News: Vancouver Real Estate Market

The Bank of Canada announced on October 25th it would be holding its key lending rate at 5.0%, the second consecutive hold since two quarter-point increases were made over the summer. Since March of last year, the central bank has imposed an unprecedented number of rate hikes in an effort to reduce pandemic-fueled inflation, taking interest rates from historic lows to a more than two-decade high. While approximately three quarters (74%) of Canadian mortgage holders currently have a fixed-rate agreement...

October 17, 2017 - The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) announced new restrictions on uninsured mortgages today. Effective January 1, 2018, all home-buyers with a down-payment of more than 20 per cent will have to qualify at the higher of the posted 5-year qualifying rate and their contractual rate plus 200 basis points (2 per cent). This is in addition to policy announced in October of 2016 that required all insured borrowers qualify at the posted 5-year qualifying rate....

Many, if not most, first-time buyers will experience a steep decline in housing affordability on October 17. New rules introduced by the Federal Government will cause the sharpest drop in the purchasing power of low Equity home buyers in years. At a time when housing affordability is a critical issue, deliberately chopping millennials’ purchasing power by as much as 20 per cent will only exacerbate a well-known problem.

Under current rules, insured mortgages with variable rates and fixed...

The Federal Government announced significant changes to regulations for new-government backed insured mortgages today. Effective October 17, 2016, all insured homebuyers will have to qualify at the posted 5-year qualifying rate. This is a change from previous policy where only variable rate mortgages and mortgages with terms less than 5-years were subject to a higher qualifying rate.

With this move, the Federal Government has chosen to offset a modest risk to the taxpayer by severely eroding...

New down payment rules will go into effective February 15, 2016.

“The Government’s role in housing is to set and maintain a framework that is equitable, stable and sustainable. The actions taken today prudently address emerging vulnerabilities in certain housing markets, while not overburdening other regions,” Finance Minister Bill Morneau said in a release. “They also rebalance government support for the housing sector to promote long-term stability and balanced economic...