Financial institutions appear to be cracking down on rules for borrowers with self-declared income, a move that comes as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said he’s concerned about a lack standards in the sector. Responding to a question about whether the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions was looking into the practice of banks loosening […]

OTTAWA — Canadian house prices dropped in November for the first time in nearly a year, according to the monthly Teranet-National Bank house price index released Wednesday. The 0.2% drop followed two months of flat prices, and was the first decline in the index since a “brief correction during the three months ending November 2010,” […]

Real estate investment guru Don Campbell blames the media’s sensational reporting for a lot of the confusion that exists today around the real estate cycle.  The misinformation that results from this reporting gives rise, he says, to differing opinions as to whether real estate is a sound investment vehicle. The confusion comes from what he […]

While 2011 proved to be a rocky road in the economy, there is much to look forward to in 2012 in the housing market- according to Dave Liniger, Chairman and Co-Founder of RE/MAX. Speaking about the recovery of the US housing market, Liniger says that the key to activity lies in the continuation of low […]

According to CMHC, the seasonally adjusted rate of housing starts rose in December, mostly due to a spike in multiple urban starts, support the notion that condo development is surging in this country. There has also been a trending towards returning to urban centers- in particular with the Baby Boomers to be closer to amenities […]

Buying a home and experiencing feelings of remorse is about as common as death and taxes. It happens to us all, unless, of course, you have money to burn and you purchase homes like the rest of us do coffee.     Unfortunately, that’s not the case for most of us. We invariably suffer the doubts, […]

We’re a little late on the New Year’s musings, but we wanted to give you a week to recover from the post-Christmas hangover. No, not the boozy hangover you get from too much New Year’s revelry — the financial hangover many of us suffer when we realize we spent too much at Christmastime. Mid-January is […]

By The Canadian Press OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the economy began creating jobs again in December after two straight months of declines, but not enough to prevent the official unemployment rate from edging up a notch to 7.5 per cent. Canada added 17,500 jobs during the month, yet the jobless rate increased because there […]

TORONTO, Dec. 21, 2011 /CNW/ – According to a new study released today, more than one-in-three Canadians (36 per cent) feel more stressed this year about their finances than they did a year ago. Forty-three per cent of women and 53 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 18 to 34 feel this way. […]

The dollar took a tremendous hit Tuesday as risk-sensitive assets rallied with unexpected gusto. The volatility of this past session does not necessarily surprise; but the consistency in the steady build of risky exposure certainly does. We are in the gravity of the year-end, holiday trading period when the capital markets thin out as participants […]