Month: February 2020

Virus Anxiety and The Canadian Housing Market As though things weren’t volatile enough, a new wave of virus terror is wreaking havoc on global financial markets. The novel conronavirus, COVID-19, continues to spread causing panic in worldwide stock and bond markets for the seventh day. Share prices have plummetted in Asia, Europe, the U.S. and…

Minister Morneau Announces New Benchmark Rate for Qualifying For Insured Mortgages The new qualifying rate will be the mortgage contract rate or a newly created benchmark very close to it plus 200 basis points, in either case. The News Release from the Department of Finance Canada states, “the Government of Canada has introduced measures to…

Home Sales Slip A Bit In January As Supply Tightens Pushing Up Prices Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show that national existing-home sales dipped between December and January owing to a dearth of new listings, especially in the GTA. As the CREA chart below shows, the pace of monthly home…

January Starts 2020 With Strong Canadian Job Growth January follows December in erasing the weak November job numbers providing good news for the Canadian economy. Manufacturing led the way as the jobless rate fell, and wage growth accelerated meaningfully. The robust labour market, coupled with consumer confidence holding firm in January at about historical averages,…

TD lowers Posted Mortgage Rate to 4.99% Market interest rates have fallen sharply since the coronavirus-led investor flight to the safety of government bonds. The 5-year government bond yield–a harbinger of conventional mortgage rates–now stands at 1.34%, down sharply from the 1.60+% range it was trading in before the virus became global news (see chart…