CMHC’s Siddall Won’t Seek Another Term One of Canada’s most vocal advocates for stricter mortgage rules has announced he will be stepping down at the end of this year. Evan Siddall, who served as President and CEO of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) since 2014, won’t be seeking another term once his ends, […]

BANK OF CANADA HOLDS OVERNIGHT RATE AS EXPECTED, BUT APPEARS TO BE LESS CONFIDENT IN THE STRENGTH OF THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. Bank of Canada Holds Steady Despite Economic Slowdown In a more dovish statement, the Bank of Canada maintained its target for the overnight rate at 1.75% for the tenth consecutive time. Today’s decision was […]

Canadians’ New Year’s Resolution: Pay Down that Debt It’s that time of year again, when we vow to kick bad habits and set a healthier or more positive course for the new year ahead. Improving our finances usually tops the list, and this year is no exception. For the 10th straight year, the top financial […]

Canadian Home Prices Continued Their Recovery in December: CREA Canadian home prices continued their recovery in December, according to the latest data from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). Benchmark prices are up 3.4% from December 2018 to $643,700 in the 19 markets CREA tracks, while the average home price is up 9.6% year-over-year to […]

WEAK NEW LISTINGS SLOW CANADIAN HOME SALES AS PRICES CONTINUE TO RISE. Sellers Housing Market  Now in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show that national existing-home sales dipped between November and December owing to a dearth of new listings, especially in the GTA. National home […]

Toronto Homebuyer Learns Expensive Lesson About Unconditional Offers An Ontario Court of Appeal delivered an expensive lesson to a GTA homebuyer who made an unconditional offer that was later retracted. Back in 2017, Shahla Sheikhtavi had made an unconditional offer on an East Gwillimbury, Ontario, home for $1,871,000. Following the introduction of the province’s 15% […]

SIGH OF RELIEF AS DECEMBER JOBS REPORT REBOUNDS Welcome Rebound in Labour Markets in December For this notoriously volatile data series, it is particularly true that ‘one month does not a trend make.’ Following last month’s dismal employment report, job growth rebounded in December, erasing almost half of the earlier decline (even more if you […]

The Latest in Mortgage News: 2020 Forecasts Following a challenging 2018, by most accounts 2019 could be characterized as a “turnaround year” for Canada’s housing market. And 2020 is looking to bring much of the same. That’s according to predictions for the new year by CMHC, the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) and several real […]

Latest in Mortgage News: Mortgage Delinquencies on the Rise The debt burden carried by Canadian consumers continued to rise this year, causing more people to fall behind on their debt payments…including their mortgages. The 90-day-plus delinquency rate for mortgages rose to 0.18% in the third quarter. That’s a 6.7% increase compared to a year earlier, […]

Morneau Ordered to “Review” Stress Test. What Can We Expect? The directive from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Finance Minister Bill Morneau on Friday was short and sweet: “Review and consider recommendations from financial agencies related to making the borrower stress test more dynamic.” What will actually come from this review and the resulting tweaks (if any) […]