Canadian Housing Starts Fall As Vancouver Slumps, Toronto Still Lags
Canada’s new housing starts slipped in March, with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reporting a 6% decline to 235,852 units on a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis. Despite the overall drop, Montreal’s starts surged 128% and Toronto’s rose 33%, while Vancouver experienced a 23% fall. Urban construction still dominates, delivering 224,006 starts, well above pre‑pandemic levels. The slowdown reflects lagging pre‑construction demand and record‑high unsold inventory in the country’s most expensive markets.
This Week’s Top Stories: Canadian Real Estate Industry Cuts Forecast, Western Canada’s Job Boom
Canada’s real estate sector slashed its growth outlook, projecting only a 1% rise in home sales from 2025 to 2026 after a weak first quarter. Median home prices are expected to remain flat through 2027, with March’s average price of...
Canadian Real Estate Industry Cuts Forecast, Prices To Stagnate 2 More Years
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) dramatically lowered its 2026 outlook, projecting only a 1% rise in existing‑home sales to 474,900 units and a modest 1.5% price increase to $688,955 CAD (about $509,000 USD). The forecast marks a seventh consecutive year of...
Canadian Real Estate Sales Hit 17-Year Low, But Prices Keep Climbing
Canadian home prices climbed for a third straight month, reaching roughly $520,000 USD in March 2024, according to CREA data. At the same time, total sales slipped 2.3% to 38,709 units, marking the weakest March since 2009. New listings fell 4.9%...
Canada’s Soaring Wage Growth Not Reality, It’s A Statistical Quirk: BMO
Canada’s average hourly wage jumped to a headline 4.7% year‑over‑year in March, the strongest rise since October 2024. BMO Capital Markets says the spike is a statistical artifact caused by a rapid shift in the mix of occupations and tenure,...
Canadian Building Permits Plunge, Fewer Homes Planned
Canadian building permits fell sharply in February, with total seasonally adjusted permit values dropping 8.4% to C$12.1 billion (≈US$8.8 billion). Residential permits edged up 1.7% to C$8.1 billion (≈US$5.9 billion) but unit authorizations slipped 0.8% to 24,889, meaning fewer homes. Non‑residential permits plunged 24%...
Canadian Job Market Booms In West, Slumps In East, Gap To Widen: BMO
BMO Capital Markets’ Labour Market Performance Ranking shows Canada’s job market splitting sharply between a booming West and a faltering East. Cities in Alberta and Saskatchewan dominate the top ranks, driven by strong employment growth and rising real GDP, while...
This Week’s Top Stories: Canadians Flock To Variable-Rate Mortgages, Ontario’s Builder Bailout
Canadian banks issued a record $38.3 bn CAD (≈$28 bn USD) in uninsured mortgages in January, driven largely by renewals. Variable‑rate loans now account for 45% of the mortgage market, up sharply from 4.9% two years earlier, as the Bank of Canada’s...
Canadians Face Fewer Layoffs Than Normal, But Good Luck Finding A Job
Canada’s March Labour Force Survey showed a modest 0.1% rise in employment, adding 14.1 k jobs to a total of 21.05 million. The unemployment rate held steady at 6.7%, while the layoff rate stayed at 0.6%, matching pre‑pandemic norms. However, the job‑finding...
Canadian Variable-Rate Mortgages Surge As BoC Recreates Renewal Trap
Canadian lenders advanced a record CAD 38.3 billion (~US$28 billion) in uninsured mortgages in January, a 3.3% year‑over‑year rise. Variable‑rate mortgages surged to roughly 45% of new funding, up sharply from a July 2023 low of 4.9%. The Bank of Canada’s October rate cut...
Ontario’s HST Rebate Is Driving New Home Prices Higher Without Sales
Ontario expanded its Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) rebate, removing the 13% tax on new homes up to CAD $1 million (≈ US $740k) and offering a flat CAD $130,000 (≈ US $96k) credit for units up to CAD $1.5 million. Builders quickly incorporated the rebate into purchase prices, with...
Toronto Real Estate Prices Climb As Inventory Remains Near Highs
Toronto home prices rose 0.3% in March 2024, reaching CAD 941,800 (≈ $697,000 USD), marking a second consecutive monthly gain but a modest one. Year‑over‑year the composite benchmark fell 7.4%, still below last year’s level. Sales climbed 1.7% to 5,039 units, yet the...
Vancouver Real Estate Prices Rise As Inventory Hits 13-Year High
Greater Vancouver home prices nudged up 0.4% in March 2024, reaching $1.104 million CAD (about $817,000 USD), the first monthly gain since early 2023. Despite the price uptick, sales fell 2.8% year‑over‑year to 2,032 units, 31.8% below the ten‑year average for March....
Canadian Regulator Secretly Threatens Banks Over Risky Mortgages Ahead of 2027
Canada’s banking regulator OSFI has moved from informal concerns to formal legal warnings that major banks may be breaching the Bank Act by using stale, blanket appraisals for pre‑construction mortgages. The watchdog cites rising default risk as new‑home prices are...
The BoC Rate Hold: Brought to You By the Letter ‘U’ for Uncertain
The Bank of Canada left its overnight rate unchanged at 2.25%, citing headline inflation of 1.8% and a softening core CPI. Governor Tiff Macklem repeatedly emphasized uncertainty, flagging dual‑shock risks from higher oil prices and the Iran conflict alongside volatile...