Canadian Real Estate slumpswith rise in Borrowing Rates

Canadian real estate sales made a huge drop in dollar volume. Sales through the MLS racked up to $224.04 billion in 2018, down 17.78% from the year before. Toronto and Vancouver represented a significant portion of that decline, but they weren’t alone. Only 6 Canadian markets with over $1 billion in sales saw a rise in dollar volume last year. Canadians are still exuberant for real estate, but it’s died down considerably. The US Federal Reserve’s exuberance index dropped 32.72% for Canada in Q3 2018, down to its lowest level since Q1 2015. The decline is significant, but still above the “critical threshold.” Canada’s chartered banks are seeing mortgage growth stall. The outstanding balance of mortgages reached $1.25 trillion in Q3 2018, up 4.32% from last year. This was one of the slowest paces of growth years. The typical household borrowing rate made its first climb in a few weeks. The rate of a typical consumer loan climbed 3.99%, up 28.7% from last year. This is the largest annual climb they’ve seen in over 5 years.