The upside in a global stock market rout may ironically be a healthier housing market – at least in the short term, say economists.

“The housing market has nine lives. Every time interest rates are supposed to go down, something happens and it helps to keep the market going,” said Benjamin Tal, senior economist at CIBC World Markets.

Interest rates were supposed to be headed up before the crisis of terrorist attacks in New York on 9/11, and the last crash in 2008. But that didn’t happen. And it looks like rates will be staying down for a while, says Tal.

The market is already betting that Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney’s plans to hike interest rates as soon as September will have to be put off until the end of next year.

South of the border, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday that it expects “exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate at least through mid-2013.”

And ironically, while the U.S. has experienced a downgrade in its credit rating from Standard & Poors, investors have continued to pile into the Treasuries market.

The U.S. dollar remains the global reserve currency as investors head for shelter as they find few safe haven options out there.

The demand for treasuries means that yields have gone even lower. Which means there is downward pressure on longer-term interest rates. Long-fixed term rates are affected by a variety of factors such as competition for funds in financial markets and to prices in the bond market. Short-term rates are more affected by the key overnight central bank rate.

“The interest rate environment will continue to be very attractive for homebuyers for both short term and longer term borrowing costs. With the safety of U.S. bonds that’s keeping longer term rates low,” said Scotiabank economist Adrienne Warren.

Industry groups are warning, meanwhile, that during an already tough recovery, any sudden move upward in rates could have dire consequences on real estate sales.

“The very recent global economic news demonstrates the Bank of Canada needs to consider any future rate hikes with extreme caution, as the recovery may be more fragile than believed,” said Ontario Home Builders’ Association President Bob Finnigan.

Some investors may also be looking at real estate assets for a place to park their money because of the volatile stock market, said Tal.

Lance Dore, a member of the U.S.-based Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, says investment in real estate may be a beneficiary from those looking for safe haven.

“The sell-off of stocks is a clear signal that people are not confident in the future and want safety now.  What has also happened in the past declines in the stock market is a flight to quality,” said Dore. “Real estate tends to be the recipient as part of this flight. Real estate values are at all-time lows with returns at all-time highs.  The convergence of excess cash due to stock sell-off and corporations flush with cash for investment will push these excess funds into the inevitable diversification to real estate.”

While the future for the stock market looks shaky, the real estate sector is improving due to improving fundamentals based on increasing rents, absorption of distressed supply and increased interest for diversification, said Dore.

However, if the stock market continues on a downward path, housing will not escape unscathed. While lower interest rates are a huge mitigating factor, the losses on the market may eventually translate into job losses.

For one thing, it takes confidence to plunk down that down payment for a home. It usually means that you’ve got a job, some savings, and hope for the future.

But confidence is not in abundance in global stock markets this week as concerns over sovereign debt have panicked investors. Without confidence, the housing market – the biggest ticket item on the consumer checklist will suffer no matter how low rates go, say economists.

In the United States, where more than a quarter of borrowers have negative equity – meaning they owe more than their homes are worth – this could mean another setback for the already beleaguered market.

In Canada, where markets have been stable, and have been forecast to cool down next year, this could mean that sales and valuations may come down to earth quicker than expected.

“Assuming the volatility and uncertainty continues in the markets it will have negative implications for both potential home buyers and for builders,” said Scotiabank economist Warren. “There is still a big difference between Canada and the U.S. But it certainly reinforces our view that growth in Canada and internationally will be on the soft side.”

So far, economists have not changed their outlook on the Canadian housing market. Most expect the market to flatline or correct slightly by next year. But that could change if the rout continues.

“If this is the precipitation of a larger more protracted slowdown for the economy it will certainly affect housing,” said Peter Norman, chief economist real estate consultancy Altus Group.” If we get into a soft patch with slower employment growth then we will see slower home sales. For investors who are speculating on future events this adds another layer of uncertainty in the market. So this would cause them to sit on the sidelines.”

