The Canadian Home Builders Association is still awaiting results of recent mortgage rule changes.
CHBA Central Interior President Rob Lemire says it’s still too soon to say whether the tighter mortgage rules have had, or not, a major impact on Kamloops home building and sales.
“A lot of people sort of ran to their mortgage brokers to get their mortgage approved before the January 1st deadline, so still need to wait and see what’s going to happen there.”
Lemire says he’s not sure whether big changes will come.
“We just kind of have to wait and see. We have a busy house market at the moment, which is great. Where we’re probably going to see the effect, is in a bit of a slow down.”
Lemire adds it’ll likely be about another year or two down the road before they really see if the new mortgage rules have had an impact.
The changes include a higher stress test and regulation changes set out- make it tougher for Canadians to qualify for uninsured loans, affecting consumers with down payments of 20% or more.