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Rate Watch, week of October 12: this round-up covers the ISO week that began on Monday October 12, and it now covers Monday October 12 through Friday October 16. It was opened on Tuesday October 13, extended on Thursday October 15 and extended again on Friday October 16. The week-of-October-5 round-up was extended on October 13 to cover Sunday October 11, which closed that week, and nothing here revisits it. Three of these five days carried a release this page scans that has an entry of its own: the National Association of Realtors published September Existing-Home Sales at 10 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday October 13, Statistics Canada published August building permits on Wednesday October 14, and on Friday October 16 the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation published September housing starts while the Canadian Real Estate Association published its September resale package, which share the entry above. Thursday October 15 carried Freddie Mac's weekly survey, which is recorded here rather than in an entry of its own. What follows is the rate and calendar record for the five days. Monday October 12 was Thanksgiving Day and a national holiday, and Statistics Canada published no Daily at all. That is a read rather than an assumption: the first lettered release for that date was requested on Tuesday October 13 and returned a 404, which is how a day with no releases presents. Canadian markets were closed that day. Tuesday October 13 carried two releases and neither is a housing document. The first is the Leading indicator of international arrivals to Canada for September 2026 and the second is the Electric Power Selling Price Index for August 2026. The third letter returned a 404, so that day held exactly two. Wednesday October 14 held three releases. The first is Building permits for August 2026, the midweek Canadian housing document and the subject of its own entry here. The second is a study on quality of life among persons with disabilities in Canada and the third a study on access to health care and services among official language minority populations. The fourth letter returned a 404, so the day held exactly three. Thursday October 15 held seven releases and not one of them is a housing document: the Monthly Survey of Manufacturing for August 2026, Wholesale trade for August 2026, a study of disparities in decision and sentencing outcomes between Indigenous and White accused, New motor vehicle sales for August 2026, the Retail Services Price Index for August 2026, the Wholesale Services Price Index for August 2026, and an interactive dashboard on employment by industry in rural Canada for September 2026. Friday October 16 held four releases and none of those is a housing document either: Canada's international transactions in securities for August 2026, Electricity supply and disposition for 2025 on a preliminary basis, Electric power thermal generating station fuel consumption for 2025 on a preliminary basis, and Higher Education Expenditures on Research and Development. The fifth letter returned a 404 on its first request, so the day held exactly four. One reading note on that enumeration, because it is a property of the walk rather than of any one day. The eighth letter for Thursday October 15 returned a 503 on the first request, not a 404. A 503 is a server declining to answer, and it is not the terminator this letter walk depends on, so reading it as the end of the day would have been a guess dressed as a read. It was requested again and returned a 404, and that second read is what makes seven the count for that day rather than a floor. Friday October 16 needed no such second request. Freddie Mac published its weekly mortgage survey on Thursday October 15 at 12 p.m. Eastern, and the number that did not move is the story. The thirty-year fixed-rate average for the week ending October 15 was 7.40%, unchanged from the week ending October 8, and the survey's own commentary leads on that word, reporting that the average thirty-year fixed-rate mortgage remained unchanged for the week. The fifteen-year average was 6.71%, down from 6.73% the week before. A year earlier those two averages were 6.27% and 5.52%, so the thirty-year sat 113 basis points above its year-ago level and the fifteen-year 119 basis points above its own. That rate history file was read again on Friday October 16 and still ended at the week ending October 15, which is expected for a weekly series whose next print falls on Thursday October 22. What ended on that print is a run. Reading the survey's rate history file on Thursday October 15, the thirty-year had risen in seven consecutive weekly prints from the 6.65% of the week ending August 20 - 6.66%, 6.71%, 6.76%, 6.95%, 7.03%, 7.28% and 7.40% - and the week ending October 15 held at 7.40% rather than falling. So the increases stopped and the level did not come down with them. Those two prints at 7.40% were the only two readings of 2026 at or above that figure, and the nearest earlier one anywhere in that file was the 7.44% of the week ending November 16, 2023; the lowest thirty-year print of 2026 had been the 5.98% of the week ending February 26. The fifteen-year's two-basis-point fall is the first decline in that series since the week ending August 20, eight prints earlier, and it followed seven consecutive increases of its own. One methodology note, because it changes what the date on this print means. Freddie Mac states that its results are an average of loan rates offered the prior Thursday through Wednesday, so the week-ending-October-15 figure describes offers made between October 8 and October 14 rather than rates a borrower could have taken on the Thursday it was published. On the Canadian side the benchmark that prices fixed mortgages did not move at all across this window, and one detail of that is worth stating precisely. The Bank of Canada's five-year Government of Canada benchmark series was read twice on Friday October 16, at 8:47 and at 8:49 Eastern, and at both of those reads its newest observation was Wednesday October 14 at 3.55%, with Tuesday October 13 at the same 3.55%. Both sat one basis point above the 3.54% that Friday October 9 had closed at. No observation for Thursday October 15 had been posted at either of those two