In separate reports on Tuesday, Canadian housing starts surprised by rising unexpectedly in July, climbing to a 15 month high, up 4.3 per cent to 205,100 units according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. And U.S. home values actually had the smallest drop in four years in the second quarter according to figures released by Zillow Inc.

But this was before the impact of the stock market drop which will affect confidence as consumers suffer from a declining wealth effect. During a recession, the high end of the market, of purely discretionary purchases such as cottages and luxury condos might be the first to feel the impact. But a lack of confidence will affect all sectors of the market.

“We continue to hold that new home construction will start to cool in the second half of the year, but this may come more slowly than anticipated as rates remain low for longer,” said Arlene Kish, principal economist for IHS Global Insight. “On the other hand, if the recent slide in financial markets remains persistent, consumers will become less optimistic and will likely stay away from home purchases.”

How to put this politely? While not a deadbeat, the U.S. is no longer among the world’s most creditworthy nations. America now has a lower credit rating than Liechtenstein. And the Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Mind you, that’s a matter of opinion.

On Friday, U.S. credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s for the first time in 70 years stripped the world’s largest economy of its top, triple-A rating on America’s $14.3 trillion in government debt. S&P dropped its rating a notch, to AA-plus.

But the two other members of the U.S. ratings oligopoly, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings, earlier in the week reconfirmed their top rating on U.S. debt.

Just 16 of the 126 nations whose debt is rated by S&P earn its coveted triple-A rating, Canada among them.

For S&P, last week’s panicky, acrimonious budget-cutting deal that narrowly averted a first-ever default by Washington was a factor in its U.S. debt downgrade.

“(S&P’s) conclusion was pretty much motivated by all of the debate about the raising of the debt ceiling,” John Chambers, chairman of S&P’s sovereign ratings committee, told The Wall Street Journal Friday.

“It involved a level of brinkmanship greater than what we had expected.”

A furious Obama administration pleaded with S&P to hold off on its announcement for a few weeks of further assessment, arguing that such a historic decision should be free of political considerations. But S&P was having none of that.

In S&P’s view, the intransigence of hard-right U.S. deficit hawks, notably the so-called Tea Partiers, is highly relevant in determining a nation’s ability or willingness to honour its debt obligations.

“The kind of debate we’ve seen over the debt ceiling has made us think the United States is no longer in the top echelon on its political settings.” That’s Chambers’ gentle way of saying that America’s political class can no longer be relied upon to expertly manage the nation’s finances.

China’s central banker, Zhou Xiaochuan, was a little blunter, depicting the Americans as a threat to the world economy. “Big fluctuations and uncertainty in the U.S. Treasury market will influence the stability of international monetary and financial systems, thus hurting the global economic recovery,” the chief of the People’s Bank of China said last week.

China, the world’s largest creditor nation, holds about $2 trillion worth of U.S.-denominated securities.

For years, the U.S. has been hectoring Beijing on everything from its allegedly overvalued currency to human rights abuses to intellectual property theft.

You can sense Zhou relishing this moment to return fire: “We hope that the U.S. government and the Congress will take concrete and responsible policy measures . . . to properly deal with its debt issues, so as to ensure smooth operation of the Treasury market and investor safety.”

Stop playing with matches, is Beijing’s humiliating admonition to the U.S. And really, there’s no snappy comeback to that, although the state Xinhua News Agency was piling it on in labelling the recent Washington budget debate a “madcap farce” (we know, we know) and U.S. debt a “ticking bomb.”

Typically, a lower debt rating means steeper borrowing costs, for consumers, business and government. Debt issuers must offer a higher rate of interest to attract buyers of higher-risk securities.

But hold on.

As noted, S&P is an “outlier” in banishing the U.S. from the triple-A club. Also, the U.S. owes most of its debt to itself. Less than one-third of U.S. government debt is held by foreigners, while most of crisis-stricken Greece’s debt is owed to offshore lenders. And U.S. Treasurys are still unmatched as a safe store of value for investors worldwide.

