The financial crisis for dummies: Why Canada is immune from a U.S.-style mortgage meltdown
Posted: October 02, 2008, 12:41 PM by Jonathan Kay
Jonathan Kay
I know very little about the world financial markets, or even about basic financial concepts. When Financial Post types talk about EBITDA, I assume they're talking about the baby soybeans they serve you in Japanese restaurants. And yet, I was still able to understand this very reassuring Sept. 25 report from Scotiabank that explains, quite persuasively, why Canada isn't going to suffer the same sort of subprime-mortgage-fueled financial-market meltdown that's wreaked so much havoc in the United States.
To make a simple report even simpler, here are the main points:
-- Less debt. In Canada, household liabilities as a percentage of assets sits at 20% — close to the stable, sustainable level it's been at since the late 1980s. In the United States, the figure sits at 26%, after spiking radically upwards over the last decade (as illustrated in Chart 2 of the report).
-- Less crappy mortgages. Canada's subprime mortgage market (to the extent the bottom end of our mortgage market can even be called "subprime" in the American sense) represents only about one in every 20 mortgages. In the United States, the peak figure was about one in six. Astoundingly, up to a quarter of mortgages issued in the 2004-2006 period were in the subprime category.
-- Less debt, Part 2: In the United States, homeowners' net equity as a percentage of home value has plummeted from around 65% to 45% over the last two decades. with more than half that drop coming since 2000. In Canada, on the other hand, this ratio has remained stable at between 65% and 70% since the 1980s. The phenomenon of mortgages going "underwater" — with homeowners owing the bank more than their homes are worth — is now tragically common in the United States. In Canada, it is virtually unknown.
-- Less off-balance-sheet mortgages. The frenzy of mortgage securitization that gripped the United States in recent years (famously explained/satirized in this comic strip) never really took off here. According to Scotiabank "The majority of mortgages are held on balance sheet in Canada, with only 24% having been securitized." That's huge, because it is the radioactive quality of these securities — many of which contain a tangled welter of mortgages of varying quality — that has really sunk the U.S. credit market: Since no one knows how much these complex instruments are really worth, they still haven't established an equilibrium price level, thereby freezing the credit market for any entity that has a large number of them on their books. (What's more, even those 24% have mostly been securitized through the CMHC, a Crown corp. with government backing.)
-- Smarter bankers, smarter standards. Finally, there is the fact that Canada simply has a different — and more prudent — banking culture: "Unlike many U.S. banks, Canada banks continue to apply prudent underwriting standards. In other words, they have always checked, and continue to check, incomes, verify job status, asks for sales contracts, etc., such that all those qursionts your banker asks in Canada have a purpose that somehow got lost on many American bankers. The no-income-no-job-no-asset ('Ninja') style, here-are-the-keys-to-your-brand-new-home lending just didn't take hold in Canada."
Looking beyond the Scotiabank report, I can see some other factors that should provide Canadians with comfort:
-- No bubble in the housing market: On average, Canadian home prices are roughly 200% what they were in 1989. In the United States, the corresponding ratio peaked at 260% before crashing down to 220%. In Canada, the more typical experience is that of my home, Toronto, which has witnessed steady increases in the 4-5% range every year, but none of the sudden surges and troughs that whipsawed homebuyers in U.S. markets such as Miami have witnessed.
-- Fewer foreclosure notices — a lot fewer. This is the most shocking stat of all. In the United States, a full 4.5% of mortgages are in 90-day arrears (i.e. the local sheriff is ready to move in and tack a notice to the door). In Canada, the figure is one 20th that level — just 0.27%. Amazingly, while the U.S. figure of 4.5% represents a doubling of the 2002 level of 2.2%, Canada's 0.27% level reflects a halving from the (still low) level of 0.5% six years ago.
All in all, what do these figures show? A prudent, risk-averse, well-regulated Canadian real estate and mortgage community that — on both the seller, mortgagor and buyer sides — has avoided the pitfalls swallowing up the United states. It's something that Canadians might want to remember the next time Stéphane Dion or one of the other opposition party leaders starts sputtering fatuously about Stephen Harper's "Bush-style" economic policies.
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Update: Commenter IMacRae added the following very fine comment, citing two other factors I'd missed. The comment is so good that I'm going to haul it up here into the post itself …
Oct 02 2008
2:51 PM
Two other elements play their part.
Most Cdn mortgages are sold by the lender ie. the bank. Since they are lending their own money, credit quality is a factor in the mortgage officer's compensation. In the US, mortgage brokers arrange loans from a variety of sources on a commission basis. This biases the deal to the highest mortgage amount and encourages fudged income numbers on the applicaiton.
Second, the local loan requirements applied to US banks was threatened in Canada but not enacted. This has generated much of the sub-prime portfolio in the lower-income US neighbourhoods. That most of these mortgages end in default should not have surprised anyone, except the rosy-lensed Democrats who had the dumb idea in the first place.