The Canadian Housing Market Strengthens Further Home sales activity recorded over Canadian MLS® Systems rose again in November, building on October’s surprise jump. Sales were up 2.8% m/m in November compared to October and now stand a cumulative 18.4% above where they were in May, just before the first interest rate cut in early June. Actual (not seasonally adjusted) monthly activity was 26% above November 2023. The November increase was driven by gains in Greater Vancouver, Calgary, Greater Toronto, and Montreal and double-digit sales increases in smaller cities in Alberta and Ontario. According to Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s Senior Economist, “Not only were sales up again but with market conditions now starting to tighten up, November also saw prices move materially higher at the national level for the first time in almost a year and a half. Normally, we might expect this market rebound to take a pause before resuming in the spring; however, the Bank of Canada’s latest 50-basis point cut together with a loosening of mortgage rules could mean a more active winter market than normal.” New Listings New listings edged down 0.5% month-over-month in November, building on a larger 3% decline in October. With sales also rising in November, the national sales-to-new listings ratio tightened to 59.2%, up from 57.3% in October. Between April and September this year, the measure had been in the 52% to 53% range. The long-term average for the national sales-to-new listings ratio is 55%, with a sales-to-new listings ratio between 45% and 65%, generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions. “October and November marked the start of the long-awaited rebound in resale housing activity, with the combination of lower borrowing costs and more properties to choose from coaxing buyers off the sidelines,” said James Mabey, CREA Chair. A little more than 160,000 properties were listed for sale on all Canadian MLS® Systems at the end of November 2024, up 8.9% from a year earlier but still below the long-term average for that time of the year of around 178,000 listings. There were 3.7 months of inventory nationally at the end of November 2024, down from 3.8 months at the end of October and the lowest level in 14 months. The long-term average is 5.1 months of inventory, with a seller’s market below about 3.6 months and a buyer’s market above 6.5 months. Home Prices The non-seasonally adjusted National Composite MLS® HPI stood 1.2% below November 2023, the smallest decline since last April. The non-seasonally adjusted national average home price was $694,411 in November 2024, up 7.4% from November 2023. Bottom Line The Bank of Canada’s aggressive rate-cutting and regulatory changes that make housing somewhat more affordable have provided kindling for the Canadian housing market. While the conflagration isn’t likely to peak until spring, a seasonally strong period for housing, activity has already started to pick up. The November uptick in home prices could provide more impetus for potential buyers to move off the sidelines. The new housing initiatives go into effect today and tomorrow. Debt-to-income ratios for Canadian households have improved as growth in disposable incomes continues to outpace borrowing. This bodes well for more robust residential real estate activity as the Bank of Canada continues to cut rates, albeit at a slower pace. We expect quarter-point rate cuts until the overnight rate, now at 3.25%, falls to 2.5% or even lower if US tariffs are introduced. Dr. Sherry Cooper Chief Economist, Dominion Lending Centres

https://dominionlending.ca/economic-insights/canadian-home-sales-rose-again-in-november-as-new-listings-declined-and-prices-rose

The Bank of Canada cut the overnight policy rate for the fourth time this year, but this time by a whopping 50 bps. View this email in your browser Bank of Canada Cuts Policy Rate By 50 BPs After three consecutive 25 bp rate cuts, the BoC slashed the overnight rate by 50 bps this morning, bringing the policy rate down to 3.75%. The market had priced in 90% odds of a 50 bp move, where consensus coalesced. The combined slower-than-expected GDP growth and back-to-back weak inflation reports solidified the calls for a more significant move. The output gap continues to widen, countering the BoC’s forecast in July, pointing to an even more subdued inflation forecast. A 50 bp cut helps to offset that forecast miss by improving growth prospects faster. Even at 3.75%, monetary policy remains restrictive, as the chart shows below. The overnight rate is 145 bps above the September core inflation measure, and headline inflation moved below the 2% target. We expect the policy rate to fall to 2.50% by the spring of next year. This morning’s 50 bp cut reinforces speculation of another 50 bp move in December. However, the Bank will likely need to see continued weak economic data and low inflation to prompt another big move. Wage growth remains stubbornly strong, and there might be some lingering concern about reigniting the housing market, especially with mortgage insurance rules poised to change on December 15. However, the Bank pointed out that lower rates will trigger a rebound in the housing market. According to the Monetary Policy Report (MPR), “Resales and renovations are anticipated to recover as interest rates decline. Renovations should also be supported by a projected rise in house prices. Recent changes to government mortgage insurance rules are expected to bolster housing demand. Although population growth should ease, the level of demand is expected to remain robust and support new construction. Lower interest rates may also facilitate some increase in housing supply by easing financing costs. However, constraints on the amount of land available for new homes, zoning restrictions and a lack of skilled labour are expected to limit the pace of construction, particularly over the near term. As a result, growth in housing demand is expected to outpace increases in supply. Unlike other sectors of the economy that are experiencing excess supply, the housing market is projected to remain tight. House prices are expected to rise, but the pace of increases will likely be restrained because some home buyers will face affordability challenges”. Effective tomorrow, the prime rate will fall to 5.95%, lowering floating-rate mortgage rates. According to Mortgage Logic News, the lowest nationally advertised 5-year fixed rate is down 10 bps this week to 4.09%. In its policy statement, the Governing Council reduced its forecast for growth in the second half of this year to 1.75%. Third-quarter GDP growth was revised to 1.5% from 2.8% in the July MPR. Inflation has improved faster than expected, ending the year at 2.1%, with core inflation at 2.3% and falling further in 2025. Bottom Line Today’s action is great news for the Canadian economy and housing activity. Market participants are now expecting home resales to pick up sharply in the first quarter of next year. The coming spring housing season should be robust, boosting sales and prices. Dr. Sherry Cooper Chief Economist, Dominion Lending Centres drsherrycooper@dominionlending.ca Copyright © 2024 Dominion Lending Centres, All rights reserved.