Yet for many economic observers, S&P’s move is overdue.

Across a range of factors — including anemic GDP growth, still-declining house values, a 9.1 per cent jobless rate, stagnant middle-class incomes and recent inflation in food, gasoline and apparel prices — the U.S. economy has been underperforming for years. Layering unmanageable debt atop that plethora of sickly leading indicators made a U.S. debt downgrade inevitable.

Felix Salmon, the top economics analyst who blogs at Reuters, expects the U.S. has lost its triple-A rating forever. “If we came that close to defaulting,” Salmon writes, “there’s no way that our securities can be risk-free.” The downgrade, he says, is “merely a late-to-the-party recognition of that fact.”

I don’t know about forever. But it will take a lot of convincing for S&P to restore America’s membership in the triple-A fraternity. We should know. S&P downgraded Canada in 1992, when we seemed blasé about a record $43 billion deficit.

Not until Canada was well into its 11-year run of consecutive budget surpluses — unmatched by any G8 nation — did S&P deign to restore our triple-A status, in 2002.

Elapsed time: nine years and nine months. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1035722–olive-u-s-will-take-a-long-time-to-dig-out-of-this-hole

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States stepped back from the brink of default on Tuesday but congressional approval of a last-ditch deficit-cutting plan failed to dispel fears of a credit downgrade and future tax and spending feuds.

President Barack Obama and lawmakers from across the political divide expressed relief over the hard-won compromise to raise the country’s borrowing authority after weeks of rancorous partisan battles.

Nevertheless, U.S. stocks tumbled, turning negative for the year, as investors shifted their attention to the increasingly grim state of the U.S. economy and the potential for a downgrade of America’s gold-plated debt rating.

That risk grew when one of the three major ratings agencies said it was affirming the U.S. government’s AAA-rated sovereign debt but slapping it with a negative outlook.

The announcement by Moody’s Investors Service after U.S. markets closed could lead to a downgrade within 12 to 18 months. That could raise borrowing costs for U.S. companies and consumers as the economy risks slipping back into recession.

The Senate’s approval by 74-26 votes of the $2.1 trillion deficit-reduction plan warded off the immediate specter of a catastrophic U.S. debt default. The bill passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Monday.

Obama immediately signed it into law, lifting the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling with just hours to spare before the government was due to run out of money to pay all its bills.

The bitter feud between Democrats and Republicans has bruised Obama as he heads into a campaign to win a second term in 2012.

The $2.1 trillion deficit-reduction plan fell well short of a $4 trillion ‘grand bargain’ that was nearly agreed last month between the White House and congressional leaders.

Another ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s has said $4 trillion in deficit-reduction measures would be needed as a “downpayment” to put America’s finances in order.

S&P said in mid-July there was a 50-50 chance it would cut the U.S. rating in the next three months if lawmakers failed to craft a meaningful deficit-cutting plan. Investors are on tenterhooks about the chance of a downgrade by S&P.

The deal leaves political battles ahead over spending cuts and tax reform as the deficit-cutting plan is implemented. Obama and Democratic and Republican leaders said the agreement, while a welcome first step, was not enough on its own.

“We just kicked the can down the road … the agreement doesn’t really do anything about what got us into debt,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Reuters Insider.

“We had a good opportunity, we let it pass so we will keep struggling.”

THREAT OF CHAOS RECEDES

The deal drew a line — for the moment — under months of bitter partisan squabbling over debt and deficit strategy that had threatened chaos in global financial markets and dented America’s stature as the world’s economic superpower.

The law lifts the debt ceiling enough to last beyond the November 2012 elections, calls for $2.1 trillion in deficit savings spread over 10 years and creates a bipartisan joint House and Senate committee to recommend further cuts by late November. It does not yet include any tax increases.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said the deal reduced uncertainty in the markets.

