As rising home prices continue to outpace income growth, many young Canadians have decided to delay home ownership for another year, according to a poll released Thursday by Royal Bank of Canada.

RBC’s annual home ownership poll found that 55 per cent of respondents aged 18 to 34 said it made sense to delay a home purchase until next year. That’s 10 percentage points more than the national average for all age groups.

Meanwhile, about half of the young people in the survey who had already delved into home ownership said their mortgage was eating up too much income — suggesting their peers may have good reason to wait.

A sharp rebound in housing market activity as Canada emerged from a recession in late 2009 and early 2010 has sent home prices soaring.

The national average home price rose 8.8 per cent year over year to a record $365,192 in February, although it was skewed upward by sales in the red hot Vancouver market where the average home price was $790,380.

Meanwhile, Canada’s job market has taken longer to recover and income levels haven’t grown at the same rate. A Bank of Montreal report released last month found average resale home prices compared with personal incomes are 14 per cent above the long-term trend.

That makes it more difficult to afford a home — as mortgage payments eat into a larger portion of Canadians’ paycheques — especially those of young people who are just settling into careers and tend to have less money saved.

In addition, young people already struggling with student loan payments may be influenced by a steady stream of warnings over the past year about Canadian debt-to-income ratios reaching record highs, suggested Bernice Dunsby, RBC’s director of client acquisition for home equity.

“Canadians are heeding some of the advice around larger debt levels and stretching themselves too thin so they’re actually taking the time to pause and reflect and plan accordingly, especially when it comes to things like their down payment,” Dunsby said.

Some young people watching home prices soar beyond pre-recession levels may be waiting for a widely predicted drop anticipated over the next year or so, said David Madani, Canada economist at Capital Economics.

“We’ve kind of reached a threshold in the sense that affordability is pretty tough,” he said.

“If you’re talking about a potential young home buyer who is living in Toronto or Vancouver or some other big market, it’s really pricey to get into right now, so that’s discouraging for some young home buyers.”

First-time buyers account for a huge portion of all Canadian housing sales, making the demographic influential in determining the health of the country’s housing market.

This year’s survey, conducted by Ipsos Reid in mid-January, came at a cooling off period in the Canadian housing market following a spate of frenzied buying in the early months of last year.

There will be a drop in demand this year after a number of factors last year combined to drive buyers to jump into the market earlier than planned, Dunsby said.

Many first-time buyers rushed into the market in the first half of 2010 while the Bank of Canada’s key interest rate — which influences commercial lending rates — was set at emergency lows of 0.25 per cent because of the recession.

Those changes affect a minority of mortgage holders who opt for variable rate mortgages linked to the commercial banks’ prime rates.

“(However) they may look at interest rates as an indicator of when to jump into the market,” said Dunsby.

Some buyers also wanted to enter the market before the new harmonized sales tax was implemented last July in Ontario and British Columbia, two of the country’s largest real-estate markets.

Although the HST only applied to some services associated with a home purchase, such as lawyers’ fees, some buyers thought it could push closing costs up a lot more.

First-time homebuyers are also most affected by government moves to change mortgage rules that made it more difficult to qualify for a mortgage. Stricter lending rules brought in the spring of 2010 require all homebuyers to qualify for a standard five-year, fixed-rate mortgage.

More recently, new changes enacted last month shortened the maximum amortization period for a mortgage to 30 years from 35, increasing the size of monthly mortgage payments.

Demand for homes began to wane last spring in the face of rising home prices and short-term mortgage rates, along with stricter mortgage rules and the exhaustion of pent-up demand from the recession.

That has put buyers and sellers on a more even footing when they negotiate.

“In a more balanced housing market, it makes sense that younger and first-time homebuyers are waiting to assess all of their options and do their research before buying a home,” Dunsby said.

“It’s also important to get expert advice on what you can afford and leave yourself with a little extra wiggle room in your budget so you don’t become house poor, as home maintenance and lifestyle costs can add up.”

While 43 per cent of younger Canadians told Ipsos Reid they were paying off their mortgage faster than expected, two-thirds, or 66 per cent, said their mortgages were still larger than they would like.

Rising real estate prices, along with having a large enough down payment, were the biggest concerns among young people surveyed.

Still, 43 per cent of the young adults who responded to the survey said they were looking to buy in the next two years, suggesting the housing market will continue to be healthy going forward.

That’s higher than the national average of 29 per cent for all age groups.

In comparison, only 29 per cent of Canadians aged 35 to 54 said they want to buy within two years and only 17 per cent of respondents over 55 were looking.

The survey also revealed that young people have different ideas about how to seek advice on home ownership than those belonging to older generations.

Most young people said they were more inclined to use websites, family or friends for advice while more than 70 per cent of Canadians over 45 said they would rely on a real estate agent.

