Residential Market Update – Mortgage Rates to stay low for a while.

A great summary of where we are today in relation to the economy and the housing market.

There have been a couple of highlights for the Canadian housing market in the past week:

• the U.S. Federal Reserve announcement that it is committed to low interest rates until 2015 and
• the latest global housing outlook that puts this country in better shape than most.

Anyone looking for a new mortgage or a mortgage renewal will likely be heartened by the American central bank’s interest rate pledge. The commitment to low rates makes it harder, but not impossible, for the Bank of Canada to move on its desire to increase rates.

However, that desire got a boost from Canada’s economic think-tank, the C.D. Howe Institute. It says the central bank needs to change the way it calculates inflation to take into account rising house prices. The institute says the current calculation keeps inflation lower than it really is and puts the Bank of Canada at risk of keeping rates too low for too long.

As for the global housing outlook, it shows Canadian prices continue to rise, albeit more slowly than a year ago. But around the world, countries showing price declines outnumbered gainers by more than two to one.