Friday reads, and no observation for Monday October 12 appeared at all, which the holiday accounts for and which the previous read had already established. Of the nine October sessions posted at those reads, the 3.54% of Friday October 9 had been the lowest and the 3.63% of Monday October 5 the highest. Nothing in that series had changed between the Thursday read and the two Friday ones. The Bank's policy rate was 2.25% through this window, which is the figure the indicators strip above carries. Why that benchmark is the number a Canadian borrower should watch rather than the policy rate: Canadian fixed mortgage rates are priced off Government of Canada bond yields, and only variable rates track the overnight rate. A borrower renewing into a five-year fixed term is exposed to the first number, and a borrower on a variable rate is exposed to the second. The broker table did not move on the Friday, and this read could see further down it than the previous one. Ratehub's comparison table for five-year fixed mortgages, read on Friday October 16, carried its own stamp of October 15, 2026 at 8:13 p.m., so it had been refreshed after the Thursday read rather than left to go stale. Its top five rungs were identical to the Thursday read: 4.34% against an entry listed as a Canadian Lender, 4.59% at Meridian Credit Union, 4.69% against the generic Big 6 Bank entry, 4.69% at Alterna Savings and 4.84% at RBC Royal Bank. So the fifteen-basis-point rise in the cheapest big-bank quote that the Thursday read recorded was not followed by a second move, and the thirty-five-basis-point distance between the leader and the cheapest big-bank quote held. The rungs below the visible five were readable on the Friday and are recorded here for the first time: National Bank of Canada and Tangerine at 4.84%, Equitable Bank, Scotiabank, CMLS Financial and Canwise at 4.89%, First National and CIBC at 4.99%, TD Bank at 5.04%, MCAP at 5.09%, Bank of Montreal at 5.19% and ICICI Bank Canada at 5.99%. One reading note on that page, because a fifth entry has now recorded it and the gap has widened again. The written commentary above the table still said that as of September 8, 2026 Scotiabank offered the lowest five-year fixed mortgage rate at 4.29%. On the Friday read Scotiabank's own rung on the table beneath that sentence was 4.89%, sixty basis points above the figure the prose names, and it was the eighth cheapest rung rather than the first. A separate line on the same page, dated October 16, 2026, read 4.34% for the lowest available high-ratio five-year fixed rate and 3.43% for the lowest variable rate, and that line agrees with the table. So the page carried a dated claim that was consistent with its own table and an older prose claim that was not. The table carries a timestamp and the prose does not. Read the table. The closing diff over Friday October 16, by source, in both directions. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation published September housing starts at 8:15 Eastern, which has its own entry above; only the housing-starts-construction-data slug returned a 200, and the older housing-starts slug shape returned a 404 on the same morning, which is the slug-shape note on this desk holding for a fifth month. The Canadian Real Estate Association published its September resale package at 5 a.m. Eastern, also covered above; its quarterly forecast, due the same morning on a date read off the July release's own closing line, had not been published when that page was read at 8:50 Eastern and is owed to the next entry; this desk's calendar puts it at 10 a.m. Eastern but neither page states an hour. Statistics Canada's four Friday releases are enumerated above and none is a housing document, and the September Consumer Price Index remained ahead of this window on Monday October 19. The Bank of Canada's press-release, speeches and publications indexes were all read on Friday October 16, and the newest October-dated item on any of the three was still Thursday October 8, the demographic-change explainer which already has its own October 8 entry here. Freddie Mac's history file is addressed above. The National Association of Realtors' newsroom was read on the Friday and carried no item dated between October 10 and October 19; its September Pending Home Sales Index falls on Tuesday October 20. The Census Bureau had nothing due: September New Residential Construction falls on Tuesday October 20 and September New Residential Sales on Tuesday October 27, and the bureau's economic-indicators page read on the Friday still carried August 2026 construction spending of $2,203.1 billion, up 0.9%, as its newest figure for that product, which this page has already covered. The Federal Reserve's press-release index was read on the Friday by href shape rather than by date text, and its newest item was still the October 13 discount-rate minutes this round-up already named and carried as no finding; nothing was dated October 14 to 16. The Bank of Canada's upcoming-events page is the one source on that list with something to name for the Friday, and it is named here as a pending item rather than as a finding. That page carried two Bank appearances dated October 16, 2026: a panel featuring Governor Tiff Macklem at the International Monetary Fund in Bangkok, Thailand, and a fireside chat featuring External Deputy Governor Michelle Alexopoulos at the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary's University in Halifax. Neither is a statistical release and no text from either had appeared on the Bank's speeches, press-release or publications indexes at the Friday read, which is why nothing from them is reported here. If remarks from either are published they belong to the next entry. Read the other way, from the hosts this entry cites back to the release calendar this desk keeps, the diff is clean with the two standing exceptions this page has already recorded: Reuters, a continuous wire rather than a scheduled print and never the only source here for a figure a primary publisher states directly, and Ratehub, a comparison table carrying its own update stamp rather than a release on any calendar. The previous read left three items open by name and two of them close here. It recorded that the Canadian Real Estate Association's September resale package and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's