Formerly known as Show & Sell, The RAZZ Report breaks down trending real estate topics into four pillars:

🧭 [R]esearch
📊 [A]nalysis
🔎 [Z]oom-In
🌐 [Z]oom-Out

In an effort to understand the market as it is… not as it’s sold.

Let’s start with real estate.

In February 2026, sales were down ~6.3% YoY (3,868 transactions)… but new listings fell even harder (~17.7% YoY). That gap matters because it tells you something about behaviour:

That’s why the market can feel simultaneously:

On pricing, the direction is clear:

I don’t this market will have much of a spring in it’s step.

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Next up: the Mortgage Renewal Wave is no longer a forecast

A large volume of Canadian mortgages are set to renew through 2026, with peak volume expected mid‑year (often cited around June 2026).

Why it matters: many borrowers are coming off very low pandemic-era fixed rates (think “low‑1s / low‑2s”), and even after rate declines from the top, renewal rates are still meaningfully higher than what people locked in years ago.

A simple way to show the math:

That payment reset is the “hidden tide” under 2026. Even if prices drift slowly, payments reset quickly.

Oil → Inflation → Bonds → Your Mortgage Rate

Tensions in the Middle East are impacting the production and distribution of oil, via the Strait of Hormuz, where ~20% of the world’s oil passes through on the daily. This led to a mega surge in oil prices, with $CL_F ( ▼ 0.78% ) nearly hitting $120/bbl on Monday.

Then down below $80/bbl on Wednesday.

And now likely to close the week at just shy of ~$100/bbl.

Swings aside, when oil spikes, inflation expectations spike with it.

And when inflation expectations spike, bond yields don’t wait for the Bank of Canada… They move first. The bond market repriced that risk and pushed the 10‑year yield above ~3.5%.

For borrowers, this is the key translation:

Fixed mortgage rates follow bonds… More specifically, most 5‑year fixed mortgages price off the Canada 5‑year yield + a lender spread.

So if bond yields stay elevated, the “rate-cut relief” narrative can stall… and I’m starting to think the banks’ forecast from the last report might end up looking annoyingly accurate.

The "Manageable Shock" Argument

The renewal wave is real. The math is real. But a cliff? Maybe not.

BMO Economics ran the numbers late last year and the picture is more nuanced than the headlines suggest. Canadian households currently hold a record-high $2.50 in liquid assets (cash, equities, bonds) for every $1.00 in financial liability.

That's not nothing.

More importantly: most borrowers renewing in 2026 were originally stress-tested at 4.79% to 5.25% when they first qualified. Their new contracted rates, likely landing in the 3.5% to 4.5% range, will still sit below the worst-case scenario they already qualified through.

In other words: the system tested for this. And most borrowers passed that test before rates were ever this low.

So instead of a cliff, think of it more like a steep hill. Uncomfortable. Real. But not a free fall.

THAT BEING SAID… "manageable" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

"Manageable" assumes stable employment (~84,000 jobs lost last month).

“Manageable” assumes no additional credit stress layered on top ($GSY)

“Manageable” assumes the oil shock doesn't translate into persistent inflation that keeps bond yields elevated through the second half of the year.

Three variables, all in motion simultaneously.

The aggregate data says households can absorb this.

The individual stories I hear about on the daily are a lot messier.

And the individual stories are what show up in delinquency data… which is exactly where the real signal is starting to emerge.

The Early Warning System

Two years ago, the Bank of Canada published a staff analytical paper (not from the BoC itself, from staffers with their own views/opinions) with an uncomfortably precise finding:

If they carry that balance for more than seven months, they are twice as likely to miss a future payment. If they cross the 80% utilization threshold, the likelihood of missing a future debt payment begins to rise at an "increasing rate"….

Last month, the Bank of Canada published another staff analytical paper (again, from staffers, not the BoC itself) with a finding that was even more precise:

It starts two years earlier. With rising credit card utilization.

And it accelerates 12 to 24 months out through missed credit card and auto loan payments. By the time someone misses a mortgage payment, the signal has been broadcasting for years.

Think of it like smoke before fire. If you can smell the smoke, there’s probably a fire.

So what does the current smoke look like?

Enter goeasy Ltd.

This week, shares of goeasy Ltd., Canada's largest publicly traded subprime lender, collapsed ~60% in a single session. The company suspended its dividend, withdrew its full financial outlook, and disclosed ~$331 million in net charge-offs for Q4 2025 alone.

The bulk of the damage: its LendCare vehicle finance unit, which had aggressively underwritten auto and powersports (jetskis, snowmobiles) loans to subprime borrowers during the rate boom.

To be clear: this is not a mortgage story. It's a consumer credit story.

And that's exactly why it matters.

I don’t believe goeasy is the canary in the coal mine for housing directly.

It's the canary in the coal mine for the borrower profile most exposed to the renewal shock.

These are the same households the staff papers were describing above: the ones who quietly leaned harder on consumer credit as financial pressure built.

Credit cards first. Auto loans next. Mortgage later.

What's different now is we have a major subprime lender, in the most intense way possible, confirming that the stress is already here and already material.

When we Zoom-Out, the Canadian real estate story is no longer a unified national narrative… it is a K-shaped regional divergence.

For decades, the GTA and GVA were the undisputed engines of growth, but the latest data shows a definitive split.

The Prairie Labour Fortress

While the national headlines focus on job losses, the Prairies are operating in a different reality. For 2026, Calgary (2.6%) and Edmonton (2.5%) are forecast to lead all major Canadian cities in real GDP growth.

But the real signal is in the labor data: while employment is cratering elsewhere, Alberta's unemployment rate actually fell by 0.1 percentage points to 6.3% in February.

This labor resilience, paired with relative affordability, has made the region a magnet for capital.

Edmonton, specifically, remains the only major market expected to build enough housing supply over the next decade to actually restore pre-pandemic affordability.

Family offices and institutional investors are moving west not just for the energy sector, but because the math of "carrying a life" still works there.

The Stalled Engines: Ontario, BC, and Quebec

In stark contrast, the country’s traditional growth engines are hitting a structural ceiling.

The loss of 84,000 jobs nationally last month was concentrated in the most expensive regions.

Ontario's unemployment rate surged to 7.6%, the highest in the country, while Quebec shed 57,000 jobs in a single month. Even British Columbia, which shares the western geography but the coastal cost-profile, saw employment fall by 20,000.

For the first time in nearly 40 years, Toronto (-0.1%) and Vancouver (-0.4%) are projected to see population declines through 2026.

This is the "cost-of-living ceiling" in action.

And people and businesses are voting with their feet, cars, and u-hauls and moving towards affordability and better quality of life.

The Final Variable: The Paycheque Floor

The "manageable shock" thesis for the mortgage renewal wave only holds as long as people have jobs and paycheques.

If the labour correction accelerates in these high-cost provinces, the "smoke" we see in credit card utilization will inevitably turn into a "fire" in the power of sale market.

Or is it already blazing?

Tough times make tough people and if you’re going through it right now, I’m rooting for you. If there’s anything I can help with, I’d be happy to help.

One of the darker pieces this year but that’s finally it for The Renewal.

If this landed, forward it to someone who's renewing this year. They'll either thank you or never speak to you again.

Best,

Jordan Buttarazzi