The governor of the central bank of China, the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries, urged the the United States to responsibly protect investor interests.

Questions lingered about the fragile U.S. economy and whether the bipartisan deficit-cutting compromise could deliver the desired results.

Data on Tuesday showed U.S. consumer spending dropped in June for the first time in nearly two years and incomes barely rose, the latest in a string of gloomy economic indicators.

Moody’s said the deal was a step toward fixing the budget problems but the United States risked a downgrade if fiscal discipline weakened in the coming year, if no further steps were taken in 2013 or if the economy deteriorated.

“We would expect that growth would accelerate in 2012 from the first half of the year,” Steven Hess, Moody’s top U.S. analysts told Reuters in an interview. “But if it doesn’t, that means that the whole process of fiscal consolidation and the plans to achieve lower deficits and lower debt ratios will be made all the more difficult.”

Fitch Ratings did not rule out putting a negative outlook on the U.S. AAA rating when it concludes a review of the country later this month, the agency’s top analyst for the United States told Reuters on Tuesday.

TUSSLE OVER TAXES

Investors said the move by Moody’s on Tuesday was expected and did not ruffle financial markets.

Earlier, Wall Street stocks slumped broadly by more than 2 percent, ending down for a seventh consecutive session as gloom over the economy mounted, marking the longest losing streak since the financial crisis period in October 2008.

“I think that the most troubling aspect we have going on right now is the performance of U.S. equities. The equity market for whatever reason seems to think that this deal is not sufficient,” said Greg Salvaggio, senior vice president at Tempus Consulting in Washington.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an opinion piece in the Washington Post that the debt deal should allow room for Congress to implement short-term measures to strengthen the economy this fall such as extending a payroll tax cut and funding infrastructure projects.

Obama said the sacrifices required to reduce the deficit needed to be fairly shared, apparently nodding to anger among many Democrats that the deal did not include tax increases and risked hurting social programs.

“We cannot balance the budget on the back of the very people who have borne the brunt of the recession … everyone is going to have to chip in, that’s only fair,” the president said in an address from the White House Rose Garden.

He said he expected tax reform to emerge from deliberations by the new congressional committee, and that a “balanced approach” in which the wealthier pay more taxes was needed.

Only moments after final passage, rival congressional leaders were handing out their political recipes for the way forward — Republicans in favor of more spending cuts, and Democrats looking for tax reform or hikes.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Thomas Ferraro, Donna Smith, Richard Cowan, Lesley Wroughton, Laura MacInnis, Alister Bull and Steve Holland in Washington and Chris Sanders in New York; Writing by Stuart Grudgings and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Jackie Frank and Anthony Boadle)

WASHINGTON—America’s dismal debt crisis ended Monday night with an astounding twist — the show-stealing return of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, back on the House floor to cast a heroic vote to save the country from default.

Giffords stunning appearance, her first since being gunned down by a would-be assassin on the streets of Tucson in January, sparked standing ovations, bringing one of the bleakest demonstrations of political paralysis to an unexpectedly heartening close.Her vote counted. But it was hardly essential, as a last-ditch budget deal unloved by all sides flew easily through the House of Representatives, passing 269-161.

Translation: Crisis averted.

The package now will fly through the Senate in the morning, ready for President Barack Obama’s signature well before the government’s midnight Tuesday deadline, allowing the country to borrow anew — and putting global markets at ease, as the calamity of potential default evaporates.

After that, watch for Washington to slink away for its August recess, with politicians of all stripes hoping what remains of the summer will be sufficiently distracting to tamp down public disgust.

The anger is global, as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made clear Monday when he hurled invective, accusing the United States of “living like parasites off the global economy.

“Thank God that they had enough common sense and responsibility to make a balanced decision,” said Putin, a frequent critic of the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s default currency.

But it is the American verdict that worries Washington most. A new pulse taking by the Pew Research Center showed the three-week standoff earned the contempt of nearly three-quarters of respondents.