September housing starts were both still ahead of the window; both published on Friday October 16 and share the entry above. It also recorded that Statistics Canada's September Consumer Price Index was set for Monday October 19, read off that agency's own Consumer Price Index Portal, with no hour stated; that release is still ahead of this window, and August 2026 remained the newest published reference month through all five days, which is the vintage the inflation figure in the indicators strip above carries. No Consumer Price Index release appeared in any of the five Dailies this entry enumerated. Ahead of the next entry, in date order, each hour as the source itself states it. The Canadian Real Estate Association's quarterly forecast, which was due on Friday October 16 and had not published at this entry's read, with no hour stated by the association itself. Statistics Canada's September Consumer Price Index on Monday October 19, with no hour read for it. The Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey and Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations on Monday October 19 at 11:30 Eastern, read off the Bank's own upcoming-events page on Friday October 16. New Residential Construction for September from the Census Bureau on Tuesday October 20 at 8:30 Eastern, and the National Association of Realtors' September Pending Home Sales Index on the same day at 10 a.m. Eastern. Freddie Mac's next weekly mortgage survey on Thursday October 22 at 12:00 Eastern. The Federal Housing Finance Agency's monthly House Price Index on Tuesday October 27, read off that agency's own published release-date table and covering data through August 2026, with its release hour still unverified by this desk, and S&P Global's Case-Shiller indices on the same date on a last-Tuesday convention rather than a published rule, with that publisher's hour unverified as well. New Residential Sales for September on Tuesday October 27 at 10:00 Eastern and third-quarter Housing Vacancies and Homeownership on Wednesday October 28 at 10:00 Eastern. The Bank of Canada's interest rate announcement with a Monetary Policy Report on Wednesday October 28 at 09:45 Eastern, read off the Bank's own upcoming-events page on Friday October 16. The association's third-quarter Metro Home Prices on Thursday October 29 at 10 a.m. Eastern. September construction spending on Monday November 2 at 10:00 Eastern. Two labour prints follow on Friday November 6, and they are two obligations on two schedules that happen to coincide this time rather than one shared morning: the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Employment Situation for October at 08:30 Eastern, read off that bureau's own reference-month table, and Statistics Canada's October Labour Force Survey at 08:30 Eastern, read off the September release's own next-release line. On Tuesday November 10 the Bank of Canada publishes its Summary of Deliberations for the October 28 announcement. Statistics Canada's September building permits on Thursday November 12, read off the August release in hand, and the association's October Existing-Home Sales on that same day at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's October housing starts on Tuesday November 17 at 8:15 Eastern and the association's October resale package on that same day, both read off the releases published on Friday October 16. And on Wednesday November 18 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, the next set of Federal Open Market Committee minutes. Decide on your own numbers rather than on the calendar. The Maple Syrup Money mortgage payment, affordability and stress-test, and rent-vs-buy calculators at maplesyrupmoney.com/tools/residential turn a 4.34% fixed into a real monthly payment, and the commercial and investing calculators, cap rate, cash-on-cash, DSCR and the cash flow analyzer, at maplesyrupmoney.com/tools/commercial do the same for income property. Not financial advice. For educational purposes only.

Statistics Canada published Building permits for August 2026 on Wednesday October 14, and it is the one Canadian housing release of this window. The total value of permits issued across Canada rose $1.1 billion, or 8.8%, to $13.6 billion. On a constant dollar basis, which strips construction price inflation out and is indexed to 2023, the total grew 8.6% from the previous month and stood 12.4% above the same month a year earlier. The rebound is almost entirely residential, and almost entirely one kind of residential. Residential construction intentions rose $1.1 billion to $8.5 billion, while the non-residential sector was little changed at $5.1 billion, down $29.8 million. Inside the residential figure the multi-unit component rose $1.1 billion to $5.8 billion and the single-family component edged down $0.7 million to $2.6 billion. So the entire national increase sits in apartments, condominiums and other multi-unit buildings, and detached houses did not participate in it at all. The unit counts say the same thing in a different unit of measure. Across Canada 21,800 multi-unit dwellings and 4,000 single-family dwellings were authorized in August, up 12.8% from the previous month. That is roughly five and a half multi-unit dwellings authorized for every single-family one. One figure in this release points the other way from its own headline, and it is the part worth carrying. Over the twelve months from September 2025 to August 2026, the total number of multi-unit and single-family dwellings authorized was 299,500, down from 305,500 in the preceding twelve-month period. A permit is an intention rather than a shovel, and a strong single month sitting inside a weaker trailing year describes volatility rather than a recovery. The revision note matters here too, because this page carries the July figure. When July 2026 permits were published in September, this page recorded the total value falling $2.6 billion, or 17.3%, to $12.2 billion. The August release states that seasonally adjusted data in current dollars were revised for the previous two months, and $13.6 billion less the stated $1.1 billion increase puts the revised July level near $12.5 billion. So July's fall was shallower than it first printed, and the August gain is measured against the revised number rather than against the $12.2 billion. Ontario led the multi-unit