The International Monetary Fund has expressed concern about rising risk in the Canadian housing market.

The IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report says that the risk has grown over the past two years and is near to levels seen during the financial crisis of the last decade.

However, there’s a major difference between then and now; the action taken by Canadian regulators to ensure that the financial system is robust and able to withstand another crisis.

While the B-20 mortgage guidelines – and the stress test in particular – has many critics, the IMF says that tougher mortgage policy and measures such as foreign buyers’ taxes, are the correct ones to protect the financial system from downside risks from the housing market.

Canada up, USA down
While Canada’s housing market has become riskier, the report says that the US risk is lower than it was due to declining levels of household debt and prices more in line with income.

But it says that Canadian markets have become riskier, especially Hamilton, Toronto, and Vancouver.