Ontario Mortgage Rates: April 2023

April 2023 -- Canadian Mortgage & Housing Market Snapshot

1) Bank of Canada rate decisions - Date: April 12, 2023 - Decision: No change - Overnight rate: 4.50% - Rationale: The Bank said inflation was easing broadly in line with its forecasts and it would continue to assess whether policy was restrictive enough to bring inflation back to target. It maintained the overnight rate at 4.50%, continuing the conditional pause first signaled in January. - Important context: April 2023 reinforced the sense that the BoC was holding steady while watching inflation, consumer demand, and housing-market reactions.

2) Mortgage rate snapshot -- April 2023 The broad April 2023 mortgage-rate picture was:

• Prime rate: about 6.70%
• Variable rates:
• generally in the high-5% to mid-6% range
• still elevated because the BoC had not begun cutting
• 5-year fixed:
• generally in the mid-4% to low-5% range
• fixed rates remained high historically, though below the peak levels seen in late 2022 in many channels
• Practical takeaway:
• April 2023 remained a restrictive mortgage-rate environment
• but the stable BoC stance gave borrowers somewhat more predictability than in 2022

Caveat: I did not find a single authoritative national source giving an exact Canada-wide “average 5-year fixed” and “average variable” for April 2023 only, so these remain approximate market ranges.

Canada (national) Month-specific reporting for April 2023 showed: - National home sales: down 1.1% month-over-month from March - National average sale price: about $716,828 - up about 2.1% year-over-year - Months of inventory: around 3.8 months - Interpretation: - sales were roughly stable month-over-month - prices had firmed from earlier winter levels - the market looked more like it was stabilizing than continuing to fall

GTA / Ontario proxy For TRREB / GTA April 2023: - Sales: 7,531 - Year-over-year sales change: +5.2% - Average selling price: $1,153,269 - up 4.3% year-over-year - New listings: 11,364 - down 38.3% year-over-year - Interpretation: - GTA activity improved from the winter slowdown - prices had turned back up year-over-year - low listings were a major factor supporting the rebound

Ontario-wide I did not find a clean primary Ontario-wide April 2023 housing dataset in this run that I’m comfortable quoting directly. The strongest Ontario-specific evidence here remains TRREB / GTA.

Major policy development - April 12, 2023: BoC holds at 4.50% - This mattered because: - the market had been expecting a pause to continue - stable rates helped support renewed buyer confidence in some regions - No fresh OSFI, FSRA, or federal mortgage-rule shock clearly stood out in April 2023 in this pass

5) Private / alternative lending -- April 2023 I did not find a clean Ontario-only private-lending data release for April 2023 in this run.

Best month-specific characterization - private / alternative lending likely remained relevant for: - borrowers unable to requalify - borrowers facing high renewal stress - non-standard borrowers priced out of prime channels - But I do not have a clean April-only Ontario metric to quote directly - The main market story was: - stabilization and price firming under still-high rates

Major headlines - April 12: BoC holds at 4.50% - National market stabilizes further - prices rise modestly year-over-year - GTA prices and sales both improve year-over-year - Listings remain very constrained - helping support a rebound despite high borrowing costs

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 2023 mortgage headline in this run

--- ## Bottom line for April 2023 - BoC: held at 4.50% on April 12 - Mortgage rates: remained restrictive, but stable - Housing market: stabilizing and beginning to firm again - Canada: average price about $716,828 - GTA: 7,531 sales, average price $1,153,269 - Policy: the defining April event was the continued BoC pause - Alternative lending: likely still relevant at the margin, but no clean April-only Ontario figure verified

Caveats - You asked for April 2023 only, so I kept this month-specific. - I could verify the BoC April 12 hold 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 2023 only, so the mortgage-rate section remains an approximate market snapshot rather than a precise official average.