Asked to characterize their leaders’ behaviour in a single word, the Pew/Washington Post survey said the Top 10 responses were: “Ridiculous,” “Disgusting,” “Stupid,” “Frustrating,” “Poor,” “Terrible,” “Disappointing,” “Childish,” “Messy” and “Joke.”

As the U.S. commentariat worked through the fine print of an austerity bill to slice some $2.4 trillion from the U.S. deficit over 10 years, more fury still — much of it directed at Obama and the Democrats for what one New York Times columnist called “an abject surrender” to the unbending hawks of the Republican Tea Party movement.

With Republicans preening and Democrats aghast, the rhetoric on Capitol Hill was approaching viral. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who on Sunday said hinted the devil would be in the details, declared the package a “Satan sandwich with a side of Satan fries.” But she ate it anyway, voting for the bill because there were no other viable options.

New York Rep. Charles Rangel was among more than 90 House Democrats to vote no, citing the total absence of any language likely to improve the tepid U.S. employment picture.

“If the Republicans would have had to hold the President hostage, I wish they would have held him hostage on the things my constituents wake up every morning thinking — how can I get a job, how can I get back my dignity?”

But Monday’s House vote also forced the hands of a dozens of Tea Party-aligned conservatives, who stepped up to help pass the compromise bill, opening themselves up to primary challenges from ultra-conservatives in their home districts. The threat of primary challenge, first delivered in a thinly veiled Facebook posting last week by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, was a constant throughout each act of this agonizing bout of political theatre.

It is difficult to envision what this leaves Obama to celebrate on Thursday, when he turns 50. The ever-changing White House bottom line — which began with insistence that America’s wealthiest pay their part in the austerity to come — ended with Team Obama not having to worry about the debt ceiling issue until after the 2012 presidential election.

Yet it is abundantly clear the budget brinksmanship will erupt anew at least twice before the year is done — at the end of September, when a continuing resolution to fund the government is due to expire, and again, later in the fall, when the bipartisan debt commission created by this bill is due to produce recommendations on what precisely this plan will actually cut.

This is merely an intermission. Enjoy it while you can.

By The Canadian Press

TORONTO – Moody’s Investor Services is renewing Canada’s debt rating at triple-A, the highest possible.

The firm said the AAA rating was warranted due to the country’s high degree of economic resiliency, efforts by Ottawa and the provinces to deal with their debt ratios over the coming years and other factors.

Moody’s says the state of Canada’s housing market and Quebec’s sovereignty issues do pose some risk, but the risks are low.

The housing market also poses some risk because many mortgages are insured by a federal Crown corporation.

But Moody’s says it considers a major downturn of the housing market as unlikely and, even in an extreme case, Ottawa’s extra costs would be relatively small.

Similarly, Quebec’s sovereignty movement doesn’t seem to pose a significant risk since the issue doesn’t appear high on the political agenda.

OTTAWA— Home prices measured by a major national index surged for a sixth straight month to new highs in May but are expected to ease in the months ahead.

The Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index, which measures price changes for repeat sales of single-family homes in six metropolitan areas, rose 1.3% in the month, the second consecutive month in which it gained more than one per cent and the largest gain since July 2010.

The month-over-month gains were spread across all six cities covered, with all but Halifax reporting gains of 0.5% or more.

May gains were led by the Vancouver and Toronto markets, ahead 1.6% and 1.7%, respectively, and followed by Montreal (0.7%), Calgary (0.6%), Ottawa (0.5%) and Halifax (0.1%).

“The well-above-one-per-cent monthly rises of the composite index in April and May were fuelled by the Vancouver market,” said the report’s author, senior economist Marc Pinsonneault.

“Given the time lags between home sales and their entry in public land registries, it is possible that the large April and May rises of the composite index were due to front-loading of sales to beat the March effective date of an announced shortening of the maximum amortization period for insured mortgages.”

