THE TAKEAWAY: [Canada existing home sales flat in July] > [Housing market moderating as tighter lending conditions come into effect] > [USDCAD little changed]
Canadian existing home sales remained flat in July, adding to signs that Canada’s real estate boom is starting to moderate. According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, home sales activity was little changed in July from a month ago, while actual sales, not seasonally adjusted, had risen by 3.3 percent from a year earlier. The national average home price fell 2.0 percent in July on a year-on-year basis.
In June, the Canadian government moved to tighten conditions for both homebuyers and mortgage lenders in a bid to deflate a possible housing bubble before it bursts. Today’s data suggests that the pace of housing starts is beginning to moderate as the tighter lending conditions come into effect.
USDCAD 1-minute Chart: August 15, 2012
Chart created using Market Scope – Prepared by Tzu-Wen Chen
The Canadian dollar remained little changed against the U.S. dollar in the minutes following the release of the housing data. At the time this report was written, the USDCAD pair was trading around C$0.9908.
--- Written by Tzu-Wen Chen, DailyFX Research
