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We use Canadian data to examine how monetary policy affects house prices and the consumer price index for rent through exogenous changes in the mortgage interest rates. It finds that the price and rent impacts operate through various channels and that these impacts vary by region.

An economy with fixed amortization mortgages and borrowing-constrained consumers leads to the level of inflation targeted having real effects on home ownership, consumption, and debt. Using a life-cycle housing tenure choice model, we show that by front-loading real mortgage payments, higher inflation lowers steady-state home ownership and the mortgage-debt-to-income ratio.

The Bank of Canada is publishing a new set of indicators of financial vulnerabilities. This will allow households, the private sector, financial authorities and governments to better understand and monitor the evolution of two key vulnerabilities in the financial system: the elevated level of household indebtedness and high house prices.

Existing literature documents that house prices respond to monetary policy surprises with a significant delay, taking years to reach their peak response. We present new evidence of a much faster response.

We assess how location affects house prices in Canada. The gap in prices between suburbs and downtown was closing gradually before the pandemic. The gap has been closing faster since spring 2020. This finding reflects a shift in preferences toward more living space.

We introduce a novel approach to categorize mortgaged homebuyers into first-time homebuyers, repeat homebuyers and investors. We show how these groups contribute to activity in Canadian housing markets, and we analyze the differences in their demographic and financial characteristics.

We study the relationship between characteristics of new mortgages and borrowers’ financial stress in Canada’s energy-intensive regions following the 2014 collapse in oil prices. We find that borrowers with limited home equity were more likely to have difficulty repaying debt.

We introduce a model to detect periods of extrapolative house price expectations across Canadian cities. The House Price Exuberance Indicator can be updated on a quarterly basis to support the Bank of Canada’s broader assessment of housing market imbalances.

Exceptional strength in the housing market during the pandemic is underpinning Canada’s economic recovery. However, two key vulnerabilities—housing market imbalances and elevated household indebtedness—have intensified.

We conduct a randomized information experiment leveraging the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations. We provide causal evidence that respondents revise both their short- and medium-term expectations of future house price growth in a way that is consistent with observed short-term momentum in house prices. However, empirically, house price growth tends to revert to its mean in the medium term.