“This spike in activity is now behind us. Therefore, the recent large monthly rises in home prices in Canada should not be a lasting trend.”

On an annual basis, prices rose 4.4% in May, the same pace of advance as in May.

TABLE

Composite House Price Index for May

Metropolitan area / Index level /m/m change / y/y change
Calgary / 153.72 / 0.6 % / -4.1 %
Halifax / 134.26 / 0.1 % / 4.8 %
Montreal / 141.36 / 0.7 % / 6.3 %
Ottawa / 133.30 / 0.5 % / 5.6 %
Toronto / 128.72 / 1.7 % / 4.6 %
Vancouver / 164.92 / 1.6 % / 6.2 %
National Composite / 142.27 / 1.3 % / 4.4 %

Source: Teranet-National Bank

Canada’s housing market is in a bubble that’s set to burst and prices could plunge by as much as 25 per cent, a major independent research firm warns.

“Housing valuations have lost all touch with fundamentals and household debt is at a record high,” economists at the research consultancy Capital Economics say in their most recent Canada Economic Outlook, issued Wednesday.

“Our fear is that, with the housing bubble now close to bursting and commodity prices retreating, Canada will go from leader to laggard.”

The report predicts a fall in house prices by as much as 25 per cent over the next three years.

A domestic housing boom coupled with high commodity prices worldwide have spared the economy the severe recession felt by other developed countries.

Canada’s economic success could become the thorn in its side as the threat of a downturn in the housing sector looms, the report says.

The firm says a burst housing bubble would shrink real estate investment and hurt consumption — two things that would considerably slow economic growth.

This decline in consumption would mean a slowly rising unemployment rate as well, according to Capital.

The company says Canadian house prices are overvalued by approximately 25 per cent, close to excessive levels seen in the frothy U.S. market at its 2006 peak.

Over-building is already visible; the number of unoccupied houses and condos is at a record high. It closely resembles the 1994-95 housing slump, when the construction industry experienced a severe downturn.

The report forecasts falling house prices and smaller residential investment. Real estate currently makes up 6.8 per cent of Canada’s GDP. Lower prices would mean a hit to household net worth as property now accounts for one-third of a family’s total assets, the report found.

The firm expects the Bank of Canada to stay the course in the near term, as financial worries at home and abroad will keep interest rates at their current level for a while.

By Craig Wong, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA – The Canadian economy has been on a three-month streak of job creation and businesses appear set to continue that into the next three months, but some economists are raising concerns about the quality of jobs that are being created.

CIBC World Markets senior economist Benjamin Tal said while the headline numbers about job creation have been good, the quality of the jobs has not been great.

And Tal suggested that as governments look to cut spending to balance their budgets, the situation isn’t likely to improve.

“This deterioration will probably continue over the next few months because I see some softening in government jobs which always tend to be relatively high quality jobs and I see some softening in construction jobs,” Tal said.

“So those two forces that have been very strongly supporting the economic recovery and the job market recovery of the past two years, will not be there and what will replace them will probably be service-oriented jobs.”

The Canadian economy created 28,000 jobs in June and 238,000 over the last 12 months. The results blew past a disappointing month in the U.S. where its much larger economy added just 18,000 jobs in June.

And the Bank of Canada’s business outlook survey found businesses were optimistic about the prospects of hiring new workers with 57 per cent of the firms surveyed expected to hire new workers over the next year compared with just four per cent of firms expected to have fewer employees.

However, the unemployment rate in Canada stood at 7.4 per cent, a full percentage point higher than where it stood before the financial crisis in 2008.

And average hourly wages in June were up just under two per cent compared with a year ago, less than the rate of inflation.

Tal pointed to the relative weakness in the other economic indicators for the second quarter that came even as the economy continued to crank out more jobs.

“There is a link between employment and income and if quality is going down, then this link is not as clear. You can have more and more jobs, creating less and less income,” he said.

