MLN NewsStream

What would a lifelong interest rate trader pick for his mortgage? We wanted to find out, so MLN spoke with Kevin Abarbanel last week.

Abarbanel is a former head futures trader for BMO Nesbitt Burns. He's been trading short-term interest rate futures full-time for over three decades, longer than virtually anyone else in Canada.

Abarbanel's own trades were responsible for over 10% of BAX futures trading volume for over a decade. If there's anyone who knows what drives Canadian interest rate markets, it's him.

It feels like just yesterday that "higher for longer" was the going cliché in economic circles. After Tuesday's CPI improvement, however, people might flip that phrase on its head.

Borrowers got the CPI print they needed to pave the way for a BoC cut on July 24. Headline inflation clocked in at just 2.67%, its lowest in 3¼ years. (Most media reports round up the 2.67% to 2.70%.)

Moreover, as economist David Rosenberg pointed out on Tuesday, "When you take out mortgage interest costs (what is that doing in the CPI, anyway?), inflation in Canada is running at +1.9%."

Every economist worth their salt now sees the BoC clipping rates 25 bps next Wednesday. Yet that cut is already yesterday's news.

With the BoC gearing up to ease once more, the bigger head-scratcher is: what's the game plan post-July?

Here are 10 quick facts on that:

Mortgage lenders commonly ask applicants for Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) income documents like Notices of Assessment (NOAs). They do so to confirm income (typical for self-employed borrowers), make sure no taxes are owed, and help mitigate fraud and human error.

But borrowers don't always keep their financial life in a filing cabinet, ready to show-and-tell. For brokers looking to get these documents quickly, with a guarantee they're legit, there's Fastkey.

Fastkey fetches NOAs, Statements of Account, Proof of Income, T-Slips, and Canada child benefit (CCB) information straight from CRA on the client's behalf. Over 140 mortgage brokers currently use the platform.

Housing bears are on their "I told you so" tour after the first rate cut in this easing cycle—claiming it barely gave a nudge to Canada's mortgage and real estate markets.

They point to today's CREA data, which showed the benchmark home value rising just 0.1% versus May and home sales creeping up just 3.7% m/m (all seasonally adjusted data).

What the naysayers gloss over is that, minus the BoC's June 5 rate snip, we'd be looking even glummer.

Anyone who cares about property values needs to care about population values. When household formation outpaces housing formation, real estate markets fly as high as a kite, and vice versa.

Since the Liberals announced their non-permanent resident (NPR) cutbacks in March, it's thrown population growth estimates into chaos. Now we're all playing 'Guess the Population' like it's the Price is Right.

Come fall, the government will drop its final NPR estimates. The Immigration Minister's stated goal is to limit temporary residents to 5% of the population by 2027. That's got every Tom, Dick, and Housing Analyst playing fortune-teller with Canada's headcount.

To cut through the noise, we spoke with economist Tony Stillo from Oxford Economics on Tuesday. He shared new insights from his recent paper, which concluded that: