This Week’s Top Stories: Canadian HELOC Debt Slows, and Rising Real Estate Sales May Be Delayed Demand

Time for your cheatsheet on this week’s most important stories.

Canadian Real Estate

Canadian HELOC Debt Reaches Over $303 Billion, But Growth Slows Dramatically
The pace at which Canadians are using their homes as ATMs is slowing quickly. The balance of loans secured by property hit $303.41 billion in August, up 4.27% from last year. This is the fourth consecutive month it slowed, and has been trending lower since April. The 12-month rate of growth is now at the lowest level since July 2018.
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Western Canadian Real Estate Prices Lead Lower, While Ontario Is Booming
Canada’s national price index is back to moving higher, but is being held down by Western Canada. CREA reported the benchmark price of a home reached $628,200 in September, up 1.34% from last year. This is the third month to show growth, wiping out the brief negative run. Weakness in the index is largely due to Vancouver, and Victoria.
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Is Canadian Mortgage Credit Back To Booming, Or Is This Delayed Demand?
New mortgage lending is rising year-over-year, but it may just be delayed demand. New lending reached $45.85 billion in July, up 31.54% from the same month last year. Taken at face value, it seems like a boom in lending appeared out of nowhere. If taken in context however, it may not be all that impressive.

The mortgage industry warned new regulations in late 2017 would delay some demand. That delayed demand is likely catching up, combining delayed with existing demand. When the numbers are smoothed as a moving average, the growth doesn’t appear to be quite as impressive.
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Canadian Real Estate Prices Are Seeing Slow Growth, But It’s Still Growth
The Teranet-National Bank of Canada HPI is showing slow real estate price growth, but it’s still growing. The C11, an aggregate price index of the country’s largest markets, is up 0.66% from last year. It  increased, but was below the September average over the past 21 years. Like CREA’s numbers, most of the weakness came from Western Canadian markets.
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Toronto Real Estate

Toronto Detached Real Estate Prices Rise The Most Since 2017
Toronto detached real estate prices aren’t rising much, but they’re climbing the most in years. TREB reported the benchmark across the greater region hit $946,700 in September, up 3.55% from last year. The City of Toronto benchmark hit $1,135,600, up 2.74% over the same period. The increase is only a little higher than inflation, but still the biggest 12-month increase since 2017.
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  • Ken Wu 4 years ago

    So obvious what happened. Banks tightened lending with the Stress test and higher rates, creating pent up demand, which they released this summer and is going to fizzle out over the end of 2019.
    The Canadian Housing market cannot stand on its own two feet without FB’s, and that’s exactly what will drive the next leg down.
    Only Canadians buying Canadian R/E.

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