Canada’s largest bank has downgraded its outlook for the housing market and now forecasts a “historic correction,” worse than any national decline seen in this country in the past 40 years.has put the Bank of Canada on a course of aggressive hikes that will take its policy rate to restrictive levels by the fall, wrote RBC assistant chief economist Robert Hogue in the report that came out Friday.
The 42% drop in home sales from the peak in early 2021 will exceed the declines seen in the past four national downturns, Hogue said. In 1981-82 and again in 1989-1990 sales fell 33%; they fell 38% in 2008-09 and 20% in 2016-2018. RBC expects the Bank’s policy rate to reach 3.25% by October — “a big bite for borrowers to swallow that will spoil or delay homeownership plans for many buyers.”
In Quebec, RBC sees home sales falling 16.8% by the end of 2022 and down 6.1% in 2023. Prices are expected to end 2022 7.5% higher than the year before and but then decline 5.1% in 2023.