Time for your cheat sheet on this week’s most important stories.
Canadian Real Estate
Canadian Mortgage Credit Growth Is Rapidly Accelerating, While Consumer Credit Slows Canadian household debt growth is accelerating once again, but only in one segment. The balance of debt reached $2.27 trillion in December, up 4.2% from last year. Mortgage debt is behind the acceleration, representing $1.63 trillion of the debt – up 4.9% from last year. Consumer debt represents the other $641 billion, up just 2.4% from a year before. When adjusted for inflation, the consumer debt is getting close to zero annual growth. Mortgage debt is entirely responsible for the acceleration of household debt growth. Read More
Canada’s First-Time Home Buyer Incentive Receives Cold Reception Canada’s First-Time Home Buyer Incentive (FTHBI) is receiving a cool reception. The program delivered just $51.3 million in funds from September 2 to December 9, 2019. Quebec residents made use of it the most, representing $18.74 million of those funds. Alberta had the second largest segment of users, representing $16.30 million of the funds. Just those two provinces represented more than half of all funds disbursed. Read More
Canadian Mortgage Credit Rips To Highest Growth In Nearly 2 Years Canadian mortgage credit is growing at the fastest pace in nearly 3 years. The outstanding balance reached $1.63 trillion in December, up 4.9% from last year. Not only is this a new all-time high, the 12-month rate of growth is also large. Mortgage credit growth is rising at almost the pace it was prior to the B-20 Guidelines. Read More
Toronto Real Estate Sales And Price Growth Are Back Above Pre-B-20 Levels Toronto real estate sales are rising quickly, at a time when inventory is scarce. TRREB reported 4,581 sales in January, up 14.27% from last year. Active listings fell to 7,772 in the same month, down 35.03% from last year. Sales are 6.09% higher than the 5-year median volume for the month. Active listings are 33% below the 5-year median volume for the month. Winter months are prone to distortion, so there may be inventory improvements as the year goes on. However, last month was a very tight market – even by historic standards. Read More
Vancouver Real Estate
Vancouver Real Estate Prices Stabilize As Inventory Drops Vancouver real estate prices are seeing losses slow, as inventory makes a sharp drop. REBGV reports the price of a typical home reached $1,008,700 in January, down 1.2% from last year. There were 8,617 active listings in the month, down 20.3% from a year before. Inventory was 13.7% lower than the 10-year average for January, which helps explain why prices are starting to firm up. The 12-month rate of decline was the smallest since November 2018. Read More
Like this post? Like us on Facebook for the next one in your feed.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