“Consumer spending, income growth, retail sales, they’re all linked to quantity and quality. Granted, a low quality job is better than no job, but the headline numbers exaggerate the real health of the Canadian labour market.”

Canadian Auto Workers union economist Jim Stanford said the growth in the absolute number of jobs in Canada, while better than the U.S., is not as impressive as it appears to be.

Stanford notes that during that month, the Canadian population continued to grow so the increase in the number of jobs in Canada, while significant, doesn’t tell the whole picture.

He pointed to the employment rate in Canada as a better indicator. It stood at 62 per cent in June, up 0.2 percentage points from 12 months ago.

“At most we’ve recouped one-fifth of the damage,” he said of the losses in the recession.

“So even on the quantity grounds we have a huge distance to travel before we can reasonably say that the recession is over.”

Stanford pointed to the gains in part-time and self-employment as signs of weakness in the quality of the jobs created.

“There is some self-employment that reflects the positive dream of being your own boss and having a good idea that you want to build a business around, but a very large proportion of self-employment is people who lost their paid work and are now trying to make ends meet by doing consulting or selling Amway from their basement,” he said.

Tal said the change in the workforce and the available jobs has also been a structural one for the economy and education will be the key to success in finding work.

“It will be more difficult to find a job if you don’t have the qualifications,” he said.

“This is going to be a very brutal labour market with many opportunities, but if you don’t have the qualifications you have no chance.” http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/Economy-cranking-new-jobs-capress-4268813369.html

By The Canadian Press

OTTAWA – The C.D. Howe Institute’s monetary policy council recommended Thursday the Bank of Canada raise its target for the overnight interest rate.

The group of economists recommended the central bank raise the key rate by a quarter point to 1.25 per cent at its rate announcement next week.

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney is expected to keep rates on hold at one per cent when the announcement is made July 19.

“The principal theme of the group’s discussion was the contrast between the Canadian domestic scene, which most attendees felt justified a more restrictive stance by the Bank,” the think tank council said in a statement.

However, the recommendation by the mix of private sector economists and academics was not unanimous.

Five members of the panel recommended the increase, while four others suggested the Bank of Canada keep the rate at one per cent.

The bank last hiked interest rates in September 2010.

“Looking abroad, participants generally agreed that the potential negative impact on global growth and on financial conditions in Canada and elsewhere of sovereign debt defaults was enormous, but they differed in their views about how the Bank of Canada should respond to this prospect,” the council said.

“Some argued for more accommodative policy on the grounds that inflation expectations are well anchored and the Bank should support domestic demand. Others stressed the risks of postponing needed tightening for too long in preparation for events that might not occur. “

The group was unanimous though in their recommendation that the rate, which is at an exceptionally low level, needs to rise over the coming year.

The central bank will make its decision next week as the U.S. and global economy present an uncertain future. Even as the Canadian economy appears on track, weakness in the U.S. and threats of sovereign debt defaults threaten the outlook.

Speaking to a Senate committee last month, Carney warned that the U.S. economy is a shadow of its former self and a mountain of debt weighing on the balance sheets of advanced countries around the world will dampen growth for years.

Carney told the committee that the second quarter in Canada could see growth drop all the way to the one per cent range, from 3.9 per cent in the first three months. http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/C-D-Howe-Institute-monetary-capress-3527802669.html

By The Canadian Press

OTTAWA – Canadian home prices continued to soar above year-ago levels in June, but economist believe price hikes could soon ease, spelling relief for buyers in expensive markets like Toronto and Vancouver.

The Canadian Real Estate Association said Friday the national average price for Canadian home resales was $372,700 in June, up 8.7 per cent from the same month last year, but down 0.9 per cent from May.

Realtors sold 48,487 resale homes last month, 10.8 per cent more than in June 2010, when sales began to taper off from an earlier hot streak when buyers rushed to beat interest rate hikes. Last June, the Bank of Canada raised interest rates from emergency lows for the first time since the recession.