 

 

Bank of Canada Starts Hiking Rates, Signalling More To Come

The Governing Council of the Bank of Canada raised the overnight policy rate target by a quarter percentage point in a widely expected move and signalled that more hikes would be coming. This is the first rate hike since 2018. In a cautious stance, the Bank announced it was continuing the reinvestment phase, keeping its overall Government of Canada bonds holdings on its balance sheet roughly stable.

The Bank’s press release highlighted the major new source of uncertainty provided by the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia and suggested that it is a new source of substantial inflation pressure. Prices for oil, metals, wheat and other grains have skyrocketed recently. Moreover, this geopolitical distention negatively impacts confidence worldwide and adds new supply disruptions that dampen growth. “Financial market volatility has increased. The situation remains fluid, and we are following events closely.

“The Bank commented that economies have emerged from the impact of the Omicron variant more quickly than expected. Demand is robust, particularly in the US.

“Economic growth in Canada was very strong in the fourth quarter of last year at 6.7%. This is stronger than the Bank’s projection and confirms its view that economic slack has been absorbed. Both exports and imports have picked up, consistent with solid global demand. In January, Canada’s labour market recovery suffered a setback due to the Omicron variant, with temporary layoffs in service sectors and elevated employee absenteeism. However, the rebound from Omicron now appears to be well in train: household spending is proving resilient and should strengthen further with the lifting of public health restrictions. Housing market activity is more elevated, adding further pressure to house prices. Overall, first-quarter growth is now looking more solid than previously projected.

“Canadian CPI inflation has risen to 5.1%, as expected in January, well below the 7.5% level posted in the US.” Price increases have become more pervasive, and measures of core inflation have all risen. Poor harvests and higher transportation costs have pushed up food prices. The invasion of Ukraine is putting further upward pressure on prices for both energy and food-related commodities. All told, inflation is now expected to be higher in the near term than projected in January. Persistently elevated inflation increases the risk that longer-run inflation expectations could drift upwards. The Bank will use its monetary policy tools to return inflation to the 2% target and keep inflation expectations well-anchored.

“The final paragraph of the Bank’s press release speaks with great clarity: “The policy rate is the Bank’s primary monetary policy instrument. As the economy continues to expand and inflation pressures remain elevated, the Governing Council expects interest rates will need to rise further. The Governing Council will also be considering when to end the reinvestment phase and allow its holdings of Government of Canada bonds to begin to shrink. The resulting quantitative tightening (QT) would complement the policy interest rate increases. The timing and pace of further increases in the policy rate, and the start of QT, will be guided by the Bank’s ongoing assessment of the economy and its commitment to achieving the 2% inflation target.”

Bottom Line

The Bank of Canada has made a clear statement regarding the outlook for a normalization of interest rates. We expect a series of rate hikes over the next year. Expect another 25 basis point increase following the next meeting on April 13. The increased uncertainty and volatility arising from the war in Ukraine is front of mind worldwide. Still, it will not deter central banks from tightening monetary policy to forestall an embedded rise in inflation expectations. 

The Bank of Canada has postponed Quantitative Tightening, for now, a prudent move in the face of geopolitical uncertainty.

