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The Housing Market’s Matching Problem
Economics is largely about creating the right incentive structures. However, housing policy often overlooks this principle, resulting in significant mismatches between households and the available housing stock. This issue is evident in policies around both rental and housing supply. Average rents have been rising, and any efforts to increase supply will take years to have…
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Labour Market Data Support Bank of Canada Rate Decision
Despite adding 27,000 jobs in May, the labour market continued to soften as the unemployment rate rose to 6.2%. Job growth came from part-time employment, which increased by 62,000, while full-time employment was down by 36,000. Most of the new jobs were in the service sector, including retail, accommodation, and food services. However, construction saw…
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Making the Economics of Affordable Housing Pencil Out
For nearly twenty-five years, there has been a significant lack of new purpose-built rental construction. Instead, condos became the primary source of new rental stock. This divergence in construction activity is largely due to differences in how developers finance their projects and the difference in equity requirements between these types of construction. Unlike purpose-built rental…
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Have We Reached a Tipping Point?
In the lead up to the Bank of Canada’s June 6 meeting, market expectations for a rate cut climbed to around 80 per cent. Initially, analysts were uncertain about the prospect of a cut, but the consensus shifted following a weaker-than-expected first-quarter GDP report. The Q1 GDP miss is compounded by a downward revision to…
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What Will End Canada’s Home Affordability Crisis?
The Bank of Canada has not yet declared victory over inflation. While we are likely close to seeing the first rate cut by the central bank, potentially as early as June or July, the market remains in a state of suspended animation, facing numerous challenges: Housing prices, although off their pandemic highs, remain elevated and…
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Repo Market Trading – Nothing to See Here
The Bank of Canada produces a Financial Stability Report to assess the resilience of the domestic financial system and identify risks that could undermine its stability. One item highlighted in the report is the growth of asset managers’ leverage over the past 12 months, primarily driven by an increase in hedge fund repo activity. These…
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Addressing Affordability Challenges – Longer Term Mortgages are not a Panacea
Loan characteristics vary significantly across nations, with differences such as variable rate loans, foreign exchange loans, or interest-only loans. For example, in countries like Poland, variable rate products are predominant, whereas in Belgium and Denmark, most mortgages have fixed-rate periods exceeding ten years. A recent report by Desjardins suggests that we would not have seen…
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