Labour Market Bumps Up Against Capacity Constraints Job vacancies abound in many sectors, yet employers have trouble finding workers to fill those jobs and retaining workers with so many options available. As the jobless rate falls to new record lows, net new employment has slowed. This is not dissimilar to the housing market, where supply […]

Affordable Housing Is A Key Theme In Federal Budget 2022 Today’s budget announced a $10 billion package of proposals intended to reduce the cost of housing in Canada (see box below). The fundamental problem is insufficient supply to meet the demands of a rapidly growing population base. Thanks to the federal government’s policy to rapidly increase immigration […]

New Listings Finally Show Some Life Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show that national home sales were up in February 2022 as buyers jumped on the first spring listings. The number of newly listed properties surged a welcome 23.7% from extremely depressed levels, hopefully portending a much-needed increase in supply […]

Canada Reached Full-Employment in February Statistics Canada released the February Labour Force Survey this morning, reporting a much more significant than expected 336,600 net new jobs, with the unemployment rate falling a full percentage point to 5.5%. This is the first time the unemployment rate fell below its pre-Covid level and reinforces the expectation for […]

Was expected and has finally started, great summary by our Chief Economist, Dr Cooper …….       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 […]

Wanted: Home Sellers 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, […]

Great insight from our Chief Economist Dr Cooper!   No Wonder The Bank of Canada Didn’t Hike Interest Rates Last Month Statistics Canada released the January Labour Force Survey this morning, reporting a much more extensive than expected decline in jobs last month. The Omicron shutdowns and restrictions took a much larger toll in Canada […]

Thank you to our partners at First National for the below summary!   Jan 26, 2022 First National Financial LP   This morning in its first scheduled policy decision of 2022, the Bank of Canada left its target overnight benchmark rate unchanged at what it describes as its “lower bound” of 0.25%. As a result, […]

Thank you for the below update First National, one of our preferred / exclusive lenders    Jan 17, 2022 First National Financial LP   Inflation is running at generational highs in this country, and that is a bigger concern for Canadians than higher interest rates. Canada’s headline inflation rate – the Consumer Price Index – […]

Thank you Dr Cooper!   Housing Affordability Erodes Further With Record-Low Supply 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. What we desperately need is dramatic increases in new housing construction, which has […]