Scratching the surface?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Scratching the surface?

- Offshore Drilling – It’s NOT the Answer to High Gas Prices at the Pump, GreenPeace.org, August 4, 2008.

4. While the U.S. is still suffering from the sub prime debacle, Canada’s housing market is an island of tranquility. House prices continue to rise, people are buying houses and apartments and paying their mortgages. The banks are on a solid footing, making profits and not facing bankruptcy or asking for bailouts.

According to the federal government, the media, business economists and the real estate industry, the Canadian real estate market is balanced and healthy because of the bank's prudent lending practices and government regulation. Unlike the U.S., the government never allowed sub primes loans and therefore no housing bubble emerged. The health of Canadian financial institutions has been praised abroad.

However, critics are beginning to question this rosy picture of the Canadian housing market. They point out that if you scratch below the surface, the Canadian housing market shares many eerie similarities with the US market before the sub-prime housing bubble began to deflate in 2006. House and apartment prices have gone up more than 100 percent since 2000 and are at least double the price compared to the U.S. market. In the U.S., the average house costs $173,000 while in Canada it is $348,178. In Vancouver, where the housing bubble is the most extreme, the average single family home costs $900,000 Cdn. Buying a house or apartment has become unaffordable for most Canadian working people.