MLN NewsStream

CIBC has quietly pulled the plug on the mortgage origination business at its digital banking arm, Simplii Financial. The guillotine dropped on June 19.

As your devoted chronicler has reported for weeks, fewer borrowers are biting on variables.

According to the latest official numbers for chartered banks, floating-rate market share fell in April from 43% to 40%. And it should drop again in May.

If you're a successful mortgage originator, you may be considering hiring help to call clients or manage inquiries.

Or, you could skip the resumes, interviews, HR paperwork and salary, and adopt someone like Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is less hire and more wire. She's a clever, affable bot with a voice so human you’d swear she’s got a coffee mug and a desk, not a server rack.

Elizabeth works for Vince Gaetano, Principal Broker/Owner at OwlMortgage.ca, where she’s redefining client service with digital flair. Vince, who gets a ton of social media inquiries, "hired" her to help manage a flood of incoming leads, but as you're about to see, that's just the opening act. She and her silicon sisters are so powerful, they're rewriting the future of broker assistants, and here's why that future is now.

For decades now, CREA has cranked out its hotly-awaited monthly real estate report. Economists, journalists, and talking heads swarm these stats like seagulls to a chip truck, each squawking their own quick take.

MLN's monthly ritual is to take enough time to scan the full horizon; spotting trends that aren't obvious on the surface. The goal is to distill it all down into bite-sized clues for the market's next moves.

That leads us to the latest May and June figures, still fresh from the oven and steaming with implications. On a macro basis, Canada's housing numbers have less upward momentum than a vegan restaurant in Alberta — but at least they're stable.

Sales and prices are hanging in there, a small wonder given 2025's sentiment deterioration. But we can't relax yet—the forecast calls for choppy seas ahead.