Ontario Mortgage Rates: April 2022

April 2022 -- Canadian Mortgage & Housing Market Snapshot

1) Bank of Canada rate decisions - Date: April 13, 2022 - Decision: Rate hike - Overnight rate: 0.50% → 1.00% - Change: +50 basis points - Rationale: The Bank said inflation was much higher and broader than expected, the economy was operating in excess demand, and interest rates needed to rise further. It also announced the start of quantitative tightening (QT), ending reinvestment of maturing Government of Canada bonds. - Important context: April 2022 was a major tightening month: - a 50 bp hike - plus the start of QT

2) Mortgage rate snapshot -- April 2022 The broad April 2022 mortgage-rate picture was: - Prime rate: moved up from about 2.70% to around 3.20% after the April 13 hike - Variable rates: - rose further with prime - generally moved into the upper-2% to low-3% range, depending on lender discounts - 5-year fixed: - generally in the mid-3% to low-4% range - fixed rates had repriced substantially upward as bond yields moved sharply higher - Practical takeaway: - April 2022 was a major rate-reset month - borrowers now saw a visibly different financing environment than just a few months earlier

Caveat: I did not find a single authoritative national source giving one exact Canada-wide “average 5-year fixed” and “average variable” for April 2022 only, so these remain approximate market ranges.

Canada (national) Month-specific reporting for April 2022 showed a more meaningful slowdown: - National home sales: down 12.6% month-over-month from March - National average sale price: about $746,146 - up about 7.4% year-over-year - Months of inventory: around 2.2 months - Interpretation: - the market was clearly cooling as financing costs rose - prices were still high, but the pace of activity was softening more noticeably

GTA / Ontario proxy For TRREB / GTA April 2022: - Sales: 8,008 - Year-over-year sales change: -41.2% - Average selling price: $1,254,436 - up 15.0% year-over-year - New listings: 18,413 - down 3.0% year-over-year - Interpretation: - GTA sales fell sharply from the prior year’s extreme levels - average prices remained very high, but the market was clearly losing momentum - April 2022 became one of the first obvious “cooling” months in the Ontario/GTA market

Ontario-wide I did not find a clean primary Ontario-wide April 2022 housing dataset in this run that I’m comfortable quoting directly. The strongest Ontario-specific evidence here remains TRREB / GTA.

Bank of Canada tightening - April 13, 2022 - BoC raised rates by 50 bps - overnight rate moved to 1.00% - BoC also began quantitative tightening - This was the key mortgage-policy development of the month ### Federal housing policy - The 2022 federal budget was tabled on April 7, 2022 - Housing-related measures included: - a two-year ban on foreign homebuyers (proposed) - tax/anti-flipping measures - affordability and supply initiatives - This was one of the biggest housing-policy headlines of the month

OSFI / FSRA - I did not verify a major separate OSFI or FSRA mortgage-rule shock landing specifically in April 2022 that rivaled the BoC move and federal budget measures

5) Private / alternative lending -- April 2022 I did not find a clean Ontario-only private-lending data release for April 2022 in this run.

Best month-specific characterization - rising rates and tightening affordability likely increased stress for: - highly leveraged borrowers - borrowers renewing expectations around payment shock - borrowers outside prime qualification - That environment tends to increase the relevance of alternative/private lenders at the margin - But I do not have a clean April-only Ontario metric to quote directly

Major headlines - April 13: BoC hikes 50 bps and starts QT - April 7: federal budget introduces major housing-affordability measures - Housing market cools sharply - national sales down 12.6% MoM - GTA sales down 41.2% YoY - Prices remain very high - national average still around $746,146 - GTA average still above $1.25 million ### What defined April 2022 The defining themes were: - rapidly rising borrowing costs - policy tightening - early meaningful housing-market slowdown - still-extreme price levels despite cooling activity

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 April 2022 mortgage headline in this run

Bottom line for April 2022 - BoC: hiked from 0.50% to 1.00% on April 13 and started QT - Mortgage rates: moved materially higher; variable rates rose with prime and fixed rates repriced sharply - Housing market: cooling noticeably - Canada: average price about $746,146 - GTA: 8,008 sales, average price $1,254,436 - Policy: biggest April developments were the BoC 50 bp hike + QT and the April 7 federal budget - Alternative lending: likely more relevant at the margin, but no clean April-only Ontario figure verified

Caveats - You asked for April 2022 only, so I kept this month-specific. - I could verify the BoC April 13 hike + QT start strongly from the primary source. - I relied on month-specific market reporting and search-result evidence for national and GTA 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 April 2022 only, so the mortgage-rate section remains an approximate market snapshot rather than a precise official average.