Interest rate uncertainty is nothing new, but seldom does it hit the crescendo we're seeing today.

At least during the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and COVID, you knew central banks had to cut.

Today, most talking heads expect lower inflation but it could go either way by year-end, dictated largely by U.S. policy. Trump & co.'s growth agenda could either prove a tailwind for Canadian inflation or a gale-force headwind that blows our GDP into an abyss, or both.

Amid this week's funhouse of uncertainty, one Big 6 bank economist countered the chaos with an outlook as sharp as a bowling ball:

“Canada's economy will either improve this year or slide into a moderate recession—it all depends on which way the tariff winds blow.”

Blink twice if that clears everything up.

Economists are so mystified they aren't even trying to pretend they have answers. This bank's forecast is the personal finance version of “maybe bring an umbrella”—technically true, functionally unsatisfying, and somehow forgivable.

If there’s anything the 2025 tariff circus reinforced, it’s that even the best-paid macroeconomists with their Ivy League spreadsheets can't predict whether we'll be sipping champagne in two months or hoarding canned beans.

But this isn't the first time a crisis has tossed the outlook like a salad, and it won't be the last.

Whether it’s a pandemic, banking system fiasco, real estate bubble, oil shock, currency devaluation, sovereign debt crisis, or tactless coercion from your biggest trading partner, mortgage rates have always been subject to economic upheavals.

The conundrum is: How do you pick a mortgage term when the rate forecast has the stability of a housecat on a Roomba?

The answer is, we bet on what is knowable.

For instance:
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Duty-free cross-border trade now rests in the same grave as common sense. In a fit of diplomatic dementia, Trump is slapping wildly disproportionate, self-sabotaging, bullying import taxes on Canada, its most loyal ally and the biggest buyer of its goods.

"There is no justification whatsoever for these tariffs or this treatment," Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said today in a rebuke of the U.S. administration.

"It defies economic logic," added former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. "Just about all economists agree" these tariffs are a mistake, and "it takes a lot to unite the economics profession," he told CNN.

That's why so many expected, and still expect, this to be a gambit by the White House. However, we may be wrong to assume that rationality resonates with a man who treats international policy like his second divorce settlement.

While the repercussions reach well beyond real estate finance, we'll leave those discussions for others. Here, we'll unpack how this misguided trade policy could ripple through Canada's mortgage and real estate markets.
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At Wednesday's press conference, a reporter asked BoC Chief Tiff Macklem what he'll be doing on Saturday morning, when Trump is expected to hit us with tariffs. Rest assured, he won’t be binge-watching Looney Tunes.

Nope. Instead, he'll be "watching the news," he said, pondering how inflation would react to a U.S.-instigated trade scuffle. And so far, he's not sure.

The BoC admits that even its crack team of model-tweaking PhDs can't predict how inflation will pan out in a 25% tariff situation. For Joe and Jane Mortgagor, what chance do they have to get the rate outlook right: 50/50 if they guess?

All this uncertainty makes mortgage term selection like picking a favourite child—tricky, but not impossible.

VC-backed online mortgage provider, Pine, is piloting a new offering from Zown that boosts buyers' down payments and gives them extra cash for closing costs.

The program uses a well-worn strategy to put money in the buyer's pocket, but it has a few twists. Today, we examine whether the program is just marketing razzle-dazzle or a genuine boon for homebuyers.