Canada’s housing market is a bubble about to burst in some cities, or in the midst of a soft landing. Either way, a crucial piece of information on just what’s driving the market is missing in action.

Unlike in other countries such as the United States and Australia, neither the Canadian federal government nor industry keeps track of the numbers of foreign buyers or where they come from. Anecdotal evidence about foreign buyers abounds, yet hard evidence is lacking.

It’s a crucial bit of missing information. Understanding what’s sparking demand in real estate can offer insights into the health of the market and what’s driving prices, and to better predict cycles – by knowing, for example, how a slowdown in China’s economy might affect local markets.

It can also help politicians make wiser decisions about the sector, such as whether restrictions may be needed if speculation becomes too high.

“It’s very hard to have a policy debate about what we should do when we don’t really know what’s going on,” said Tsur Somerville, director of the University of British Columbia’s centre for urban economics and real estate.

On a quiet leafy street north of Toronto, Mr. Zhang – who asked that his full name not be used – taps the walls and inspects the furnace of a $2.68-million home.

He’s got five days in the city to make his decision. This five-bedroom house, with Jatoba cherry wood floors and a home theatre, is a little over his $2-million budget, but he’ll see half a dozen others this week before making a selection.

He’s looking to buy because his 15-year-old daughter will be attending private school in Canada later this year. The owner of a steel business in Beijing has applied to immigrate to Canada, and figures he may as well purchase a home now.

“Canada is a beautiful country. It is good for living, for higher education and it is not that populated,” said Mr. Zhang, who ultimately bought a $2.2-million home in Oakville, Ont.

Rumours are rife about foreign buyers. In Toronto, Russian and Iranian buyers, flush with cash, are snapping up condos. In Vancouver, Chinese investors are buying luxury apartments. In the Maritimes, wealthy Americans and Europeans are acquiring coastal vacation property.

Estimates of the level of foreign buying are all over the map. In the Toronto and Vancouver markets, they can range from 3 per cent to – in some pockets of the condo market – upward of 60 per cent.

Debate percolated last year about whether Canada should place restrictions or slap fees on non-residents who buy property in the country. But “we definitely had policy recommendations in advance of knowledge,” Mr. Somerville said.

Published stats would help analyze ebbs and flows of demand, occupied units versus vacant ones, and the dynamics of over-supply – how foreigners factor in to the equation of household formation to new construction.

Shifts in the housing market can have huge spillover effects on the broader economy, on everything from retail sales to employment and the building of new shopping malls.

And yet, “we’re missing quite a meaningful part of housing activity in this country,” said Sherry Cooper, chief economist at Bank of Montreal.

Canada’s housing market has boomed since the recession, until lately. Without knowledge of the source of buying, Ms. Cooper said, “we have difficulty assessing just how sticky this money is, how vulnerable we might be to international capital flow changes, or what are the fundamentals that determine what has been extraordinary building and buying in our major cities.”

Canadians, meanwhile, are flocking to the U.S. market, snapping up holiday homes in the sun. They are now, by far, the biggest bunch of foreign buyers of American real estate.

Just how do we know this? Each year, the National Association of Realtors publishes a study on international buying activity in the U.S. It shows who the biggest buyers are, the fastest-growing nationalities of buyers (Canada, China), where they’re buying (Florida, California), why (bargain vacation homes!) and how levels of foreign buying change from year to year.

The industry has collected this info for more than five years, gleaned from questionnaires and followup emails to 50,000 real-estate agents. It’s valuable information for the public, government officials – and the industry itself, helping realtors better understand their markets, says Jed Smith, the association’s Washington-based economist.

Australia, for its part, tightened its rules in 2010 to ensure that investment in its market by foreign non-residents “doesn’t place pressure on housing availability for Australians.”

In London, U.K. property broker Savills asks its clients about their nationality and why they’re buying. Its latest report shows foreigners now comprise a third of buyers of prime residential properties, up from a quarter in 2007. It also found the biggest buyers are Western Europeans.

