Canadian housing market is helping to grow confidence

The weakness in Canadian consumer confidence seems to have turned a corner with a leading indicator showing continued gains.

The weekly Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index was up again last week, reading 58.6 compared to 58.3 a month earlier. The 2019 high so far was on July 12 at 59.06 while the weakest reading was 54.15 on February 1.

Bloomberg says this increase is likely due to stronger economic growth, lower borrowing costs, and easing concern about the state of the housing market.

The share of respondents who believe that real estate prices will be higher in 6 months was 43.2%, the highest share since December 2017, just before OSFI tightened the mortgage lending rules.

Canadians are also more confident in job security with 69% feeling at least somewhat secure in their current job; and on the economy there was a narrowing of the gap between optimists and pessimists last week.

But the confidence of Canadian consumers is not universal with Ontario and BC showing strong increases while Quebec and the Prairies was weaker.

Most income and age groups reported higher confidence overall and both renters and homeowners were more optimistic than a week earlier.

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