gains at $696.0 million, followed by British Columbia at $189.8 million and Alberta at $115.9 million, with seven provinces and two territories contributing to the increase. The single-family decline was led by Alberta at $32.7 million, the Northwest Territories at $10.9 million and Manitoba at $7.9 million. By province, the monthly change was an increase of 26.9% in Manitoba, 21.7% in Alberta, 21.0% in Nova Scotia, 15.9% in Saskatchewan, 9.4% in Ontario, 7.5% in British Columbia and 3.9% in Quebec, and a decrease of 35.6% in New Brunswick, 14.6% in Newfoundland and Labrador and 12.2% in Prince Edward Island. Ontario at $5.1 billion, Quebec at $2.9 billion, British Columbia at $2.1 billion and Alberta at $2.0 billion carry most of the national total between them. The non-residential side moved in two directions at once. The commercial component fell $380.0 million to $2.2 billion, led down by Quebec at $317.4 million and British Columbia at $122.0 million, with Alberta tempering the decline by $95.4 million. That was largely offset by the industrial component, up $317.3 million to $1.1 billion on gains led by Alberta at $169.3 million and Quebec at $134.8 million, and by the institutional component, up $32.9 million to $1.8 billion on Quebec at $188.5 million and British Columbia at $68.3 million, with Ontario tempering that increase by $211.2 million. What this release is not: it is not housing starts. A permit is a municipality authorizing construction and a start is ground actually being broken, and the two can say opposite things about the same month. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's September housing starts were due on or about Friday October 16 at 8:15 Eastern, after this entry, and that is the figure to read next to this one. Permit data for September 2026 will be released on Thursday November 12, read off this release's own next-release line. Decide on your own numbers rather than on the national totals. The Maple Syrup Money mortgage payment, affordability and stress-test, and rent-vs-buy calculators at maplesyrupmoney.com/tools/residential turn a rate into a real monthly payment, and the commercial and investing calculators, cap rate, cash-on-cash, DSCR and the cash flow analyzer, at maplesyrupmoney.com/tools/commercial do the same for income property. Not financial advice. For educational purposes only.

The National Association of Realtors published its September Existing-Home Sales report on Tuesday October 13 at 10 a.m. Eastern, and it is the largest American housing document of this window. Sales rose 1.5% from August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.99 million, and fell 2.2% from September 2025. The association's chief economist, Lawrence Yun, put the monthly gain in its place in the release itself: August and September were the two slowest months for home sales this year, and the small rise between them does not change that. Month over month, sales rose in the South and the West, held steady in the Midwest and fell in the Northeast. Year over year they fell in all four regions. Supply is the part of this release that moved most. Total housing inventory reached 1.60 million units, up 1.9% from August and 4.6% from a year earlier, and unsold inventory represented a 4.8-month supply, unchanged from August but up from 4.5 months a year ago. The median time on market was 33 days, up from 31 days in August and unchanged from September 2025. Yun's reading of that combination is that higher inventory and longer listing times give buyers more negotiating power, and that sellers need to be realistic about local conditions, which could mean price discounts or other incentives. Prices did not follow supply. The median existing-home price for all housing types was $417,500, up 1.3% from $412,300 a year earlier, which is the thirty-ninth consecutive month of year-over-year price increases. The Housing Affordability Index registered 105.4, down from 106.7 one year ago, and affordability fell year over year in three of the four regions: 4.5% in the Northeast, 3.1% in the Midwest and 0.4% in the South, while the West improved 1.0%. The two property types went opposite ways. Single-family sales rose 2.0% from August to an annual rate of 3.64 million, down 1.9% from September 2025, with a median price of $422,700, up 1.2% year over year. Condominium and co-op sales fell 2.8% from August to an annual rate of 350,000, down 5.4% from a year earlier, with a median price of $363,700, also up 1.2%. By region, the Northeast fell 2.1% from August to an annual rate of 470,000 and 4.1% from a year ago, with the highest median price of the four at $523,600 and the fastest annual price growth at 4.7%. The Midwest was unchanged from August at 930,000, down 2.1% year over year, median $329,600 and up 3.1%. The South rose 2.8% to 1.86 million, down 0.5% year over year, median $361,000 and up only 0.2%. The West rose 2.8% to 730,000, the steepest annual decline of the four at 5.2%, median $613,600, and the only region where the median price fell from a year earlier, by 0.3%. Who is buying changed as well. First-time buyers were 31% of sales, up from 30% in August and 30% a year ago. Cash buyers were 27% of transactions, unchanged from August and down from 30% a year earlier. Individual investors and second-home buyers were 20% of transactions, up sharply from 15% both in August and a year ago. Distressed sales were 2%, unchanged on both comparisons. There is one timing point in this release that matters more than any single figure in it, and the release supplies it. The association reports that Freddie Mac's thirty-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.86% across September, up from 6.67% in August and 6.35% a year earlier. Existing-home sales are counted at closing, so September's 3.99 million annual rate reflects contracts signed several weeks before that, at rates lower still. The same weekly survey printed 7.40% for the week ending October 8. So the rate increase Yun names as the reason fewer buyers can qualify is not yet inside these numbers. It arrives in the October and November prints. For a Canadian reader the comparison is a term apart and should not be read as like for like. The lowest advertised five-year fixed rate on the Canadian comparison table, read on Tuesday October 13, was 4.34%, which is 306 basis points under the American thirty-year weekly average for the week ending October 8. But a five-year Canadian term and a thirty-year American one are different products carrying different renewal risk: the Canadian borrower re-prices in five years at whatever rates then are, and the American borrower does not. The gap between the two headline numbers is not a measure of which borrower is better off over the life of the loan. Existing-Home Sales for October 2026 will be released on Thursday November 12, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, read off the September release's own next-release line. Decide on your own numbers rather than on the regional averages. The Maple Syrup Money mortgage payment, affordability and stress-test, and rent-vs-buy calculators at maplesyrupmoney.com/tools/residential turn a rate into a real monthly payment. Not financial advice. For educational purposes only.