It’s a contrast to Canada. CMHC does not monitor or compile data on foreign investors. Its mortgage loan insurance isn’t available for foreign buyers, meaning someone outside the country would need a down payment of at least 20 per cent, and have to get conventional financing . The Canadian Bankers Association doesn’t keep data on this. Nor does the Canadian Real Estate Association. The Bank of Canada doesn’t track it, though Governor Mark Carney has noted that heavy investor demand – much of it foreign – “reinforces the possibility of an overshoot in the condo market in some major cities.”

He has implied that the bank could compile data if it chose to. “We have, through partners, access to all mortgage insurance transactions and all real estate, effectively all real estate transactions, the residency of those transactions, and we can do deeper drills in various areas, if we wish, to establish that.”

As for the federal government, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told The Globe and Mail last April that it doesn’t have a good handle on the amount of foreign money in the country’s housing market. “It’s mainly anecdotal, so I don’t have a statistical grasp of it, no,” he said, adding that he hears about lots of people in emerging economies paying cash for condos in Toronto and Vancouver .

Monitoring foreign buying in Canada poses challenges. Some buyers purchase homes through local family or a lawyer’s office, so on paper they appear to be living in the country. Plus there may be privacy concerns around asking buyers where they come from or why they’re buying.

Still, Lawrence Kobescak, mortgage agent at Ontario Mortgage Superstore.com, is among many who’d like more clarity on the trends. “Without a clear picture of foreign ownership in the residential market in Canada, we cannot predict the impact shifting foreign investor sentiment may have on the Canadian housing market,” he said.

For example, it’s tough to gauge whether Canada’s hot market since 2008 partly stemmed from a flight to security by foreign investors. Conversely, a global recovery could spur interest rate hikes, put the squeeze among foreign investors’ returns and cause them to retrench. “Without accurate statistics of foreign ownership of residential properties in 2008 and in 2012, we would only be guessing.”

International interest in Canadian property is unlikely to abate any time soon. Volatile stock markets and Canada’s reputation for economic stability are luring investors. So are housing prices that are still lower than other major global centres. And, unlike many countries such as Australia and Switzerland, foreigners face no restrictions on home buying.

Interest in Canadian residential real estate among foreign buyers has been steady in recent years, with particular interest from Asia, says Luis Lopez, head of business development, credit, international private banking for RBC Wealth Management. “The investment dollars are coming here and we are seeing them stay here, it is not for the short term,” he said. adding that “much remains to be seen” on how China’s slowdown will affect real-estate markets in Vancouver and Toronto .

There’s also more wealth sloshing around, looking for a safe place to park. Globally, 175,000 people crossed the millionaire threshold last year, led by growth in emerging markets like China and India, according to Boston Consulting. In China alone, the number of millionaires hit 1.4-million in 2011 from 1.2-million the year before, and that number will keep growing “strongly” in the coming years, it said. Investors from mainland China tend to see Canada as one of the top destinations for real-estate investment, according to real estate services provider Colliers International.

“Most Mainland Chinese investors buy properties in Canada because their children study there,” said Derek Lai, director of international properties, last year. “Now we also witness an emerging trend of younger buyers, such as Chinese students, purchasing bigger apartments or luxury properties.”

Foreign appetite for Canadian homes will persist, says Michael Adelson, Toronto-based sales rep for ReMax Realtron, who recently represented a seller that sold their bungalow for $421,800 over asking to a foreign buyer.

He has worked in the industry for 25 years, and seen interest from Hong Kong, Korea and Iran flourish. As someone in the industry, he’s happy to see such strong demand. As a citizen, he’s worried some local people might be getting priced out of the market.

“People have recognized this is a relatively cheap country to buy,” he says. “I think it will continue unless they put some controls in place.”

Tony Ma agrees. The agent in Markham, Ont., has hosted several groups of visiting Chinese buyers in recent months alone. They typically buy a house for $1-million or $2-million, either to live or as an offshore investment. Canada’s multicultural communities, affordability and democratic system will continue to lure buyers, he says. “I don’t see this market cooling any time soon.”

 The way Jim Flaherty sees it, his July changes to Canada’s mortgage rules are having the desired effect on the housing market.

 Housing cools

Canada’s housing market continues to cool markedly, with sales plunging 17.4 per cent in December from a year earlier. Prices, however, still held up, with a gain of 1.6 per cent from December, 2011.

