A nightmare on Main St: The CMHC and the Canadian housing bubble

[JohnyCanuck]

While prices are not dropping yet, the fact that commentators from the business and real estate communities themselves believe a 15% downward adjustment in prices is imminent means that we can likely expect a greater decrease. These are, after all, people whose best interests are served by minimizing any potential housing market panic.

The increasingly interventionist actions being taken by the Conservative government and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to dampen the market, counter-intuitively if one does not really understand what is behind the real estate market boom of the past few years in the first place, also shows that the powers that be are worried. Very worried.

And they are worried for good reason. It was the government itself that facilitated the creation of the overheated market and it is the government that is ultimately on the hook for the tab should an American style meltdown occur. Which means that, in the end, you are on the hook.

snip

Under the auspices of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) the Canadian government has insured the mortgages that Canada's banks have provided to Canadians to the tune of a projected $558 billion this year. This figure, one might note, represents over one-third of Canada's total GDP! This is up dramatically since 2007-2008, directly due to the fact that the government raised the limit on mortgages that CMHC could insure from $450 billion to $600 billion and loosened the rules on what types of mortgage would qualify.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/michael-laxer/nightmare-main-st-cmhc-and-canadian-housing-bubble

[cleduc]

1. I think there will be a correction.

But I don't anticipate the degree of doom and gloom in the article. They took steps a couple of years ago to manage it to some degree and slow down the market and are continuing in that effort. Many other economic and financial indicators are pretty good so they can afford to take some of the hit without skipping a beat. If it gores beyond that, it will hurt some but I doubt to the extent we've seen in other countries.