Rate Watch, week of October 5: this entry opens a fresh round-up for the ISO week that began on Monday October 5, and it covers Monday October 5 through Sunday October 11, which is the whole of that week. It was opened on Thursday October 8, extended on Saturday October 10 to cover Friday October 9 and Saturday October 10 itself, and extended again on Tuesday October 13 to cover Sunday October 11 and close the week. The week-of-September-28 round-up closed itself on Sunday October 4 and nothing here revisits it. Three of the first four days passed without a single housing, mortgage or rates figure from any source this page scans. Thursday October 8 carried two of them. Freddie Mac's weekly mortgage survey rose for a seventh consecutive week, to the highest thirty-year fixed average that survey had printed since 2023, and the Federal Open Market Committee published the minutes of its September meeting, a rates document that had been on no schedule this desk works from until Wednesday October 7. Friday October 9 then brought the two largest documents of the week, and only one of them is a housing document. Statistics Canada published the September Labour Force Survey, a labour print rather than a housing one, which recorded a second consecutive monthly decline in employment and is read in the labour paragraph below because it moves the unemployment figure in the indicators strip above. The Federal Reserve Board published the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, which is about American homeownership and household debt and has its own October 9 entry on this page rather than a paragraph in this one. Saturday October 10 brought nothing from any source here, and neither did Sunday October 11, the day that closed the ISO week. On the Canadian side one lender raised its advertised five-year fixed rate inside the window and the cheapest big-bank quote on the broker table moved up twenty basis points on a Wednesday-evening refresh, after which the whole ladder sat still through the Friday and the Saturday, while the five-year Government of Canada benchmark gave back ground on the Friday October 2 session, took more than all of it back on the Monday, and finished the sessions that had been posted by the Saturday October 10 read three basis points under that Monday close. Three items the previous entry left open are closed here, by name. First, the Bank of Canada's five-year benchmark close for Friday October 2: that entry recorded that no session had been posted for it when the series was read on the morning of Sunday October 4, said the Bank's ordinary next-morning rhythm would put it up on Monday October 5, and deliberately asserted nothing about what it would carry. It carried 3.60%. Second, that entry left the next Freddie Mac weekly survey ahead of it, on Thursday October 8 at 12:00 Eastern. It printed on that day and the figures are below. Third, that entry flagged the Federal Housing Finance Agency and S&P Global's Case-Shiller indices as cited in this corpus and scheduled nowhere in it. Half of that is closed in this entry and the closing paragraphs below carry it: the agency publishes its House Price Index release dates and they were read on Saturday October 10, so its dates are no longer a convention this desk infers. The Case-Shiller indices remain in the state that entry described. Two further items this round-up itself recorded as pending in its Wednesday-morning pass are closed here as well, which is what that handoff is for. The September minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, which returned a 404 when the document was requested on the morning of Wednesday October 7, were published that afternoon and are read below. And the five-year Government of Canada benchmark closes for Tuesday October 6 and Wednesday October 7, neither of which had been posted when the series was read twice on the Wednesday morning, were both posted by Thursday October 8: 3.59% and 3.60% respectively. Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey printed a 7.40% 30-year fixed and a 6.73% 15-year fixed for the week ending October 8, read off the survey's own rate history file after it refreshed at 12:00 Eastern on Thursday October 8. The 7.40% thirty-year was up 12 basis points from the 7.28% of the week ending October 1. The 6.73% fifteen-year was up 13 basis points from the 6.60% of that same week. That is a seventh consecutive weekly increase on the thirty-year, counting from the 6.65% of the week ending August 20, and 75 basis points of cumulative increase across those seven weeks. Both averages were the highest the survey had printed since the week ending November 16, 2023, when the thirty-year stood at 7.44% and the fifteen-year at 6.76%. The 7.40% was also the highest thirty-year average of 2026, in a year whose lowest weekly print was the 5.98% of the week ending February 26. On a $400,000 thirty-year fixed mortgage, 7.40% carries a principal and interest payment of $2,769.52 a month, which is $32.67 above the $2,736.85 the previous week's 7.28% carried and $376.46 above the $2,393.06 that February low would have carried. The 4.34% at the top of the Canadian broker table was 306 basis points under the American thirty-year average on the same day, but a five-year Canadian term and a thirty-year American one are different products carrying different renewal risk, and the gap between them is not a measure of which borrower is better off over the