Where's that population boom?

We have all heard from the pumpers that one of the reasons for the great boom in housing prices in the 2000s was the population explosion in BC.

Those who remember my old blog will recall that booming population growth was shown to be nothing more than a myth. Population growth has indeed been positive. But it is very small relative to what was seen previously in BC.

The house price boom has been around about 10 years now. So, let's look at the 10-year population growth rate for BC.

See that little hook at the far right of the chart? That's as good as it gets. No boom.

To make this more stark, let's rank the decades.

Ouch. The 2000s are last among the previous 5 decades. The worst decade for population growth in 50 years. Nice population boom.

Now let's break that down even further into 5-year time periods.


There you have it. The last two 5 year periods are the worst two in the last 45 years. And 1995-1999 is in 3rd last place, to boot.

We had unprecedented construction levels and paltry population growth. I wonder who will be living in all those houses?