Housing sector still vulnerable, CMHC says

TORONTO — Canada’s housing sector is facing a high degree of vulnerability to market instability for the seventh straight quarter, with Toronto, Hamilton, Vancouver and Victoria shouldering the brunt of the risks.

That’s according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which analyzed overheating, acceleration of home prices, overvaluations and overbuilding in markets across the country in its quarterly assessment, released on Thursday.

“There is a lot of demand for existing homes relative to supply, and that is why the overheating indicator is high in Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto and Hamilton,” said CMHC chief economist Bob Dugan. “We have this constraint on the supply side, but at the same time, the local economies (in Toronto and Vancouver) have been very strong, generating a lot of jobs, attracting people to live in those markets, so there has been a lot of increase in demand in these markets, but without the supply, that demand goes into house price increases.”

Even though stricter regulations around uninsured mortgages from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OFSI) were in effect throughout the quarter, the CMHC report said Toronto’s balance between supply and demand was not affected and the sales-to-new listings ration remained “virtually unchanged.”

The OFSI rules heightened demand for more affordable housing within the city, as it was seeing a decline in the inventory of houses. Dugan said there weren’t any surprises CMHC found, but he did spot “a little bit of a softening” of market activity in Toronto and less of a “spillover” in demand from the city to neighbouring communities, such as Hamilton. Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Regina fared better. They have moderate vulnerability because of overbuilding. Winnipeg, Ottawa, Quebec City, Moncton, Halifax and St. John’s faced even less risk, earning a low vulnerability ranking.