New budget, new help for first-time home buyers
Posted on May 12, 2024
The Federal Government has announced plans to “solve the housing crisis” as part of the proposed budget this year, plans directed in part to first-time home buyers. Like many such proposals, it’s (a) complex and (b) not for everybody who is buying a home for the first time.
Here is what is in the budget, which still has to receive royal ascent:
• An...
Interest rate remains the same — for now
Posted on Apr 10, 2024
Economists across the country are waiting for the Bank of Canada shoe to drop and send the interest rate down from the 5 per cent it has been for 10 months. Now it appears that will happen on June 5.
The just-announced decision to leave the rate unchanged brought this response from BNN Bloomberg’s Paul Bagnell, in an interview on CTV:
“In the subtle...
Commercial real estate primed to rebound in '24
Posted on Mar 25, 2024
The figures are just in for commercial real estate in 2023 and what’s clear is it likely has only one direction to go, and that’s up. Sales totals and dollar volumes in the Lower Mainland were lower than they had been since before the pandemic, and both sales and dollar values were down over 40 per cent compared to 2022.
Around the world, interest rate decline expected to begin
Posted on Mar 22, 2024
News item: “The world's biggest central banks are on the starting line of reversing a record string of interest rate hikes …”
If you are a regular reader of this website, News From Nexus or any other credible source of information about interest rates, then you know that the way they rise and fall is not unique to Canada. Typically, what happens in...
Interest rate unchanged by Bank of Canada
Posted on Mar 06, 2024
As was widely predicted, once again the Bank of Canada stayed the course with its overnight interest rate of five per cent. It has been five per cent since last July and, while the Bank is expected to begin lowering rates this year...not yet.
The announcement was accompanied by this explanation:
"Governing Council decided to hold the policy rate at 5...
Buyers galore according to online study
Posted on Feb 25, 2024
While polls and surveys always have to be taken with a grain of salt, one headline jumped out from a poll done in January, entitled: 2024 Canadian Home Buyer report.
This was the line (okay, paragraph) that will stop anybody who reads it:
“Only 11 per cent of Canadians say they expect to buy a home within the next 12 months. That’s still a colossall...