[URBAN NOTE] "A 'tale of two cities' as Toronto, Vancouver await fallout from mortgage rules"

[rfmcdonald]

CBC News' Andrea Janus reports onon how housing markets in Vancouver and Toronto are at a noteworthy point.

Over the course of two days, real-estate sales figures for the month of October suggested a continuing boom in Toronto with a correction fully underway in Vancouver. Does the West Coast slowdown suggest a coming correction for Canada's largest city?

On Thursday, the Toronto Real Estate Board reported that home sales were up 11.5 per cent in October compared with the same month last year, with the average selling price for all types of homes up 21.1 per cent to $762,975.

In contrast, the day before, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said home sales plummeted by 38.8 per cent last month compared with October 2015. The composite benchmark price for all properties in Metro Vancouver was $919,000, up 24.8 per cent compared with October last year, but a 0.8 per cent drop from September of this year.

Sales in Vancouver have been declining since February, and that market "is in a full-blown correction," says David Madani, senior Canadian economist at Capital Economics.

While the million-dollar question seems to be what effect the new foreign-buyers tax, which only came into effect in August, will have on the Vancouver market, the big test for all markets, according to Madani, will be new mortgage rules brought in last month.