Ontario Mortgage Rates: December 2020

December 2020 -- Canadian Mortgage & Housing Market Snapshot

1) Bank of Canada rate decisions - Date: December 9, 2020 - Decision: No change - Overnight rate: 0.25% - Rationale: The Bank said Canada’s recovery had been interrupted by the second wave of COVID-19, but vaccines had improved the medium-term outlook. It kept the overnight rate at the effective lower bound of 0.25% and continued quantitative easing, while emphasizing that extraordinary monetary support would remain in place until slack was absorbed and inflation returned sustainably to target. - Important context: This was still firmly a hold + support environment, not a tightening cycle.

2) Mortgage rate snapshot -- December 2020 The broad December 2020 mortgage-rate picture was:

• Prime rate: about 2.45%
• Variable rates:
• generally in the low-2% range
• still based on prime minus lender-specific discounts
• 5-year fixed:
• generally in the very low-2% range
• by late 2020, many highly competitive fixed-rate offers were near the bottom of the cycle to that point
• Practical takeaway:
• December 2020 remained a historically low-rate mortgage environment
• both purchase and refinance demand were still benefiting from very cheap financing

Caveat: I did not find a single authoritative national source giving one exact Canada-wide “average 5-year fixed” and “average variable” for December 2020 only, so these remain approximate market ranges.

Canada (national) Month-specific reporting for December 2020 showed the market finishing the year very strong: - Search-result evidence and market summaries indicate: - national home sales were up about 47.2% year-over-year - National average sale price: about $607,280 - up about 17.1% year-over-year - Months of inventory: around 2 months - Interpretation: - the year ended with unusually tight market conditions - sales stayed very strong and supply remained extremely constrained

GTA / Ontario proxy For TRREB / GTA December 2020: - Sales: 7,180 - Year-over-year sales change: +64.5% - Average selling price: $932,222 - up 13.5% year-over-year - New listings: 4,532 - down 31.5% year-over-year - Interpretation: - GTA activity remained very strong for the time of year - new listings were extremely low - price pressure remained intense

Ontario-wide I did not find a clean primary Ontario-wide December 2020 housing dataset in this run that I’m comfortable quoting directly. The strongest Ontario-specific evidence here remains TRREB / GTA.

4) Regulatory / policy news -- December 2020 I did not verify a major new OSFI, FSRA, or federal mortgage-policy shock landing specifically in December 2020.

Best month-specific characterization - December 2020 policy was mainly: - BoC hold at 0.25% - continued QE / extraordinary support - continued effects of earlier 2020 mortgage-policy changes - No fresh December-only mortgage-rule announcement clearly stood out in this pass

5) Private / alternative lending -- December 2020 I did not find a clean Ontario-only private-lending figure for December 2020 in this run.

Best month-specific characterization - private and alternative lending remained relevant for borrowers outside prime qualification channels - however, the dominant December story remained: - cheap money - surging demand - very low supply - I do not have a clean December-only Ontario private-lending metric to quote

Major headlines - December 9: BoC holds at 0.25% - Housing market closes the year exceptionally strong - national sales and prices remained elevated - GTA sales were unusually high for December - Supply crunch deepens - TRREB new listings were down sharply - inventory constraints continued supporting price growth - Vaccines improve outlook, but restrictions remain - the macro backdrop was still shaped by COVID, even as market sentiment improved

Fraud / court / lender events - I did not find a single clearly dominant mortgage fraud case, lender collapse, or court ruling that I could confidently verify as a defining December 2020 mortgage headline in this run ---

Bottom line for December 2020 - BoC: held at 0.25% on December 9 - Mortgage rates: remained extremely low; fixeds and variables generally stayed in the low-2% range - Housing market: ended 2020 very strong - Canada: average price around $607,280, sales roughly +47.2% YoY - GTA: 7,180 sales, average price $932,222 - Policy: no major new December-only mortgage-policy shock verified - Alternative lending: still relevant, but not the defining market story of the month

Caveats - You asked for December 2020 only, so I kept this month-specific. - I could verify the BoC December 9 hold strongly from the primary source. - I relied on month-specific search-result evidence and secondary summaries for national and GTA market figures; I did not directly extract a clean primary Ontario-wide dataset in this run. - I also did not** find a single authoritative national “average 5-year fixed / average variable” series for December 2020 only, so the mortgage-rate section remains an approximate market snapshot rather than a precise official average.