On a month-over-month basis, sales were little changed from November, the Canadian Real Estate Association said today. New listings slipped 1.3 per cent from November as home sellers pulled back.

The MLS Home Price Index, which factors out changes in the types of properties sold, rose 3.3 per cent from a year earlier, marking the slowest growth since April, 2011, The Globe and Mail’s Tara Perkins reports.

For 2012 as a whole, sales of 452,372 slipped 1.1 per cent from a year earlier, and were 1.4 per cent below a 10-year average to 2011.

Sales in December fell in four of every five housing markets measured, the real estate group said, with Calgary the standout exception.

Canada’s housing market can best be plotted on two timelines: pre-Flaherty and post-Flaherty. And for many, the post-Flaherty era is a good thing.

Sales have slipped since Canada’s Finance Minister Jim Flaherty brought in new mortgage restrictions in July in an attempt to engineer the slowdown we’re now seeing, and most observers expect a soft landing, not a crash.

“National sales activity continues to hold fairly steady at lower levels since mortgage rules were changed earlier in 2012, but there are still some real differences in trends between and within local housing markets,” said CREA president Wayne Moen.

The Toronto area saw the biggest drop in New listings, the group said, but they also slumped in fully half of all markets, including, and as expected, the Vancouver area, the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island.

Vancouver, in particular, has taken it on the chin, and observers believe it is the one market to have gone beyond a soft landing.

“The decline in new supply may reflect purchase offers below asking price that are made to sellers who are under no pressure to sell. Instead they choose to take their homes off the market once their listing expires,” said CREA’s chief economist, Gregory Klump. “In the absence of economic stresses like a spike in interest rates or a sharp drop in employment, this dynamic can be expected to keep the housing market in balance.“

Home sales are expected to continue at a lower level, as is construction of new homes.

The average price in Canada still climbed to $352,800 in December. If you take out Vancouver and Toronto, CREA said, the national average would be 3.3 per cent.

“Canada’s housing market is clearly in correction mode as we had been warning would occur well before the figures began to roll over,” Derek Holt and Dov Zigler of Bank of Nova Scotia said before the CREA report.

As for inventory, the supply of unsold homes would take almost 7 months to deplete, but that hasn’t changed much since late 2010, said senior economist Sonya Gulati of Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Ms. Gulati expects the market will stabilize now over the next few months, and that the impact of Mr. Flaherty’s changes are now priced in.

“When looking at previous mortgage rule tightening episodes, the housing market impacts have been temporary in nature,” she said. “There is no reason to think that this time will be any different.”

Both the sales-to-listings ratio and the timeline for unsold inventory are within a normal range, she added, though at some point prices will slip.

“When we compare prices to other standard metrics like price-to-income, we still believe that prices have deviated from underlying economic fundamentals. With this in mind, house prices will likely resume their trek downwards once higher interest rates come into effect in the fourth quarter of 2013.”

The Federal govt controls hi-ratio mortgage lending…. (mortgages that are greater than 80% loan to value)…  There is a $600 billion limit for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC… a federal corp).   And a $250 billion limit for Genworth Financial Canada (a private corp).

Last year, the govt reported CMHC was fast approaching it’s $600 billion limit and that it had no intentions of increasing that limit.  Then last month, the federal govt announced they would increase Genworth’s limit to $300 billon.  This gives Canada’s mortgage lenders some breathing room as it now appears as though there is enough room to cover mortgages for a few years…

WHY YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION

This latest move troubles me…  Finance Minister Flaherty has repeatedly said he would like to see CMHC privatized over the next 5 to 10 years.  While I’m all for less govt and more privatization, housing programs have been a huge win both the citizens of Canada and the govt.    CMHC is profitable… they earn billions of dollars each year.   They also make the dream of owning a home a reality for thousands of Canadians each and every year.   Our economy depends on a healthy housing market.

