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[Audio: Upbeat rhythmic music plays.]

[Visual: In a recording studio, Joelle Hamilton and Aled Ab Iorwerth sit in armchairs angled toward each other. Joelle has medium-length brown hair, and she wears a white blouse with black slacks. Aled has short white hair and a moustache, he wears a slate gray suit with a white button-down shirt. Microphones on stands are in front of them, and Joelle has a side table with an open laptop beside her chair.]

[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

What jumped out at you the most in the data?

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[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

Everybody’s been paying a lot of attention to renewal of mortgages, and that is certainly going on. But then, we’re also seeing how Canadians are trying to cope with that renewal wave.

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[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

Canada has long carried one of the highest debts in the G7. Has that changed at all?

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[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

It’s good that it’s not increasing dramatically, but the level of household debt is a serious concern. It’s bigger than the size of the economy.

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[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

So what’s the overall picture for borrower stress heading into 2026?

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[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

Well, I think, overall, if the macroeconomy holds, and Canadians have so far been quite resilient with respect to the macroeconomy, I think the overall picture is relatively stable.

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[Audio: Theme music plays.]

[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC (voiceover)]

You’re listening to In-House, Canada’s Housing Podcast, where we share the latest on Canada’s housing market.

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[Visual: The text box disappears, and the row of houses multiplies into 3 rows. The houses deconstruct, reconstruct and reorient themselves. At the centre, white text reads, “In-House – Canada’s Housing Podcast.”]

00:01:05:00

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[Visual: Joelle sits in the studio. A box with text that reads “Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC” appears briefly.]

Hey everyone, welcome back to In-House. I’m your host, Joelle Hamilton. So today, we’re talking about the spring 2026 Residential Mortgage Industry Report, or “the RMIR” for short. And it’s one of those reports that’s packed with insights, but we’re going to break it down and make it a bit more digestible.

And I’m really happy to have Aled Ab Iorwerth back on the show.

[Visual: Aled sits across from Joelle in the studio. A screen mounted on the wall behind them displays text that reads, “In-House, Canada’s Housing Podcast.”]

He’s one of CMHC’s deputy chief economists and is always really great at helping us make sense of what’s going on in the residential mortgage industry. Welcome back, Aled.

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[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

Thank you. Good to be here.

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[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

We’ve got a lot to talk about. But before we dive into any of the numbers or concrete details, what jumped out at you the most in the data?

00:01:51:00

[Visual: A box with text that reads “Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC” appears briefly.]

[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

As you say, there’s just so much going on. Everybody’s been paying a lot of attention to renewal of mortgages, and that is certainly going on. But then, we’re also seeing how Canadians are trying to cope with that renewal wave and adopting different strategies, moving to variable rates, which we’ll get into a bit later.

So, there’s a lot of those dynamics. But I think this is also happening against a backdrop of a little bit of uncertainty in the macroeconomic context. There’s a challenging international situation.

And so, at the moment, we’re seeing Canadians being resilient with their mortgages. We have concerns. Delinquency rates are going up, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver.

Overall, the mortgage system seems strong, robust, but worth monitoring and worth paying attention to, to try and make sure that risks are contained.

00:02:49:00

[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

I feel like we’ve been talking about renewals or that mortgage renewal wave for at least a few years now. Where do things stand now going into 2026?

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[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

Everybody probably knows the story, but a lot of Canadians took out mortgages in 2020, ’21, ’22. Those are now, under the Canadian system with a traditional 5-year term for the mortgage, those are now coming up for renewal.

And then, people have been opting for shorter terms as well. And again, those are coming up for renewal. I think we have something like one and a half million Canadians renewing their mortgages.

I think we’re past the peak of the wave, or whatever the appropriate metaphor is. I think that overall wave has passed.

Now, there are still risks in the system, maybe particularly given uncertainties over interest rates, and interest rates may be quite a bit higher. There are risks still in there, but I think we’ve passed the peak of the renewal wave at the moment.

00:03:59:00

[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

So Aled, in the fall 2025 report, borrowers were shifting back to fixed-rate mortgages from variable-rate mortgages. Is that still the same this spring?

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[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

Well, what we’re seeing is that Canadians are choosing a variety of strategies. They don’t know which way interest rates are going. There’s a lot of uncertainty, as I said, on the macroeconomic side.

So, I think they’re just exploring all sorts of options to address or to try and lower their interest bill. To do that, they’re having to predict where interest rates, where the economy is going. And so, in this complex environment, they’re developing a range of strategies.

Some think perhaps that interest rates will fall and so will be moving into more variable-rate mortgages. Some people are saying, well, we’re not really sure what’s going to happen, there’s a lot of risk, but we want the certainty of mortgage payments for the next year or 2, and so they’re moving to periods of 2- or 3-year fixed rather than the traditional 5-year fixed.

So, Canadians are exploring a whole range of strategies to try and address this uncertainty over what’s going to happen to interest rates and the economy, and that’s leading to a much more complicated mortgage structure, particularly in this period of less than 5 years that Canada traditionally has had.

00:05:34:00

[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

So, you touched on this a little bit in the brief overview of what stood out most in the report, and it’s about rising delinquency rates. Has that trend changed at all recently, or is it still continuing, that trend up?

