A good chunk of the population needs a weak CPI print next Tuesday. They need a string of weak CPI prints.

That's the only way mortgage rates will trend lower, and it's essential that rates find gravity before long. If they don't, credit defaults could see a nasty acceleration. That is, if you believe a new poll.

Stateside inflation numbers can move Canadian mortgage rates, and today's could do just that.

With the bond market desperate for new clues after worrisomely hot January jobs numbers, U.S. CPI came in mixed today.

Low-cost leads are essential to online mortgage providers, many of which sell at razor thin margins.

Nesto, a direct online lender, knows this as well as anyone. In fact, we hear it tried to buy at least one existing rate comparison site but the terms were not favourable. Now we come to learn it has created its own site.

2022's waterfall in home values and dearth of liquidity may have temporarily killed the property flipping game, but it'll be back someday. And when flipping returns in ernest, CRA will be collecting more tax.

As most have already heard, new anti-flipping tax rules took effect on January 1, 2023. The government publicized that they were meant to "reduce speculative demand." In fact, they were aimed at property flippers attempting to:

This is not what BoC governor Tiff Macklem wanted to see. Canada churned out an estimated 150,000 new jobs in January. That was far more per capita than our southern neighbour's 517,000 print last week, which was stunning in its own right.

Today's gains 10x'd Bay Street expectations of 15,000 jobs, sending Canada's 5-year yield another 11 bps higher as of 12:30 p.m. ET.

After 11 harrowing months of rate tightening borrowers finally got the news they'd been waiting for. On January 25, the BoC announced it was indefinitely pausing rate hikes and moving to the sidelines.

And make no mistake, this pause was no "transitory" moment. No sir.

This time the BoC is confident (somewhat) that the forward guidance it's feeding us will likely pan out. After all, credibility in central banking relies on doing what you've proposed. The last thing Team Macklem wants this time around is to inadvertently mislead Canadian borrowers — again.

The big money questions are now twofold:

1. How long will pause mode last?
2. What's the chance that the next BoC move is a hike, not a cut?

Let's take a quick dive into both topics...

This is the last installment of a 2-part series. The focus is on strategies used by Wowa, one of Canada's fastest growing mortgage sites.

Regardless of what you think of rate comparison sites, if you have any mortgage, real estate or other online marketing interest, employing the following will boost your internet presence.

Below is more of what we gleaned from our exclusive interview with mortgage comparison leader, Dr. Hanif Bayat. Takeaways appear in italics and we've linked to various resources if you want to learn more.

Fixed mortgage rates have run into serious funding cost pressure. Canada's 5-year bond yield and 4-year swap rate were both up another 13 bps Monday.

That leaves us about 25+ bps higher following Friday's U.S. employment numbers, which rose by nearly triple Wall Street estimates.

Investors had become too one-sided in their expectations of rate cuts this fall. Friday's data was a wake-up call. Sudden narrative changes like this can lead to powerful yield moves with ample carry through. In today's case, market rates are rising up to their downtrend line — so they may very well bounce off it (i.e., reverse lower).