Overcharged CIBC investment clients to get $73M in compensation + MORE Oct 28th

TORONTO – Ottawa will continue to monitor the real estate market and take the necessary actions to ensure that an uptick in interest rates or a decline in home prices don’t threaten the country’s financial stability, Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau said Friday.
“I will continue to act to ensure that household debt levels are sustainable, that lenders are acting prudently and that increases in interest rates or a housing market downturn don’t risk the economic growth we are working so hard to accelerate,” Morneau said in a speech to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
“These are not easy decisions, but I know they are the right thing to do.”
Morneau said he’s “ultimately responsible” for maintaining the stability of the country’s financial system and highlighted mortgage rules as a “key tool” to help him do that.
Since taking office, Morneau has twice moved to stabilize the housing market.
Last December he increased the minimum down payment on the portion of a home worth more than $500,000 — a measure he said was aimed at tackling “pockets of risk” in the Toronto and Vancouver housing markets, where prices have been soaring…

VANCOUVER – The British Columbia government says the rate of foreign investment in Metro Vancouver real estate has fallen to 1.3 per cent since the introduction of a new tax targeting international buyers.
The drop is dramatic compared with the seven-week period before the tax was introduced when foreign buyers accounted for 13.2 per cent of the residential purchases in Metro Vancouver.
The province brought in a 15-per-cent property transfer tax on foreign buyers in Metro Vancouver on Aug. 2 in an effort to cool one of the hottest housing markets in North America.
Between Aug. 2 and Sept. 31, the rate of foreign investment in residential real estate in Metro Vancouver was 1.3 per cent, slightly less than the provincial average of 1.7 per cent.
Since the 15 per cent levy was introduced, the government says it has received $10.1 million in additional taxes paid.
The province says it’s unclear how many transactions that would have occurred in August or September were rushed to be completed in July, and data from the coming months will provide a more accurate picture of how the market is changing…

CIBC investment dealers will pay more than $73 million to compensate clients who were inadvertantly overcharged fees, Ontario’s securities regulator says.

Everyone expected the federal government would tighten mortgage rules to halt risky lending practices and curb unsustainable growth in the housing market. No one expected they’d be so tough. Here’s a look at what’s worrying officials about residential mortgages and which banks are most exposed.

 
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Concerns about foreign investors
snapping up real estate have dominated
headlines recently, but a new report
suggests domestic investors outnumber
foreign buyers in the Greater Toronto
Area’s new condo market ten-to-one.