TIGHTER MORTGAGE RULES TO COOL DEBT GROWTH, BUT HIGHER RATES ULTIMATELY REQUIRED
• The Department of Finance recently implemented tighter mortgage insurance rules to help take some of steam out of the Canadian housing market and to curb households from taking on too much debt during a continued low interest rate environment.
• Analysis shows that past regulatory tightening led to a significant permanent drop in housing demand. However, while home prices took an immediate hit following the rule changes, they bounced back within two to three quarters and continued to grow faster than underlying economic fundamentals. The dampening effect on household credit growth was more notable and sustained.
• The changes implemented on July 9th may have more of a bite as they will hit a larger segment of the housing market and lead to a larger deterioration in affordability than past rule changes, particularly for first time homebuyers. Overall we expect the new rules to shave 5 percentage points off sales and 3 percentage points off prices over the rest of 2012 and early 2013 and reduce about 1 percentage point off credit growth.
• However, new guidelines will only go part of the way in unwinding the imbalances developed in the Canadian housing market. As long as interest rates remain at their current low levels, households still have a strong incentive to borrow and the overvaluation in the housing market will persist. Ultimately, interest rate increases by the Bank of Canada are needed to ensure sustainable growth in the Canadian housing market.
Source : http://www.td.com/document/PDF/economics/special/dp0912_mortgage_rules.pdf
Shortlink for this post: https://wp.me/p1UEHj-6d
