The Canadian housing market is one of the biggest bubbles in the world and I believe that it's finally popping as over-leveraged borrowers face rapidly-rising interest rates.
Today the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board showed 8,008 properties were sold in the month of April, far below the 13,613 transactions that occurred in the same month last year and down 27% from March.
It's a sign that buyers are beginning to balk at prices. Locally, I'm seeing houses take longer to sell than they did even a month ago, particularly at the higher end.
In Toronto, the average sales price declined 3.5% m/m to a still-eyewatering $1,254,436.
I don't know if this stabilizes at -20% or something worse but until there are signs of flattening, it's going to be tough to see a sustained rise in the Canadian dollar.
