February 15th, 2022 Mortgage Industry Update
The Bank of Canada announced on January 26th that its overnight lending rate will remain at 0.25%. The prime rate remains 2.45%. The Bank of Canada suggests that they will more than likely raise interest rates sometime this year to tackle higher than anticipated inflation rates.
Additionally this week:
– RBC Economics: Preliminary data from local real estate boards indicated that Toronto’s composite benchmark price ($1.26 million) has pulled ahead of Vancouver’s ($1.255 million) in January. This officially makes Toronto Canada’s most expensive housing market.
– Royal LePage: Aggregate price of a home in Kingston increased 38.1% yearly to reach $722,100 in Q4 2021, while median price of single-family detached home went up 44.3% to reach $780,600. These figures claimed top spots among 62 regions, giving it fastest rising prices in Canada.
– TRREB: January home sales dropped 18.2% yearly to 5,636. Still 2nd highest number of sales ever recorded for January. Active listings plunged 44% to the lowest level in more than two decades. TRREB said the average selling price was a record $1,242,793; up 7% monthly, 29% yearly.
– Statistics Canada: The country shed 200,100 jobs in January, ending a seven-month streak of gains. Economists in a Bloomberg survey were expecting a drop of 110,000. The unemployment rate rose to 6.5 per cent, from 6 per cent at the end of last year.
– Avison Young: Office vacancy in the downtown area fell from 7.6% to 7.5% during Q4 2021, which was the market’s first quarterly decline since Q1 2020. Total available space decreased for the third straight quarter, dropping by 11% quarterly to reach 6.1 million square feet.
– TRREB: Total of 5,336 condo units were sold in the City of Toronto proper between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 of 2021 for an average price of $739,683. The average price during this same period of time in 2020 was around $645,000. Represents an average value increase of nearly $100,000.
Stay tuned for the next update!
For any questions and concerns please do not hesitate to call Harpreet Singh The Mortgage King at (416) 795-1919.