Dr. Sherry Cooper
Chief Economist, Dominion Lending Centres
drsherrycooper@dominionlending.ca

Housing affordability remains a huge political issue, and with the Department of Finance working on the upcoming budget, no doubt measures to reduce home prices will be front and center. With an election coming this spring in Ontario, Premier Ford’s Housing Affordability Task Force has made recommendations to step up homebuilding. Still, Ontario’s mayors are balking at some of their proposals. The task force report from the calls for “binding provincial action” to allow buildings up to four storeys tall and up to four units on a residential lot.

Ontario’s Big City Mayors group responded, saying, “unilateral actions, absent municipal input, may have unintended consequences that slow down development and reduce the community support needed to continue to sustainably add housing”.

“While overcoming Not In My Back Yard-ism is essential to success, so is respect for local decision-making and the democratic process”.  This is a roadblock to the aggressive and timely response.

We desperately need dramatic increases in new housing construction, which has been woefully constrained by local zoning, red tape and city planning issues. These are not under the auspices of the federal government. So instead, bandaid measures that do not directly address the fundamental issue of a housing shortage will likely be forthcoming in the spring federal budget.

Today the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) released statistics for January 2022 showing national existing-home sales rose edged higher on a month-over-month basis, constrained by limited supply. Excess demand pushed home prices up on the month by a record 2.9%, taking the year-over-year home price index up a record 28%.

Cliff Stevenson, Chair of CREA said, “The question is will that supply be overwhelmed by demand as it was last spring, or will we start to see the re-emergence of some of the many would-be sellers who have been hunkered down for the last two years?

“The ideal situation between now and the summer would be that a huge surge of sellers come forward looking to sell in the spring 2022 market,” said Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s Senior Economist. “If that were to occur, similar to 2021, we’d likely see a massive number of sales take place which would get a lot of frustrated buyers into homeownership, and we’d likely see some cooling off on the price growth side if those offers are spread across more listings. Those are all things this market needs. It really comes down to how many properties come up for sale in the months ahead”.

New Listings

In January, the number of newly listed homes dropped by a whopping 11% m/m, with a pullback in the GTA accounting for more than half of the national decline (chart 1 below).

With sales up a bit and new listings down by double-digits in January, the sales-to-new listings ratio shot to 89.4% compared to 78.7% in December (chart 2 below). This was the second-highest level on record for this measure, only slightly below the record 90.2% set last January. The long-term average for the national sales-to-new listings ratio is 55%.

A record 85% of local markets were seller’s markets based on the sales-to-new listings ratio is more than one standard deviation above its long-term mean in January 2022. The other 15% of local markets were in balanced market territory.

There were only1.6 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of January 2022 — tied with December 2021 for the lowest level ever recorded. The long-term average for this measure is a little over five months.

Home Prices

In line with the tightest market conditions ever recorded, the Aggregate Composite MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) was up a record 2.9% on a month-over-month basis in January 2022. The gains were similar to those recorded in the previous three months.

The non-seasonally adjusted Aggregate Composite MLS® HPI was up by a record 28% on a year-over-year basis in January.

Looking around the country, year-over-year price growth is in line with the national figure at 28% in B.C., though it remains lower in Vancouver, close to on par with the provincial number in Victoria, and higher in most other parts of the province.

Year-over-year price gains are still in the mid-to-high single digits in Alberta and Saskatchewan, while gains are running at about 13% in Manitoba.

Ontario saw year-over-year price growth remain above 30% in January, with the GTA having now caught up with the pace of provincial gains. The rest of the province is a mixed bag, up in between 25% and 40% on a year-over-year basis, save for Ottawa where prices are running at 16% year-over-year.

Greater Montreal’s year-over-year price growth remains at a little over 20%, while Quebec City was about half that.

Price growth is running above 30% in New Brunswick (higher in Greater Moncton, lower in Fredericton and Saint John), 27% on Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador is now at 12% year-over-year

Bottom Line

While most developed countries have seen excess demand for housing over the past two years pushing home prices higher, Canada has the most significant housing shortage in the G7. This began in late 2015 when the federal government decided it would target the entry of much larger numbers of economic immigrants. Canada is “underpopulated” and celebrates a growing population, unlike many other countries. There are many job vacancies to be filled, and more people means more economic growth and prosperity for Canada.

But what the federal government forgot to do was provide housing for all new residents. Simply put, governments at all levels established no plan to provide any additional housing for all of these newcomers, let alone affordable housing.  Canada’s net migration rate is 6.375 per 1,000 people, the eighth-highest in the world. Approximately 1.8 million more people were calling Canada home in 2021 than five years earlier, with four in five of these having immigrated to Canada since 2016.

This is not rocket science. The government can blame foreign buyers or investors for our housing shortage, but inadequate planning and antiquated processes and policies are the real culprits.