Privatization would mean less competition for mortgage insurers….Less competition ALWAYS means higher cost to the consumer…  We’ve seen and experienced this with the BIG SIX BANKs and their user fees, obscene mortgage penalties and RECORD BANK profits in 2012 (don’t worry, Canadians have begun to catch on to the BIG SIX and are slowly pulling away according to the latest stats)..  We should expect the same if the Feds are allowed to push through the sale or closure of CMHC…

Let’s hope the govt will not do anything as crazy as to privatize a 66-year-old govt corp that has played such an important role in shaping Canada’s landscape….  I can only imagine what would have happened if CMHC was not around in October 2008, when the US sub-prime mortgage crisis hit….  There has been much talk about our strong Banking and Financial sector that saved us from a similar economic collapse…  But would the private insurers still have offered the much-needed mortgage insurance products during those critical first 6 months after the crisis?  Would that infamous stable, Canadian housing market, been able to survive the US shock waves?    Would our economy still be the envy of the world?  Or would we be just as vulnerable and suffer the same fate as so many other countries did….and like so many other countries still do… and struggle to recover.

When the forerunner of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation opened shop in 1946, its job was to help war veterans find housing. From those humble beginnings, CMHC has emerged as a financial market giant. As this baby-boom behemoth contemplates life after 65, it, like many of us, should consider a more modest public role.

By the 1950s, CMHC was in the affordable (public) housing business; Toronto’s Regent Park was one of its first projects. The agency’s social policy portfolio expanded, with assisted housing and assisted home-ownership programs, on-reserve housing, and green energy and conservation programs.

What has also grown is CMHC’s mortgage loan insurance program. Federal law requires successful mortgage applicants to buy mortgage insurance if their down payments are less than a legal minimum (currently 20 per cent of the home purchase value).

This insurance guarantees lenders are repaid in full, even if borrowers default on their mortgages; this, for good or ill, lifts from financial institutions most of the risks associated with mortgage lending. Those risks are big: Through mortgage insurance, CMHC’s gross loan exposure is now scraping its $600-billion legislated limit. Taxpayers are shielded in part by CMHC’s $13-billion equity buffer, but nonetheless are exposed to the liabilities that will follow on an extended housing market downturn.

Now, while high loan-to-value-ratio borrowers must buy mortgage insurance, they need not buy it from CMHC. Smaller, private sector providers supply about 30 per cent of the market. They offer products and prices similar to CMHC’s, and are similarly on the hook when mortgages go bust. There is no direct taxpayer exposure to those bad loans. However, if the insurer itself were to go bust, taxpayers are responsible for 90 per cent of the residual exposure.

The reason for the private sector’s federal backstop is to lower financial institutions’ capital costs. If an insurance provider with a federal backstop insures banks’ mortgage lending, under international agreements and domestic regulation, lenders need to reserve little or no capital against their mortgage books. Insured mortgage lending is almost riskless and costless to lenders.

Many questions flow from this situation. Why does the Crown corporation do all of the things it does? Why aren’t social housing and related social programs part of a division of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, where similar social programs reside? Why aren’t housing market data functions handled and financed by Statistics Canada? Why aren’t green energy programs part of Natural Resources Canada? Why aren’t mortgage bond and securitization programs run by Treasury or Finance?

And that leaves mortgage insurance. This usually is a profitable business – people must buy the product, and to do so at the price CMHC sets. But why does the federal government hustle mortgage insurance, and not auto insurance?

Given such questions, the obvious next step would be to split up CMHC.

Few outside government would notice if Statscan took over housing market data, or if energy-conservation programs migrated to other federal departments. CMHC’s financial market functions are already overseen by Finance and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, which also inspects private insurers. And the Canada Mortgage Bond program could be run by Treasury.

The mortgage insurance program, meanwhile, would be an attractive investment for a well-capitalized domestic financial institution, such as a pension fund (the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan already owns half of one of the private insurers). In private hands, the current insurance book could be grandfathered, and new contracts underwritten by a reconfigured agency called, say, the CMHC.

Again, few would notice the shift; the key difference would be the new layer of taxpayer protection afforded by a 90-per-cent (or lower) guarantee of residual housing market liabilities, rather than the 100-per-cent exposure within the current CMHC. In a market occupied by private competitors, a broader range of portable insurance products and prices seems a likely outcome.

Mortgages and mortgage insurance would still be regulated by federal and provincial rules, exactly as now. Regulation of conduct and oversight with respect to financial stability would still be federal responsibilities. Consumers and most market participants would be unaffected by the change.