The survey’s findings are based on responses from an online panel of 2,103 Canadians, conducted Jan. 12 to 17. A survey of this size has a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points 19 times out of 20 http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/More-half-young-adults-capress-3474012092.html?x=0

A leading international think-tank says Canada will lead its peers in the G7 in economic growth during the first half of this year. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development says the outlook for economic growth has brightened for all G7 countries, with the exception of Japan .

But the improvement has been most marked in Canada and to a lesser extent the United States.

“The outlook for growth today looks significantly better than it looked a few months back,” OECD chief economist Pier Carlo Padoan said in a statement.

“Growth perspectives are higher all across the OECD area, and the recovery is becoming self-sustained, which means there will be less need for fiscal or monetary policy support.”

Canada is now expected to grow by 5.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2011, and 3.8 per cent in the current second quarter.

Much of that growth has come from the resources sector in Western Canada and continued strength in the housing market in most parts of the country.

Germany is the next strongest economy, with growth rates of 3.7 and 2.3 per cent in the two quarters.

Overall, the Paris-based organization says the G7 economies excluding Japan are set to grow at an annual rate of about three per cent in the first half of 2011, well above the organization’s previous forecast.

The growth estimates given by the OECD are the middle of a range, meaning the rates could be slightly lower or higher.

The new forecasts exclude Japan because of the uncertainty over the full cost of damage from last month’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.

The Canadian economy began the year with an impressive 0.5 per cent expansion in January that has set the stage for the strongest quarter in a year, according to Statistics Canada.

The performance was in line with market projections, but still was a mild surprise because many economists had worried of a possible payback after December’s equally robust 0.5 per cent gain in gross domestic product.

The strong back-to-back months put the economy on pace to grow by as much as 4.5 per cent in the first three months of the year, analysts have said. That’s two whole points more than the Bank of Canada’s now-dated estimate. At that growth rate, the pace of job creation should be high enough to continue pushing down the national unemployment rate, currently 7.8 per cent.

In the last year, the Canadian economy has created 322,000 jobs and has rebounded nicely from the 2008-2009 recession that battered the country’s manufacturing sector.

In some sectors of the economy, price pressures have been building, raising the prospect of higher interest rates down the road to fight inflationary pressures.

The next scheduled announcement on interest rates from the Bank of Canada is April 12, although the central bank isn’t expected to change its policy rate at that time from the current one per cent. Another announcement is scheduled for May 31, after the federal election.

Most economists believe Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney will leave a hike on the sidelines until July http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/Canada-middle-growth-spurt-capress-340380811.html?x=0

Concerns over rising oil and food prices and persistent strength in the loonie are taking away some of the swagger in Canada’s business community, the Bank of Canada says.

The central bank said Monday its new spring business outlook survey shows firms remain bullish about the future, but less so than three months ago.

Firms have lowered their sights across a range of indicators including more moderate expectations for the pace of sales growth, hiring and investment over the next 12 months.

“Businesses remain positive about the economic outlook, although some forward-looking indicators have eased from the levels recorded in recent surveys,” the bank said.

“Some firms … cited the negative implications of high prices for energy and food on household spending as a factor dampening sales expectations. A number of firms (also) voiced concerns about the impact of the high Canadian dollar and strong foreign competition.”

Overall, the bank said the survey results show the economic recovery in Canada is advancing and more firms — particularly in the Prairies — are operating near capacity.

The optimism tended to be highest among commodity-related industries.

The Bank of Canada uses the findings in its deliberations over interest rate policy, but nothing in the current report suggests governor Mark Carney is primed to hike rates on April 12, the next opportunity, analysts said.

Most economists continue to believe Carney will leave a hike on the sidelines until July.

Bank of Montreal economist Michael Gregory noted that the survey was conducted between Feb. 14 and March 10, after a strong economic advance in January, but before the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan and before Libya exploded into a full-fledged civil war.

“Expectations might have slipped a bit since then,” he said. “However, this does not belie the fact that Canadian firms remain upbeat about their prospects, particularly those in the Prairies or in the commodities sector.”

“The survey results are consistent with Bank of Canada policy tightening over time, but not imminently,” he added. Half the firms surveyed said they expected to add staff in the next year, as opposed to only 13 per cent that intend to downsize. That’s a balance of opinion in favour of additional hiring of 37 percentage points, slightly lower than three months ago.

By a balance of opinion of 13 percentage points, more firms than not said they expected their sales volume to increase at a greater rate in the next year.

As well, more firms than not expect to invest more in machinery and equipment than they did a year ago, by a factor of 24 percentage points.

The firms cited concerns that input costs are rising, although they are less confident they will be able to pass on those higher costs to customers, partly because of strong foreign competition.

Firms said inflation is increasing, driven by higher food and energy prices, but a majority still expect prices to remain within the central bank’s control range of between one and three per cent over the next two years.

