Yesterday was a very busy day as the Finance Minister finally showed his hand and outlined what mortgage regulation changes he is implementing in his efforts to try and cool down the housing market, after months of speculation.

However, it seems that these changes won’t have a huge impact on the mortgage market. Flaherty and Bank of Canada Governor, Mark Carney, were both concerned about the increasing personal debt levels of Canadians, and with the additional pressure of the big bank’s top brass going to Flaherty and saying they were concerned that the housing market is getting out [...] Continue Reading…

The mortgage market is changing.

After much talk since mid-December about possible mortgage rule changes, the Finance Minister finally announced the changes at a press conference. He re-iterated that the housing market is healthy and stable with 2/3 of Canadians owning their own home. The housing market has been performing very well providing Canada with a competitive advantage over other countries, and helping our economic recovery, driven by a stable banking system, low interest rates, and a growing population.

The Government wants to encourage ownership, assist first time home buyers, and they believe that previous regulatory changes helped avoid a [...] Continue Reading…

Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, has announced he’s having a press conference this morning @ 8am. And there were rumours flying around yesterday that he would announce some changes to the mortgage regulations to try and cool down the housing sector. Although its believed he won’t look at changing the amortization period or down payment rules he mentioned before Christmas.

More to come….

Former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge spoke out this week saying that as the reality is house prices are more likely to go down rather than up in the next few years that the Finance Minister and Bank of Canada need to consider intervening to avoid a housing bubble. He didn’t comment on whether we are in a housing bubble at the moment saying that you don’t know you’re in a bubble until it bursts, but believes house prices are strong enough that Ottawa should take action.

“Whether there’s a bubble or not you can only see [...] Continue Reading…

In the last Monetary Policy Committee meeting the Bank of Canada re-iterated their commitment to keep the target for the overnight rate which influences variable mortgage rates, at its current 0.25% until at least July 2010. As a result, that would make you think that variable mortgage rates would stay constant and there would be only way for them to go – up.

Well, think again. Variable rates from the big banks were hovering around Prime, 2.25%, for the past few months, then we saw RBC & TD drop their 5 variable closed rates to Prime – 0.10%, [...] Continue Reading…

Stephen Jarislowsky, one of Canada’s best known investors, believes that the government’s recent talk of possible tighter restrictions on mortgage regulations has put the housing sector in a bubble – exactly what they were trying to avoid.

Mr. Jarislowsky told Bloomberg News that “I am convinced there is a housing bubble in Canada….prices in Canada are far more expensive than they should be. They (the government) have basically encouraged people to buy houses based on cheap mortgages.”

There was a study recently released outlining the seriously most unaffordable housing markets out of Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and elsewhere. [...] Continue Reading…

The head of ING DIRECT, Canada’s 6 largest mortgage lender, has said he hopes that the Finance Minister doesn’t change the mortgage rules as there is too large a threat they could not only slow down, but kill the housing market.

In the Globe and Mail today he said, “High level, one-stroke fixes are too simple, and can have a very large impact, I worry about government-based tightening of the mortgage rules creating a much worse reaction – too fast of a cooling, which is not really good for anyone.” This comes after Scotiabank acknowledged that house prices are now [...] Continue Reading…

RBC announced it is dropping its variable mortgage rate effective today, February 9, 2010, to Prime – 0.1% or 2.15%. This is a “* special rate” (see below for details) which enables RBC to become the first bank to drop its variable rate below prime and is following the thoughts of our Mortgage Rate Panel Outlook, who believed that larger discounts to prime will be coming back in vogue over the next few months.

Mortgage brokers have been offering variable rates below prime for a few months now with the current 5 year variable on RateSupermarket.ca listed at 1.90% [...] Continue Reading…

There has been a lot of news lately about opening up the Canadian Real Estate market and allowing easier access to list properties on MLS, in addition to accessing more of the detailed information on MLS. Historically, this data has only been available to licensed, registered real estate agents, but today, their stranglehold on this information may have loosened.

The Competition Bureau announced today that it will challenge rules imposed by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) that “limit consumer choice and prevent innovation in the market for residential real estate services”. The Commissioner of Competition has determined [...] Continue Reading…

The Toronto housing market started 2010 off with a bang as house sales increased 87% in January 2010 over last year.

The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) reported reported 4,986 transactions last month, and this was only slightly higher over previous January’s, so 2009 was an unusually slow month.

The average house selling price in the GTA also increased in January 2010 19% from $343,632 to $409,058 over last year.

TREB also believes that annual growth rates for existing home sales and average prices will continue to be strong through Q1 2010 as the comparisons are being made to a weak market [...] Continue Reading…