Bank of Canada praises Canadian investors?

The governor of the Bank of Canada Stephen Poloz may be patting Canadian investors on the back, suggesting there is no current evidence of the kind of dangerous property speculation that would denote "bubble" conditions.

“There are many characteristics of a 'bubble' situation that are not present,” Poloz told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance earlier this week, pointing to highly speculative behaviour as one example; for instance, people buying multiple properties with the sole intent of selling them at a profit in the future.

This example would suggest that flix-and-flip investments are just not plentiful enough in the current market.

Poloz also said that, thanks to historically low interest rates, Canada's housing market actually helped to buoy the country’s economy during the global economic crisis.

“It would be unusual for us to have a cycle like we’ve had where housing did most of the work keeping us out of recession,” he added. “It would be very unusual to come out of that and not have a degree of overvaluation. One has that in every business cycle.”

The latest Nanos Research poll suggests that more Canadians are agreeing with Poloz that the worst is over, particularly when it comes to Canada’s housing market.

The survey for the week ended April 24 showed that optimism among Canadians that the value of real estate is increasing was 38.5 per cent, the highest it has been in 2015.

“There are more indications for households to consider the worst is behind them,” said Robert Lawrie and Peter Savvin of Bloomberg Economics.

“After all, oil prices and the Canadian dollar have stopped falling, and employment and the labour force participation rate appear to be recouping some earlier losses.”