In a separate survey, Canadian senior loan officers report that credit conditions continue to ease for firms on both price and non-price aspects. http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/Canadian-firms-still-bullish-capress-680547394.html?x=0

Several of Canada’s big banks are raising most of their fixed-term mortgage rates ahead of the busy spring real estate market.

TD Canada Trust (TSX:TD) TD said the biggest increases will be for mortgages with terms of five to 10 years, which will all go up by 0.35 percentage points starting Tuesday.

The move was matched by CIBC (TSX:CM).

The Royal Bank (TSX:RY) raised its rates on mortgages for five and 10-year terms by 0.35 percentage points and its seven-year rate by 0.15 percentage points. The posted rate for five-year closed mortgages — one of the most popular types of loans for Canadian home owners — will rise to 5.69 per cent.

Scotiabank (TSX:BNS) raised its posted rate for a five-year closed mortgage by 0.4 percentage points to bring it to 5.69 per cent.

Fixed mortgage rates, which are closely tied to the bond market, tend to climb when traders shift investment activity to riskier equity assets from bonds, which are considered safer.http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/Canada-big-banks-raising-capress-671069751.html?x=0 

When Sean Fitzgibbons needed a short-term loan last year to cover his daughter’s first year of university, his wife’s master’s degree and a bathroom renovation, the real estate industry veteran knew exactly what to do.

Mr. Fitzgibbons took out a bank-structured home equity line of credit, or HELOC, a form of financing that’s zoomed in popularity in the last decade.

“We wanted to protect ourselves, to make sure we had good cash flow, and we knew based on experience that an option would be to dip into equity in our home,” says Mr. Fitzgibbons, a former real estate agent who runs the Toronto office of Multivista Construction Documentation Inc., which photographs home renovation and commercial construction sites.

But is a HELOC the right option for this borrower, and for thousands of Canadians who have turned it into one of the trendiest instruments of personal finance?

The volume of HELOCs has ballooned by up to 170% in 10 years, nearly double the speed of mortgage debt, according to the Bank of Canada.

Critics say HELOCs, which account for 12% of overall household debt, make it easier for Canadians to borrow too heavily against their homes. They’re non-amortizing, so borrowers can opt to pay interest on whatever is drawn down, not the principal, which arguably imposes less discipline than a mortgage with fixed repayment terms for interest and principal.

And since a HELOC is almost always a variable interest rate product pegged to the Bank of Canada’s prime, if interest rates rise too quickly, a borrower might not be able to keep pace.

The government recently tightened mortgage rules: changes that took effect March 18 allow borrowers to secure up to 85% of their home’s assessed value through a refinancing, down from 90% previously (HELOCs are only available to a maximum of 80% loanto-value). Loans may be made on a 30-year amortization -or repayment -schedule, instead of 35 years. And effective April 18, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation will no longer offer mortgage insurance for non-amortizing loans such as HELOCs.

But the mortgage industry says HELOCs aren’t proven to be the culprit behind rising consumer debt. And if used judiciously, they’re a low-cost financing option for Canadians who might otherwise rack up expensive credit card debt to cover urgent needs.

“The biggest downside is definitely the temptation to use the money because it’s there,” says Marcel Ghazouli, a mortgage broker with Premiere Mortgage Centre of Mississauga, Ont. “The advantage is, it’s money there when you need it.”

HELOCs provide revolving credit: once approved, they can be continually repaid, without penalty, and the credit drawn down again and again.

There’s no obligation to re-qualify for assistance, for example, following a sudden drop in the family’s income, since the loan is secured against the home.

Canadians typically play it safe with such financing, says Jim Murphy, president and chief executive of the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals.

A study by his association last fall revealed one in five Canadians withdrew equity from their home in 2010, averaging $46,000 per borrower; of those, 45% used the money to consolidate and repay higher-interest debt, 43% made home improvements, and 19% paid for education.

According to Mr. Murphy, it’s “too early to say” if the federal rule changes will dampen enthusiasm for HELOCs.

“The basic result is you can borrow less on your home than you could have,” he concludes, “but you can still borrow a lot on the value of your home.”

Repaying fully within two to five years should be the goal, Mr. Ghazouli says.

HELOCs are especially useful for funding renovations to improve a home’s resale value – better still, if the home is to be listed for sale soon afterward, and proceeds will be used to pay off the loan, he says.

Taking advantage of the current real estate market in Toronto, Mr. Fitzgibbons was able to maximize the amount of his credit line at historically low interest rates.

Similar to selecting a contractor, he put several mortgage companies through the paces, getting references and ultimately choosing a reputable broker to guide him through the array of HELOC products on offer.

“People will go into a bank and say, ‘I need a line of credit or a credit card,’ the bank will say OK,” Mr. Fitzgibbons says.

“But if you’ve done your homework and know what to ask for, and you have a broker who’s on it every day, you’ll get better advice.” http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Consumers+turning+home+equityloans/4525578/story.html