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[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

It’s continuing to trend up. Now, we have to be a little bit cautious about interpreting the numbers because, on the one hand, the rate of increase is quite high, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver, where a lot of the housing affordability stresses have been happening. So, the rate of increase of delinquencies is increasing.

Now, on the other hand, the delinquency rate is not particularly high by historical standards. So, if we go back to the pre-pandemic, pre-COVID era, delinquency rates are still within normal bounds. They’ve increased a lot because they were actually quite low.

But it is, again, something that we’re monitoring very closely because if people can’t pay their mortgage, there are significant problems. So, it’s something we’re monitoring, and it’s a little bit of a concern that it’s going up so much in Toronto and Vancouver, in particular.

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[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

Now, I want to take a deeper dive in stress that could be building under the surface. You mentioned that we’re watching specific indicators, like the rise in delinquency rates. But I want to just step back from mortgage numbers and percentages and all that.

Where are we seeing signs of borrower stress or labour market weakness? And what risks does that pose?

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[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

Right. So, again, I’ve sort of been hinting at the macroeconomic situation for quite a while.

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And the real struggle is if there is widespread loss of jobs by Canadians. If a household loses its primary income, loses its labour income, they will struggle to pay the mortgage. This is, to a certain extent, a normal part of the economy, but if there are widespread job losses, then the whole system starts to struggle.

We’re not at that stage yet, but we are monitoring it very closely, and one of the key indicators for us is the unemployment rate. So, if the unemployment rate were to spike significantly – it’s already a little bit high in Toronto – but if the unemployment rate were to spike significantly, that would be a cause of concern, because it would mean a lot of Canadians were not able to service their mortgage.

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[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

I think, based on the report that, if I look here, the national unemployment has reached 6.7% in February of 2026. So, it’ll be really interesting to see, when you come back to talk to us about the fall Rental Market Report, where that number lies. Has it increased? Is it stabilizing, or has it decreased? So, we’ll watch for that.

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[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

Yes, absolutely.

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[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

So you mentioned also that non-mortgage delinquencies were rising. Can you explain exactly what you’re seeing there, and why it matters for the mortgage system, as a whole?

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[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

Right, so Canadians have a wide range of debts. They have credit card debt, they have auto debt, they have mortgage debt. Our concern, principally, at the moment, is with mortgage debt. But in order to try and understand what’s happening in the mortgage system, we look at those other types of debt as well.

As probably everybody knows, if there is 1 debt that you really need to pay, it’s your mortgage, it’s your home, it’s your dwelling. And so safeguarding your home is obviously a primary interest of all mortgage holders.

So, servicing the mortgage is critical, and so Canadians, in general, if they do run into financial difficulties, they will start to stop paying some of the other debts (credit cards, car loans, and so forth… perhaps student debts).

So, it’s important for us to try and see what’s happening to those other debts, because they may be an early indicator of warning of something not going well in the mortgage system.

And when we do look at those other debts, it’s again a little bit of a mixed picture. The delinquency rates, as you were saying, are going up.

Now, on the bright side, they are going up at a slower rate than previously, so it seems that there are challenges in those other lending products, but it’s not deteriorating as much as previously was the case. So, it’s a little bit of a silver lining, but again an area that we will continue to monitor.

00:10:43:00

[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

So, speaking of household debt levels, which you really touched on, Canada has long carried one of the highest debts in the G7. Has that changed at all?

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[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

At the margin, yes. But when you’re talking about numbers that are so big, I don’t know that it’s a meaningful change. It’s good that it’s not increasing dramatically, but the level of household debt is a serious concern. It’s bigger than the size of the economy. And longer term, it’s a real vulnerability if, again, interest rates were to increase substantially.

00:11:17:00

[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

So what’s the overall picture for borrower stress heading into 2026?

00:11:23:00

[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

Well, I think overall, if the macroeconomy holds, and Canadians have so far been quite resilient with respect to the macroeconomy, I think the overall picture is relatively stable. I think the mortgage system overall is working well, but there are pockets of stress that we are looking at.

So, for example, delinquency rates are high, increasing in places like Toronto. That’s an area of concern. Some of the lenders, the mortgage industry entities, delinquency rates seem to be quite high, but they’re a small part of the overall lending system.

So, there are these pockets of risk around the place. The overall system seems okay, but I think we’re continuing to monitor those pockets that I mentioned.

00:12:18:00

[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

Just to wrap up, is there 1 structural signal that you’re watching more closely than others?

00:12:27:00

[Speaker: Aled Ab Iorwerth, Deputy Chief Economist - CMHC]

Well, the unemployment rate is one of the critical ones, but we’re also really going to try and dig into some of the delinquency rates at the local levels, what is going on in Toronto and Vancouver.

00:12:40:00

[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC]

Well, thank you so much, Aled, for joining us today and for walking us through the key findings and key insights of the Residential Mortgage Industry Report.

[Visual: A box with text that reads “SUBSCRIBE” next to a ringing bell symbol appears briefly.]

[Audio: Theme music starts up again.]

It’s always a pleasure to have you in the studio, and I’m looking forward to having you again when we look at what the picture is telling us in the fall.

And thank you to our viewers for joining us In-House. See you next time.

00:13:03:00

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[Speaker: Joelle Hamilton, Communications & Marketing - CMHC (voiceover)]

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