life of the loan. The minutes of the September 15 and 16 meeting were published on the afternoon of Wednesday October 7, three weeks after that meeting's decision date of Wednesday September 16, and the document carried a last-update stamp of October 07, 2026. They record that the Committee raised the target range for the federal funds rate by a quarter point to 3-3/4 to 4 percent, that twelve members voted for the action and none against, that the Board of Governors voted unanimously to raise the interest rate paid on reserve balances to 3.90 percent effective September 17, 2026, and that it approved a quarter-point increase in the primary credit rate to 4.0 percent on the same date. Three passages in those minutes are about housing directly, and they are the reason a rates document of this kind belongs on this page. On financing conditions, the minutes record that conditions in domestic credit markets remained generally accommodative for larger businesses and municipalities but were somewhat restrictive for residential mortgage borrowers and small businesses, and that residential mortgage rates increased a bit more than 10-year Treasury yields over the intermeeting period. On the sector itself, a few participants commented that housing was a sector in which financial conditions did not appear supportive of activity, with mortgage rates remaining at elevated levels. And on inflation, several participants observed that the rate of price increases in core services excluding housing remained elevated, which puts the shelter component outside the group of categories those participants singled out as still running hot. The market backdrop the minutes describe is the one a mortgage borrower pays for: nominal Treasury yields increased around 35 basis points across the 2- to 10-year segment of the curve over the intermeeting period, and the minutes attribute part of that to the higher expected path of policy and part to term premiums, including competition for capital from debt issued to finance artificial-intelligence infrastructure. Set against the survey print above, the two documents describe the same thing from opposite ends. Those participants characterised mortgage rates as elevated and as not supportive of housing activity at a meeting that ended on September 16, and the weekly average has risen in every week since: 6.95% for the week ending September 17, 7.03% for the week ending September 24, 7.28% for the week ending October 1 and 7.40% for the week ending October 8. Note what the Committee did rather than only what it said, because the direction is the opposite of the Canadian one. The Federal Open Market Committee raised its target range at that September meeting, while the Bank of Canada has held its overnight rate at 2.25% since September 2. Statistics Canada published seventeen releases across the six days. Not one is a housing, mortgage or rates release, and the one that matters most to this page is a labour release. Monday October 5 carried two, lettered a and b, with c returning a 404: travel arrangement services for 2025, and sawmills for July 2026. Tuesday October 6 carried four, a through d, with e returning a 404: Canadian international merchandise trade for August 2026, Canadian international trade in services for August 2026, violent victimization and unwanted sexual behaviours experienced by 2SLGBTQ+ people in Canada for 2025, and surveying and mapping services for 2025. Wednesday October 7 carried one, with b returning a 404: monthly average retail prices for selected products for August 2026. Thursday October 8 carried four, a through d, with e returning a 404: the economic contribution of critical mineral production in Canada for 2024, the Retail Commodity Survey for July 2026, police-reported hate crime and cybercrime for the second quarter of 2026, and the Farm Input Price Index for the second quarter of 2026. Friday October 9 carried six, a through f, with g returning a 404: the Labour Force Survey for September 2026, annual wholesale trade commodities for 2024, farm product prices for August 2026, film, television and video post-production for 2025, the national supply and disposition of major grains for 2025/2026, and sector-based producer price indexes for the second quarter of 2026. Saturday October 10 carried none: the first letter of the day returned a 404, which is what a Saturday looks like from this agency. That is a quiet six days from the agency on housing rather than six days this desk failed to read, and the letters get walked one at a time precisely so those two can be told apart. The nearest thing in the set to a household-cost figure is the August retail-prices release, and it is not a shelter statistic. The September Labour Force Survey is the Friday release, and it is the one that moves the unemployment figure in the indicators strip above off August 2026. It is read in the next paragraph. Employment fell by 68,000 in September, down 0.3%, and the unemployment rate was 6.5% in September 2026, up 0.1 percentage points on the month. Both figures are read off the Labour Force Survey released on Friday October 9 at 08:30 Eastern, and the 6.5% is what the indicators strip above now carries, with its vintage moved from August 2026 to September 2026. It is the second consecutive monthly decline in employment, following August's fall of 42,000, and the September decline was split almost evenly between full-time work, down 35,000 or 0.2%, and part-time work, down 33,000 or 0.9%. Before those two months employment had trended up from April to July by 181,000, and on a year-over-year basis it was still up by 95,000 in September. The employment rate fell 0.2 percentage points to 60.6%, also a second consecutive monthly decrease. The 6.5% unemployment rate had a recent peak of 6.9% in April before declining to 6.4% in July and August, and the September reading put it back where it had been in January. The losses were concentrated among youth aged 15 to 24, down 48,000 or 1.8%, and women aged 25 to 54, down 28,000 or 0.4%, and by industry in educational services, down 35,000 or 2.2%, health care and social assistance, down 23,000 or 0.8%, and manufacturing, down 13,000 or 0.7%. Public sector employees fell by 70,000 or 1.5%, a fourth consecutive monthly decline, and were down 119,000 or 2.6% year over year, most of it attributable to