitudinal studies were based on fundamentals that are no longer operating across the board. Moreover, costs of refining 'cheap oil' are not in line with costs to deliver the 'cheap oil' to markets. As costs increase for refining, transport, taxation, et cetera.
Does this qualify as a Black Swan event?
Since 2008 everything under the sun is pretty much a 'Black Swan' given that none of the real fundamentals of Economics proper are operating as checks, and balances, anymore. Tyler(s) are consistently pointing this out almost every day on Z/H since 2008 September Lehman's Chapter 11. Moreover, Z/H was instituted due to the fact that Tyler(s) inherently know that this bitch is going to have puppies eventually.
With the entire country now being run by progressives, I'm quite certain that mentioning God is now an arrestable offense.
Kiss your ass goodbye Canada.
oil usage will come back ....because..?!?! why would usage come back when every job is in china. ZH doomsdayers are wrong..........we can QE forever....same old song and dance.
Alberta's tarsands are something of a ponzi scheme. You either have the open pit mining method of extracting oil, which turns the landscape into something that looks like Mordor, or you have the SAGD method of extracting oil, which actually takes MORE ENERGY to produce a barrel of oil than the engery that exists in a barrel of oil (they currently use natural gas to produce the energy to extract the oil). Not to mention the huge volumes of water needed. And this all happens in the middle of freaking nowhere.
It's amazing what crazy things cheap capital and asset bubbles produces.
SAGD has a positive energy balance, and water consumption isn't that significant. Most process water is recycled.
Like anybody would even notice if half of Canada was turned into Mordor. It's a very big country with lots of empty spaces that are never visited by anybody except relatives of Rudolf.
In a hundred years, it won't look any different from the non-Mordorized parts.
We all wish it were a bloodbath, but it isn't. Just some big company whining that they're taking a hit on revenue. They're probably hoping to get some pity from the socialists if they whine. They'll still continue to hold onto all the property they've amassed indefinitely, earning rent or not.
God does not know, but we do...
This will bode poorly for the prices of the ski retreats in Canmore and the eastern Rockies outside of Calgary.
Oh no! Maybe STD-infested Banff will actually be forced to clean up its act to attract clientele! The horrors!
That's okay, my former neighbor's house on Cougar Creek washed away in the 2013 flood and now that tiny 40x80' lot is back on the market for $400K. Of course whichever sucker buys & builds on it will never be able to get flood insurance.
Oh-oh Canada.
Move some of those office buildings to San Francisco and convert them to condos. Two problems solved.
Landlords have spent the past few decades getting fat. So I don't see what the big deal is over trimming them back to size. The Canadian economy has largely not grown in the past 10-15 years. The oil sector replaced the dead tech sector, but little else happened.
My advice to Canada, manufacture more titty bars.
Ahhhh, at last, somthing Canada does very well...
On the brighter side, it good to see honest stats, not lies disguised as "green shoots".
Deflation commeth for those who count paper as gold.
At least the Canadian public had the sense to "shirtfront" that wanker Harper, even more since his Blairite "ukrainian strategy" went so badly wrong for everyone involved, the guys just as much a fuckwit as Blair.
The day your fear is strongest, the day you seriously wonder if it really is different this time, the blackest day is the day you should start thinking about buying something. I bought some oil today. :)
So. Is it time for Canada to jump onto the negative interest rate bandwagon?
Canadian policy rate: 0.5%
No need to cut rates further for the moment:
http://www.cnbc.com/bonds-canada-treasurys/
Yeah right. The BoC is way behind the curve in fighting Canadian deflation. The currency devalued by nearly 30% over the past few years, yet they still can't achieve meaningfully positive inflation.
What happens to Single Payer healthcare if the world goes Full Green?
S&P TSX Real Estate Index
http://schrts.co/uI7N3j
I am glad everyone thinks that this will be contained to Alberta. I have been saying that Canada is in a giant debt bubble for a long time. I heard all manner of comments on how great Canada's banks were and how Canada would be just fine. That is just stupid. Credit and low savings are about to hammer Canada. As real estate rose so did debt. Now it comes home to roost.
Court order sale in downtown Calgary ... and it's probably still way ovepriced;
http://www.realtor.ca/Commercial/Vacant-Land/16130198/127-7-AV-SW-SW-Dow...
I travel frequently to Alberta and the full impact is happening very slowly. When you talk to people there, there's almost nobody who has any concept of how bad things can and likely will get. Some (not typically people I do business with, but kind of average joe's) really think that with Justin Trudeau's pot legalization and increased debt, things will level out. I always feel like someone getting on a lifeboat on the Titanic when I interact with people there, and they're like "this ship won't ever sink".
From CBC News;
"Alberta luxury homes get less than half asking price at auction" ...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-mansions-sell-for-bargain-...