Canada’s banking regulator has published the final changes to its guidelines for residential mortgage underwriting, including a financial stress test for buyers who don’t need mortgage insurance. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions said Tuesday the changes will come into force by Jan. 1, 2018. Even homebuyers who don’t require mortgage insurance because they […]

Another organisation has added its voice to those opposing OSFI proposals to introduce tougher lending restrictions for uninsured mortgages and warns it could harm competition in the mortgage industry. The Fraser Institute says that requiring a stress test with a margin of 2 percentage points above the agreed rate for those homebuyers with at least […]

One of Canada’s largest mortgage lenders says that the Bank of Canada is in no hurry to make another increase in interest rates. CIBC said Thursday that it is holding firm on its prediction that Governor Stephen Poloz will not make another increase until spring 2018 despite some strong economic indicators. The bank’s Capital Markets division says […]

Last year’s mortgage rule changes placed roadblocks in front of millions of would-be buyers, but increased rates and future regulatory action may prove even more difficult for them to overcome. That’s according to one leading economist, who argues the latest rate increases and the addition of another round of mortgage rules represent major hurdles in […]

Equifax, one of the three main credit reporting companies, said this week that a major data breach exposed Social Security numbers and other important information of millions of people. The breach affected about 143 million in the United States, as well as some people in Canada and the United Kingdom, but Equifax didn’t provide a […]

The Bank of Canada forged ahead with another interest rate hike in a nod to the country’s surging economy, while signaling its appetite for further tightening may be curbed by a rising Canadian dollar and sluggish inflation. Policy makers raised their benchmark rate for a second time since July, by 25 basis points to 1 […]

The Bank of Canada is expected to increase interest rates this week according to CIBC economist Avery Shenfeld. “After [last week’s] blowout GDP figures, we now see little reason for the BoC to wait before hiking interest rates again,” Shenfeld wrote in a client note, adding that it is a close call due to the […]

The most recent mortgage rule changes have had a much smaller impact on the market than previous policy changes and there’s a simple explanation for that, according to a new report. There has been an unprecedented number of housing policy changes over the past year-and-a-half, according to TD Bank, and each has been aimed at […]

Further increases in mortgage regulations could see a significant cut in housing demand according to a new report from TD Bank. In its regional housing outlook published Monday, TD chief economist Beata Caranci and economist Diana Petramala say that despite “unprecedented” housing policy changes in the past 18 months, the impact on demand so far from […]

Not everyone agrees that Toronto has been in a housing bubble but BMO’s chief economist is in no doubt. “By any traditional definition, we were in the grips of a full-on bubble earlier this year,” Doug Porter told CBC’s Metro Morning on Friday. He backed that up with stats on house prices rising 40% in around […]