OSFI's Melessanakis Asks “Are Canadian banks equipped to handle a 40% drop in home prices?”; Mortgage Broker McLister Retorts “The idea of 40% price drops is 'farcical'”

Previous failures of Canadian financial institutions were due to bad real estate lending and sharp falls in housing prices, and these can happen again, Vlasios Melessanakis, manager of policy development at the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, wrote in documents obtained by Bloomberg News under freedom-of-information law. …
“Canada is not immune,” Melessanakis wrote March 21 in internal notes responding to a posting on a mortgage-industry website. “Just because nothing happened in Canada in 2008 (a U.S.-centered crisis), does not mean that Canada is not vulnerable to a housing correction now.”
Melessanakis wrote his comments to colleagues in response to a posting on a mortgage-industry website, Canadian Mortgage Trends, that criticized proposed standards published by Canada’s top banking regulator on 19 Mar 2012.
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Ottawa-based OSFI suggested requiring lenders to take “reasonable steps” to verify borrower incomes, establish standards for measuring borrowers’ ability to pay their debts, and limit the size of loans secured by the equity in people’s homes. The draft guidelines are based on mortgage-lending principles set by the Financial Stability Board, a Basel-based group that coordinates global financial rules.
“How many new lending ‘guidelines’ can the market bear before it breaks?” wrote Robert McLister, a mortgage planner who edits the website.
“The market may break because the fundamentals are not sound (i.e. overvaluation of homes), not because of OSFI guidance,” Melessanakis wrote in response.
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There’s “no question” the proposed OSFI guidelines will curb demand and hurt housing prices, McLister said in an interview. “OSFI had good intentions here, but some of this policy is certainly misguided,” he said, when asked to react to Melessanakis’ comments.
McLister pointed to banks’ low arrears rates on mortgages as evidence more rules aren’t needed. Melessanakis wasn’t convinced.
“This can change fast,” he wrote in his notes. “Are the banks equipped to handle a 40 percent drop (what occurred in Toronto market in early 1990’s)? Need to stress test to find out.”
McLister called the idea of a 40 percent decline in housing prices across the country “farcical.” Such a decline is “not going to happen, period. But in some places like Vancouver, maybe Toronto, obviously you’re going to have greater risk there of price volatility,” he said by telephone.
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OSFI’s guidelines suggest lenders limit home-equity lines of credit to 65 percent of the property’s value. The regulator also recommends that HELOCs be paid off over a specific amortization period, like conventional mortgages.
While McLister wrote that those rules “portend a big slowdown in HELOCs,” Melessanakis responded that the loans have “contributed significantly to growing overall household debt.”
“This is not sustainable,” he wrote. “If (or when) housing prices drop, households will be vulnerable,” echoing comments made by Flaherty and Carney.
Melessanakis also disputed McLister’s point that many of OSFI’s recommendations are already employed by “scores of lenders.” “Not all, and not on a consistent basis,” the OSFI official said. “There are some enhancements in lending practices that are needed.”
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- from ‘Banks Not Immune to Housing-Related Failures: Corporate Canada’, Bloomberg, 15 May 2012
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Forty percent off is a fair downside target, but we see it going lower.
The ‘farcical’ quote will be archived in the ‘Bull Hubris’ sidebar, for ease of future reference.
- vreaa