3 Canadian Real Estate News Headlines You Shouldn't Miss Today (September 16th 2019)

Hello everyone. How are you?

I provide you with Canada’s news headlines for real estate news for today. 

Foreign buyer vacancy tax unlikely to derail housing rebound, real estate market watchers say

Not even the promise of a new national tax on foreign homeowners may be enough to chill a Canadian housing market that has been showing signs of warming up again.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau triggered an election campaign this week, and his party has already vowed that if re-elected, they will “address the impact of foreign speculation, which drives up housing costs.” To do so, the Liberals say they would implement a one-per-cent speculation and vacancy tax on applicable residential properties owned by “non-resident, non-Canadians.”

The new tax would be in addition to measures the housing market has already been digesting, such as a stress test for uninsured mortgages and foreign-buyer taxes in British Columbia and Ontario. Those measures, along with higher interest rates, helped put a damper on real-estate activity.

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Canadians less indebted as rebounding equity, property prices bolster net wealth

Canadian household debt eased in the three months to August for the third consecutive quarter as higher incomes more than offset increased borrowing because of low-interest rates, according to Statistics Canada. 

Household credit market debt as a proportion of household disposable income fell to 177.1 percent, showing there was $1.77 in credit market debt for every dollar of household disposable income, the government figures stated. 

The ratio is down from a high of 178.3 percent last year. However, the portion of disposable income that households must put towards interest and principal payments for mortgages and other borrowing rose to 14.9 percent, its highest ever, the data showed.

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Canadian Reverse Mortgage Debt Is Up Over 26% From Last Year

Canadian seniors are slowing down on the equity binge, but they’re still tapping quite a bit. Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) filings show reverse mortgage debt reached a new high in June. Canadian reverse mortgage debt is decelerating in growth but is still one of the fastest-growing segments of debt. 

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