More Albertans Expect to Buy a Home Next Year
Gord McCallum at First Foundation Mortgages forwarded me a report from the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals called "Annual state of the Residential Mortgage in Canada." Here are some highlights:
6.4% of Albertans indicated they were highly likely to purchase a home in the next year, the highest in the country and well above the overall average of 3.56% (only 1.8% of Saskatchewan and BC residents indicated the same thing). This was also up from the Spring when 4.3% of Albertans indicated they were highly likely to buy and last fall when only 2.9% indicated so.
At the same time, Albertans had the lowest expectations that house prices would rise next year (perhaps that's why many are thinking it will be a good time to buy).
Most Canadians are confident in their ability to pay off their mortgages, do not regret taking on the mortgage they did, and believe that real estate in Canada is a good long term investment. At the same time most Canadians feel that as a whole we have too much debt, and that low interest rates have allowed many people to become home owners in the past few years who probably should not be homeowners. Is this a case of not in my backyard syndrome?
Among homeowners with mortgages, the average equity is about 50% (meaning they have about half the value of their homes paid off) and 81% have at least 20% equity.
Mortgage arrears remain stable at .42% nationally which is lower than what we saw for most of the 90's.
The average mortgage rate for a new mortgage this year was 3.75% and 72% of Canadians that renewed in the past year renewed at a lower rate.
The vast majority of mortgage holders in Canada have considerable capacity to afford rises in mortgage rates. 84% said they could handle monthly increases of $300 or more in the monthly payments, and the average amount was $1056 over their current costs.