educational services. By province, employment decreased in Quebec by 49,000 or 1.1%, in British Columbia by 20,000 or 0.7% and in Manitoba by 4,400 or 0.6%, and increased in Alberta by 23,000 or 0.9%. Average hourly wages among employees rose 2.3% year over year, up $0.86 to $37.64, following growth of 2.0% in August, not seasonally adjusted. Why a jobs print sits on a housing page, stated rather than assumed, because this entry otherwise carries no Canadian housing release at all. A lender underwrites employment income, so two consecutive monthly declines and a 2.3% wage increase are the two halves of what a Canadian borrower brings to a renewal priced off a 4.34% five-year fixed. The survey's other finding, the labour force participation rate at 64.8% and its lowest level since December 1997 excluding 2020, is a demographic statement rather than a labour-market one, and the agency says so and shows the arithmetic. That half of the release is read against the Bank of Canada's own demographics explainer of Thursday October 8 in the separate October 8 entry on this page, because the two documents are one story and neither is a rate. The next Labour Force Survey is on Friday November 6, 2026, and October data will reflect labour market conditions during the week of October 11 to 17, both read off this release's own next-release line. The five-year Government of Canada benchmark finished the sessions that had been posted by the Saturday October 10 read three basis points under its Monday close. When the series was re-read on the morning of Saturday October 10 the Bank had posted closes for Monday October 5, Tuesday October 6, Wednesday October 7 and Thursday October 8, and had posted none for Friday October 9. That last absence is this page's ordinary expectation rather than a gap in the series and rather than a claim about what the session carried: the Bank posts a session's close the following morning, Friday's would fall due on Monday October 12, and Monday October 12 is Thanksgiving Day. Nothing here asserts what the Friday October 9 close was or when it will appear. Taking the Friday before the window as the starting point, and naming the series in each sentence rather than carrying it forward as a pronoun: the five-year Government of Canada benchmark closed at 3.60% on Friday October 2, two basis points under the 3.62% of Thursday October 1. The five-year Government of Canada benchmark closed at 3.63% on Monday October 5, three basis points above that Friday close. The five-year Government of Canada benchmark closed at 3.59% on Tuesday October 6, four basis points under the Monday. The five-year Government of Canada benchmark closed at 3.60% on Wednesday October 7, one basis point above the Tuesday. And the five-year Government of Canada benchmark closed at 3.60% on Thursday October 8, unchanged from the Wednesday, which closes the second of the two items this round-up had itself recorded as pending. So the newest close posted by the Saturday October 10 read was the 3.60% of Thursday October 8, nine basis points under the 3.69% the five-year Government of Canada benchmark closed at on Tuesday September 29, and three basis points under the 3.63% it closed at on Monday October 5. Across the four sessions of this window that had been posted by the Saturday October 10 read, the five-year Government of Canada benchmark traded in a four-basis-point range, between the 3.59% of Tuesday October 6 and the 3.63% of Monday October 5. The Friday October 9 close was not among them and the next entry on this page carries it. Why this is the number a Canadian borrower should watch rather than the Bank's policy rate: Canadian fixed mortgage rates are priced off Government of Canada bond yields, and only variable rates track the overnight rate, which has been 2.25% since the September 2 hold and cannot change before Wednesday October 28. On the Canadian rate ladder the advertised leader held a fifth consecutive reading, and on the fifth one nothing behind it moved either. Ratehub's comparison table for five-year fixed mortgages carried an update stamp of Saturday October 10, 2026 at 4:20 a.m. when it was re-read on the morning of that day, a fresh stamp rather than the Wednesday October 7 at 7:09 p.m. Eastern stamp the Thursday October 8 midday read had carried. Its lowest advertised five-year fixed rate was still 4.34%, and still shown once rather than twice: the entry listed as a Canadian Lender held it, while the generic Big 6 Bank entry that had matched it on the October 1, October 4 and October 7 readings stood at the 4.54% it had moved to by the Wednesday evening. Behind them Meridian Credit Union was unchanged at 4.59%, Alterna Savings unchanged at 4.69%, and Scotiabank unchanged at the 4.74% it had moved up to by the Wednesday morning, with RBC Royal Bank and National Bank of Canada at 4.84% and Equitable Bank, CMLS Financial and Canwise at 4.89%, then Bank of Montreal, First National and TD Bank at 4.99%. Every rung on that ladder was unchanged between the Thursday October 8 midday read and the Saturday October 10 morning one. So across five October readings the headline 4.34% did not move while both rungs this page has been watching behind it did: Scotiabank up fifteen basis points by the Wednesday morning and the cheapest big-bank quote up twenty by the Wednesday evening, after which the Friday and Saturday passed with the table still. The distance between the leader and the cheapest Big 6 quote widened from nothing to twenty basis points inside this window and stayed there. Prime was 4.45% on the Saturday read, the page itself attributing that to the rate hold, and it is unchanged since the September 2 hold. The 4.34% in the indicators strip above was re-confirmed on this read. The caution attached to that page in all three earlier October readings still held, and the Saturday October 10 read found every one of the five disagreements the Thursday October 8 read had enumerated, plus a sixth. A sentence refreshed to October 10, 2026 gave the lowest available high-ratio five-year fixed rate as 4.34%, agreeing with the dated comparison table, and gave the lowest available variable rate as 3.4%. A companion term-by-term table on the same page gave its five-year fixed row as 4.09%, and its four-year fixed row as 4.09% as well, with its one-year row at 4.59%, its two-year