A power struggle is quietly building at Canada’s largest real estate board. Brokers at the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) received an anonymous letter calling for an inquiry into its management. The letter claims the non-profit board is creating a for-profit entity without member approval. This lit up broker chats, which are rallying support […]
Australian lawmakers are learning how home prices have been inflated by money laundering. The Senate committee investigating the adequacy of anti-money laundering laws continues this week. A piece tabled is a study showing how high-profile individuals with questionable cash should have set off alarms. Instead, they were able to move millions of dollars of unknown […]
BC’s Inquiry Into Money Laundering might be wrapping up, but there’s still a lot of data to trawl through. One data set is from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and cash seized from travelers. Between April 2015 and March 2020, the agency seized well over $100 million in undeclared large cash holdings from travelers. […]
Commercial real estate has been in a bit of a rut and it looks like it’s not going to end as fast as some hope. Commercial real estate giant CBRE released its annual Tech 30 report. The firm’s assessment is these markets are in the middle of a contraction phase and have yet to stabilize. […]
Time for your cheat sheet on this week’s top stories. Canadian Real Estate Canadian Banks Moved $167 Million From Dodgy Sources, And Even Issued Mortgages We look at one exhibit from the Cullen Commission, BC’s Inquiry Into Money Laundering in Canada. Counsel found a family was able to move $132 million from dodgy sources without […]
Canadian real estate has a rock-solid reputation with consumers but institutions are warning each other to be careful. Global credit rating agency Moody’s shared their latest Canadian mortgage market assessment. After stress testing portfolios, the agency warns mortgages are “riskier” for lenders. Big lenders are now more concentrated in BC and Ontario, where home prices […]
Only make $40,000 per year in income, but want to buy some pricey Vancouver real estate? Maybe these folks can tell you how they did it. The situation came up in passing with our interview with investigative journalist Sam Cooper, author of Wilful Blindness, which landed us in the middle of a censorship controversy last […]
Canadian real estate is very overvalued, according to a massive credit rating agency. Moody’s Analytics released its Canadian real estate model this week. The firm’s model shows markets are overvalued by up to 91% across the country. As disastrous as that sounds, the firm isn’t expecting a big housing crash. The baseline model shows low […]
Canadian bond yields are rallying, and that’s bad news for people looking for cheap mortgage debt. The Government of Canada (GoC) 5-Year bond yield surged higher on Wednesday. The yield on this bond influences 5-year fixed mortgage rates, but have yet to be priced in. The last time yields were at this level, mortgage rates […]
Pour one out for Canada’s cheaper-than-cheap flood of easy credit, because it’s on its way out. Today the Bank of Canada (BoC) announced their quantitative ease (QE) program is coming to an end. The program, which floods markets with cheap debt, was used to drive inflation and home sales higher. Now that these issues have […]
