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<\/a>Photo: James Bombales<\/em><\/p>\nLast week, the head of Canada\u2019s housing agency made a startling prediction that home prices could fall up to 18 percent in the next year as a result of the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) President Evan Siddall\u2019s comments during testimony before the House of Commons Finance Committee were widely reported by media across the country (including this publication<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n The media frenzy inspired by the comments was not surprising due to both the source of the warning and the scale of the decline Siddall warned of \u2014 even his low-end prediction was a nine percent price dip. <\/p>\n The CMHC is Canada\u2019s public mortgage insurer and responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars in assets. So when the president of Canada\u2019s largest Crown corporation makes a dire prediction like this one, it gets picked up, not just nationally, but beyond the country\u2019s borders as well. <\/p>\n An article published this week by Australian business daily The Australian Financial Review<\/em>, carried the headline \u2018Canadian housing market to crater amid pandemic<\/a>\u2019 and cited only the CMHC\u2019s recent commentary on the pandemic\u2019s housing market impact.<\/p>\n But since Siddall\u2019s House of Commons testimony was reported, several prominent industry voices have criticized the claim, zeroing in on the potential worst-case scenario 18 percent price drop figure.<\/p>\n