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If you have more than 20 percent of the cost of a home saved up for a downpayment, it’s probably a good idea to go right ahead and buy that property — come January 1, 2018, it will be much harder to qualify for a mortgage. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), Canada’s banking regulator, confirmed on Tuesday, Oct 17  that there will now be a qualifying “stress test” for all uninsured mortgages, affecting consumers with down-payments of 20 percent or more. Under current housing rules, only borrowers with a down-payment of less than 20 percent require mortgage insurance.…

Toronto house prices likely already near bottom, RBC economist says   As real estate prices continue to drop following Ontario’s market-cooling policies, economist Robert Hogue says Toronto is likely to mimic Vancouver’s experience. Toronto’s roller-coaster real estate market took a swoop lower in August, the fourth-straight month that the average sales price in Canada’s largest city declined from a dizzying record high set in April. The Toronto Real Estate Board said Wednesday the average price for all home types in the Greater Toronto Area last month was $732,292, down 1.8 per cent from July and 20.3 per cent below April’s…

Is Toronto’s real estate market still crashing? If you’re considering buying a home in the Greater Toronto Area, it’s really tough to make sense of what is really happening in the real estate market. Headlines reporting that sales are down 35% over last year can lead one to believe that the real estate market is in a state of free fall, but things aren’t quite what they seem. Before I talk about what is happening in the market today I thought it would be helpful to clarify a couple of misconceptions I’ve been hearing from buyers and even some industry commentators. We…

Greater Toronto home prices jumped in September as buyers appeared to put an end to a slump that began in the spring with government measures to cool a scorching real-estate market. The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) said the average GTA home sold for $775,546 in September, up 5.9 per cent from August’s average of $732,292. Prices were up 2.6 per cent compared with September last year, but remain 15.8-per-cent lower than they were at the market’s peak in April before the downturn began. The market recovery last month was driven primarily by buoyant sales of detached houses in the…