Pursuits

Canada's Oil Price Shock Means Better Prairie Borrowers for CMHC

  • Average credit scores of Alberta home buyers is rising
  • Volumes and overall share of mortgages on prairies is down
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The oil price shock has a silver lining for Canada’s state-owned housing agency: the quality of home buyers in energy-rich provinces is actually improving.

The average credit score for a typical Alberta home buyer was 742 for the first three quarters of 2015, up from 740 in the same period a year earlier, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. data published on Friday show. The data refers to “transactional” buyers, those purchasing residential properties containing four or fewer units.