News, Views and Trends!
Some not-so-great news from the Bank of Canada yesterday: the target rate was raised yet again by 0.25%. This one wasn’t a complete surprise. Rates have been climbing for the last year to battle red hot inflation. Inflation is now at 4.4%, which is huge progress from 8.1% this time last year. But last month’s Consumer Index Report logged an unexpected 0.1% jump in inflation from the previous month.
Continue reading “The Bank of Canada Does It Again”
Some weird stuff is happening in the world of real estate. As you likely know, the Bank of Canada has steadily raised interest rates over the past year in hopes of cooling inflation. This was also supposed to cool the housing market. Conventional wisdom dictates that higher rates would result in more mortgage defaults, more housing supply, and lower home prices. Oddly enough, none of that is happening.
Continue reading “Home Prices Heat Up Despite High Interest Rates”
There’s one reason and one reason only that rates have skyrocketed by 4.25% in less than 10 months: inflation. The Bank of Canada has made it their mandate to bring inflation down to 2% – a far cry from the peak at 5.9%. Their plan is to jack up rates so that people will have less disposable income. The idea is that less disposable income will lead to less personal spending. Less personal spending will lead to lower demand for goods. Lower demand for goods will eventually lead to lower prices on those goods.
Essentially, for this plan to work, Canadians need to spend less money. It’s as simple as that. So why in the world does the Prime Minister keep giving Canadians more money to spend?
Continue reading “Free Money Will Cost Canadians”
I started CanadaMortgageNews.ca in 2009 with one goal: to dispel misinformation. A lot of mortgage “experts” were coming onto the scene at the time with outrageous claims and getting quoted by media outlets. They were all great writers, no doubt. The problem was a lot of what they were saying just wasn’t adding up.
Continue reading “Some Things Never Change: What We Can Learn From the Past”
The last few months have been tough to say the least. Variable rates are at their highest levels in 20 years. The prime rate has gone up 4.25% in less than 12 months. Every Bank of Canada announcement feels like it could be another 50 point jump. If you’re a homeowner, it’s seemingly never ending. The news certainly doesn’t help you feel otherwise. But if you take a look at what’s happened in the past, you’ll see that the time we’re in isn’t so unprecedented. We’ve been here before and we’ve gotten out of it – and I believe we’re doing it all over again.
Continue reading “Is This the End of Rate Hikes?”
CanadaMortgageNews.ca 