Okay, not really.  One of these articles is from Last Friday.
But I wanted to continue yesterday’s mortgage discussion into today as there has been considerable media coverage on the rock-bottom mortgage rates that are offering all kinds of buying opportunities.

Below are two articles about mortgage rates, real estate prices, and the Canadian economy.

“THERE HAS BEEN A BOTTOMING OUT”
By: Gary Marr
Financial Post
Friday, October 15th, 2010

Rock-bottom long-term mortgage rates appear to have handed the housing sector the lifeline it desperately needs, helping to push up sales for a second consecutive month and keep prices from falling.
The Canadian Real Estate Association said Friday sales last month rose 3% from August on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis — highest since May 2010 — and the second straight month sales rose.

Meanwhile, prices have also begun to stabilize as fears of a dramatic meltdown appear to be abating. The average price of a home sold in Canada last month was $331,089, down slightly from the $331,683 average a year ago. But prices were up from a month earlier, when the average was $324,928.

“Supply and demand are rebalancing and that’s keeping prices steady in many markets,” said Georges Pahud, president of CREA.

The other factor keeping the market afloat are interest rates.

The Bank of Canada has signalled it will take a pause on raising its key lending rate which should keep the prime rate at most banks at 3%, affecting any variable rate borrowers.

But it’s consumers on the long end of the borrowing spectrum who appear to be getting a better deal with the five-year term fixed-rate mortgage reaching an all-time low over the past month.

Gary Siegle, the Calgary-based regional manager for mortgage broker Invis Inc., said the standard rate for locking in for five years is now 3.69% but adds some lenders have dropped to as low as 3.39%.

“I’ve been working for 38 years and I don’t recall rates this low ever in my career,” said Mr. Siegle, adding the discount on variable-rate mortgages has dropped to the point that consumers can float with a rate as low as 2.35%.

“The question I wonder about is at these rates is why are people not all over the real estate market?”

CREA said two-thirds of local markets last month posted sales increases with Winnipeg, Calgary and Montreal standing out. However, compared with last year, sales still lag across the country, down 19.8% in September from a year ago.

“Record level sales activity late last year and earlier this year is expected to further stretch year-over-year comparisons in the months ahead,” the group warned.

TD Bank Financial Group economist Shahrzad Mobasher Fard expects falling mortgage rates to be a significant boost for the market for the near future. “They are a factor that cannot be dismissed,” said Ms. Mobasher Fard. “[Current rates] won’t lead to an overheating but it will support further growth in home sales and prices. The last two months of data indicate there has been a bottoming out of home-selling activity and prices.”

Demand is still tepid but there has been a slowdown in new listings, which are 15% off the peak reached in April. The number of months of inventory, which represents the number of months it would take to sell inventories at the current rate of sales activity, was down to 6.6 months in September.

It was the second straight month inventory levels dropped, having stood at 6.9 months in August and 7.2 months in July.

“Mortgage lending rates eased in the third quarter, which helped support sales activity over the past couple of months,” said Gregory Klump, chief economist with CREA.

“Interest rates are going nowhere fast, so home ownership will remain within reach for many home buyers.”

The chief executive for Royal LePage Real Estate Services Ltd. said he was almost a bit relieved to see the latest figures.

“I was pleasantly surprised to see the year-over-year average price flat given the strength of last year’s September results,” said Phil Soper. “I expected a small decline in average price. It has been driven almost entirely by the low cost of money.”

“CANADA’S ECONOMY APPEARS TO BE ON THE MEND” 

 By: Julian Beltrame
www.therecord.comOTTAWA — The Canadian economy appears to be on the mend again after a major stumble earlier this summer that rekindled fears of a possible double-dip recession.Fresh evidence that July may have been an aberration, rather than the beginning of a downward spiral, built Friday as Canadian manufacturing, housing, and U.S. retail sales all came in surprisingly strong.The most dramatic boost came in the unlikeliest place — a strong two per cent jump in the troubled manufacturing sector in August, powered by motor vehicle, petroleum and coal product manufacturers.As well, new orders were up 5.3 per cent in a signal of future activity.

On the heels of better-than-expected export numbers Thursday, fuelled by auto shipments, the data is the first strong news the factory sector has received in months.

Equally important, say analysts, is that the long-idle U.S. consumer is showing signs of reviving, with the third consecutive month of healthy growth coming in September, a 0.6 per cent pickup following gains of 0.7 and 0.5 per cent the previous two months.

After a swoon, the Canadian housing sector is also showing signs of stabilizing. The Canadian Real Estate Association reports home sale activity rose three per cent in September, reaching the highest level since April.

“It’s a great way to end a Friday,” Scotiabank economist Derek Holt said.

“We’ve got a whole Goldilocks round of data with pretty strong growth indicators but no inflation. This is a synchronous upturn in a broad cross-section of indicators that unwinds the synchronous downturn of the prior month.”

With positive data appearing for both August and last month, July appears to have been the low point of the rapid slowdown suffered by the Canadian recovery since it’s quick rebound of last fall and winter months.

Not only did July result in the first real contraction of activity at minus 0.1 per cent, it also ended the string of strong job creation numbers, actually producing the first loss — 9,000 overall and 139,000 full-time — since last year.

Economists caution that while a double dip appears to have been averted, for at least the rest of the year, there is also now signs that the economy is ready to take off.

The Bank of Montreal says the latest data is consistent with growth of about 1.5 per cent during the just completed third quarter — very modest for this early in a recovery cycle from recession.