As of April 19, 2010 certain mortgage products are required to qualify at the Bank of Canada’s Qualifying Rate. This video explains how the Qualifying Rate works and what mortgage products are affected by it.

CMHC’s economist, Bob Dugan points at the number of factors causing this decline, “The decline in housing starts in 2009 can be attributed to several factors, including the current economic climate, increased competition from the existing home market, and the impact of strong house price growth between 2002 and 2007.”

Compounding the new home start declines, sales of existing homes have also and will continue to decline through 2009.  Although not as severe as new home starts, sales are expected to see about an 18% drop from 2008 figures, and a small rebound in 2010, from about 433,990 units in 2008 to 357,800 in 2009 and a rebound to 386,100 units in 2010.

As with the new home starts and the sales, prices are also expected to continue to decrease through 2009 and only stabilize in 2010.  Prices will remain well below 2008 and previous years levels.

Although we are seeing declines through 2009, Canada is in no way mirroring the US housing market.  The declines have not been as sharp and the activity in Canada is now seeing a more sustainable level of building and more affordable housing prices than Canada has seen in the past 5-7 years.