Last month’s sales activity was also 2.6 per cent higher than in May, bucking a four-month trend of monthly declines.

“Canadian housing demand remains resilient, thanks to low interest rates, job growth, and home buyer confidence in the economy,” CREA president Gary Morse said in a statement.

June’s double-digit year-over-year sales increase was the fastest pace recorded since April 2010, said Bank of Montreal economist Robert Kavcic.

“However, the strong growth figure somewhat masks more moderate recent activity, as sales fell more than 16 per cent between April and June last year amid stricter mortgage rules, making for an easy comparison,” he wrote in a research note.

Despite the year-over-year price hikes, seasonally-adjusted prices have now dipped for three straight months, suggesting the changes to mortgage rules that limited the maximum amortization period “might be having at least a modest impact on pricing,” he said.

Some industry watchers have speculated that prices have now peaked and expect to see declines, especially when interest rates inevitably rise.

“Stricter mortgage rules and declining affordability appear to be taking at least some momentum out of prices, a trend that could continue if the Bank of Canada resumes its tightening campaign in the fall,” Kavcic said.

Sonya Gulati, an economist at TD, said June’s figures suggested a pickup in activity after a “particularly muted” over the past few months, but added that they could be a blip.

“We expect the mini reprieve to be fleeting and in turn, sales gains should be muted for the remainder of the year and into 2012,” she said.

Gulati said she expects prices to decrease by 10 per cent over the next two years, accompanied by a 15 per cent decline in sales.

“The lag between sales and prices usually comes in between two to three quarters. In turn, we anticipate prices to temper early next year,” she said.

Sales picked up in a majority of the country’s cities, with two notable exception — the pricey and once overheated markets of Vancouver, down 1.7 per cent and Toronto, 0.4 per cent lower.

In Toronto, average seasonally adjusted home prices fell 1.1 per cent, but are still up nearly 10 per cent year-over-year. The market remains one of the most competitive in Canada as demand so far this year has far outweighed the number of listings, contributing to higher prices.

In Vancouver, average prices are about 23 per cent higher than they were last year, but the average is being skewed higher by a flurry of activity at the high end of the market. Sales in expensive West Vancouver and Richmond have eased since February, which helped to reduce the impact on average prices, CREA noted.

That area has recently been a hotbed of housing activity, and high end sales helped drive June average home prices in Greater Vancouver to $630,921.

However, the national figures in June showed less of an impact from the sales of high-priced homes in Vancouver, although that city continued to skew the national results, CREA said.

About 60 per cent of local housing markets in Canada were balanced in June — meaning the number of sales and new listings were about the same. However, new listings increased just marginally, by 1.8 per cent in June from May.

Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Ont., and Victoria all saw gains over May.

Nevertheless, national sales activity in the second quarter (April, May and June) was down 4.5 per cent compared with the first quarter of 2011.

CREA attributed the decline from the first quarter to new mortgage rules announced in January and implemented at the end of March and an increase in mortgage rates in April and May.

CREA’s monthly report comes ahead of Tuesday’s Bank of Canada announcement on its target overnight interest rates. The central bank is widely expected to keep the key rate unchanged at 1.0 per cent, where it has been since September .

Earlier in the year, economists had expected the Bank of Canada would begin raising its short-term rate to quell inflation. However, sentiment has changed amid signs that the U.S. economic growth has been less robust than expected.

In contrast with the United States, Canada’s job growth has been stronger, its federal government is making more headway in dealing with budget deficits and its resource exports are relatively strong — putting home buyers in good shape.

“The Canadian housing sector remains on a solid footing,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist.

“The rise in monthly home sales activity at the end of the second quarter, upbeat business sentiment and hiring intentions, and signs that the Bank of Canada is in no rush to raise interest rates bode well for home sales activity and prices going into the second half of 2011.” http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/Home-prices-remain-sky-high-capress-1260466279.html?x=0