How much do your neighbours owe on their mortgage?

The Globe and Mail- One of the economic conundrums of the past year has been the great divergence in the Canadian and U.S. housing markets. While American home prices swooned in 2009, the Canadian market only stumbled before resuming its inexorable climb upward. As Barrie McKenna reported in The Globe and Mail recently, there are two schools of thought as to what’s behind this discrepancy. One suggests that Canada, with its fiscally sound banks, simply avoided the bubble. The other, bruited by David Rosenberg—chief strategist at Toronto-based Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc.—is more pessimistic. His assessment: The Canadian housing market is overvalued, in the range of 15% to 35%. In other words, we are dangerously close to bubbledom…

How much do your neighbours owe on their mortgage? - The Globe and Mail

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Mortgage demand drives bonds

Financial Post- They were the biggest issuance in the Canadian marketplace last year. But there were no media headlines or industry buzz. The tried-and-true Canada Mortgage Bonds (CMB) churned out through a trust set up by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. have been so much part of the landscape that their growth goes almost unnoticed.

But grow they did. In 2009, the Canada Housing Trust (CMT ) issued $47-billion worth of bonds. When the product was first launched in 2001 its first offering was for $2.1-billion. CIBC were the top book-runners for these bonds — selling $6.4-billion. They were followed by TD Securities, RBC Capital Markets and BMO Capital Markets…

Mortgage demand drives bonds

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Resale home prices rise for seventh straight month

Financial Post- Canadian home resale prices rose for a seventh straight month in November on gains in all six major metropolitan markets surveyed, a report released on Wednesday says.

The Teranet-National Bank composite house price index, which measures price changes for repeat sales of single-family homes, showed overall prices were up 0.8% in November from October.

Vancouver led the gains, rising 1.9%, the only market to exceed the national average. Without Vancouver, the composite index would have been up 0.5%, the report said. Toronto and Calgary both recorded gains of 0.6% in November, followed by 0.4% increases in each of Halifax and Ottawa. Montreal posted the smallest rise, up 0.1%…

Resale home prices rise for seventh straight month

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An interest rate hike this summer?

Globe and Mail-Don’t count on it. For the Bank of Canada to raise rates before the middle part of 2011 would be totally inconsistent with its current forecast. Canadian market watchers will get some good news this week.

The predictions for a "blowout" reading on fourth-quarter GDP are already out there and it is likely to be an abnormally strong number. But for anyone who thinks a big number is likely to help lock in a rate hike this summer, I would suggest that is not going to happen. In fact, my view is that the Bank of Canada will not be raising rates until mid-2011 - at the earliest…

An interest rate hike this summer? - The Globe and Mail

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