CMHC, as it exists, has outlived its mandate.

 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/housing/private-sector-should-take-on-cmhcs-role/article6922279/?service=print

The 12-month change in the Teranet-National Bank House Price Index has decelerated in recent months to 3.4%, led by declines in Vancouver (-1.4%) and Victoria (-1.7%). Some people interpret this weakness as a sign that a housing crash has started – see, for example, the Canadian Business article “Canada’s housing crash begins.” I don’t see a collapse in 2013 for several reasons. One is the highly supportive monetary environment.

In the case of the US housing boom from 2003 to 2007, the overvaluation was pricked after the Federal Reserve dramatically tightened monetary policy to cool off an overheated economy. This catalyst is absent in Canada as 2013 commences.

Indeed, monetary policies in Canada, the US, Japan, China and elsewhere around the world are dialled to the opposite extreme. They are hyper-expansionary, with interest rates at record lows and printing presses running like never before.

This means that Canada and other countries should continue generating growth in jobs and income. Since higher employment and income typically support housing markets, prices are not likely to fall much in 2013. Or if they do, they shouldn’t stay down for long.

Click here for the full Globe and Mail article.

US Congress’ excruciating, extraordinary New Year’s Day approval of a compromise averting a prolonged tumble off the fiscal cliff hands President Barack Obama most of the tax boosts on the rich that he campaigned on. It also prevents House Republicans from facing blame for blocking tax cuts for most American households, though most GOP lawmakers parted ways with Speaker John Boehner and opposed the measure.

Passage also lays the groundwork for future battles between the two sides over federal spending and debt.

Capping a holiday season political spectacle that featured enough high and low notes for a Broadway musical, the GOP-run House voted final approval for the measure by 257-167 late Tuesday. That came after the Democratic-led Senate used a wee-hours 89-8 roll call to assent to the bill, belying the partisan brinkmanship that coloured much of the path to the final deal.

“A central promise of my campaign for president was to change the tax code that was too skewed towards the wealthy at the expense of working middle-class Americans,” Obama said at the White House before flying to Hawaii to resume his holiday break. “Tonight we’ve done that.”

Click here for more from the Globe and Mail.

Canada welcomed Washington’s last-minute deal on the fiscal cliff today, but warned that significant risks remained and urged more action to put the US fiscal situation on a sustainable path.

“Canada welcomes the agreement reached between the (US President Barack Obama) and the Congress that protects the US economy in the short term,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said in a statement.

“That said, there remain a number of significant risks to the US economic outlook. It is my hope that leaders in the United States continue to work together to develop future action that will put the US fiscal position on a sustainable path,” he said.

Click here for full details in the Financial Post.

You’ve probably missed the bottom of the US housing market, but the question for Canadians is whether it’s too late to jump in now.

Maybe it’s the strength of the loonie, the increasing value of their principal residences or the lure of still deeply discounted housing, but Canadians love the United States – especially the Sun Belt – where we remain the #1 foreign buyer of property.

Prices won’t likely go lower, says Beata Caranci, Deputy Chief Economist at TD Canada Trust. But, based on the 5% year-over-year growth that the United States has seen in average property values, they’re not returning to 2006 levels anytime soon either.

“If you were trying to get in at the very bottom, you missed it,” Caranci says. “You are still pretty darn close to skimming the bottom, and the more you wait, you can expect about 5% price growth every year.”

Click here to read the Financial Post article.

Canadians appear less concerned about retirement planning than in years past as they continue to focus on debt reduction as their main financial priority, according to a new study released today by CIBC.

Overall, the poll done for the bank by Harris/Decima showed 17% of respondents selected debt reduction as their main priority in 2013, unchanged from 2012 and the third year in a row that it has topped the list. Fourteen per cent chose debt reduction in 2011.

But while paying down debt topped the list, it remains to be seen how much progress Canadians will make in accomplishing that goal.

Despite having the same priority last year, Statistics Canada says the household debt to income ratio actually rose to a record high 164.6% in 2012.

Click here to read more in the Globe and Mail.

Click here for the CIBC press release.