at 3.89% and its three-year at 3.94%, so that table had its four-year and five-year terms priced identically and both below its own one-year. A further passage gave the best five-year fixed rate as 4.09% against a best five-year variable of 3.30%, which disagrees with that same page's own 3.4% variable figure. And a frequently-asked-questions block was still anchored to a September 8, 2026 reading and still named Scotiabank as the cheapest of the big banks at 4.29%, a figure the dated table on the same page contradicted twice over on this read as well, since that table carried Scotiabank at 4.74% and the cheapest big-bank quote at 4.54%. The sixth disagreement is a fourth value for the same quantity: a passage elsewhere on the page said the lowest five-year fixed rate rose from 4.09% to about 4.24% in September, so the page offered 4.34%, 4.09% and about 4.24% for the lowest five-year fixed in three places at once. That same passage is the one piece of arithmetic on the page this desk can corroborate: it said the five-year Government of Canada bond yield jumped from 3.33% at the end of August to 3.69% in September and had stayed high, and 3.69% is exactly what the Bank of Canada posted for the session of Tuesday September 29. The dated comparison table is the part that is maintained. Read the stamp, and confirm any number with the lender before acting on it. One note on how that was read, because the first pass got it wrong in the direction that would have retired a true warning. An automated parse of the page aligned each rate cell against the wrong row label and reported the companion table's five-year row as 4.34%, in agreement with the dated table, which would have supported a correction saying the discrepancy had been fixed. It had not. The figures above are read off the page's own sentences rather than off that alignment, and the lesson is the one this page keeps relearning from the other side: check what the tool is asking before writing down what the source said. The finding of this window is about this publication's own schedule rather than about any release, and it is the same shape as the two American house-price publishers the previous entry wrote down. The Federal Reserve is one of the sources this page scans. The Federal Open Market Committee publishes minutes of each regularly scheduled meeting, and those minutes are a rates document: they are the fullest available account of how the committee read the economy at a decision, and they are the direct American counterpart of the Bank of Canada's Summary of Deliberations, which this page does schedule and did cover for the September 2 decision. The minutes were on no schedule this desk works from. No release day, no release hour, nothing, while the Canadian counterpart has both. The rule is published, and it was read off the Federal Reserve's own calendar page on Wednesday October 7: the minutes of regularly scheduled meetings are released three weeks after the date of the policy decision. The committee's September meeting ran over September 15 and 16 and its decision date was Wednesday September 16, so three weeks after it was Wednesday October 7. The hour is 2:00 p.m. Eastern, read off the Federal Reserve's own press release for the preceding set of minutes, which opens with the words for release at 2:00 p.m. EDT. That falls after the morning wake, which is why the Wednesday-morning pass of this entry carried no figure from the September minutes and no claim about what they say, and why the passages above were added on Thursday October 8 instead. What was checked rather than assumed: the minutes document for that meeting returned a 404 on the morning of Wednesday October 7, while the document for the preceding July 28 and 29 meeting returned a 200 at the identical URL shape in the same run. So the path was right and the 404 was a real absence rather than a broken pointer, which is the same positive control this page runs on the housing-starts slugs. The Federal Reserve's own 2026 calendar carried a statement, an implementation note, a press conference and projection materials against the September 15 and 16 row, and no minutes entry, which is what an unpublished set looks like on that page. Requested again at midday on Thursday October 8, that same URL returned a 200 and the document carried the October 07, 2026 stamp quoted above, so the three-week rule held to the day. It is written down here with its day and its hour so that the next set is scheduled rather than rediscovered. The committee's next decision date is Wednesday October 28, and three weeks after it falls on Wednesday November 18, which is when the next set of minutes is due at the same 2:00 p.m. Eastern hour. That handoff is the only thing that carries a release forward. A release nobody has recorded as pending has no carrier at all, and a source named in a scan list without a release day and hour gives a run no reason to look on any particular morning. Diffing Monday October 5 through Saturday October 10 against every source this page scans, in both directions. Statistics Canada published the seventeen releases enumerated above and none is a housing print, the September Labour Force Survey of Friday October 9 being the one this entry reads at length. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation published no September housing starts: both slug shapes returned a 404 on Wednesday October 7, again on Thursday October 8 and again on Saturday October 10, while the August release returned a 200 at the same shape in the same run on all three days, so that absence is the corporation's and not a broken pointer here. On its cadence of on or about the sixteenth, the September release falls in the middle of this month. The Canadian Real Estate Association published nothing; its own national statistics page, read again on Saturday October 10, was still headed by its September 15 2026 release of August figures and still named Friday October 16, 2026 for the September package, which goes at 5 a.m. Eastern on the wire stamps of its last two releases, with a quarterly forecast following at 10 a.m. Eastern. The National Association of Realtors published nothing; its own statistical release schedule, read again on the Saturday, carried no October release before Tuesday October 13, when September Existing-Home Sales goes at the 10 a.m. Eastern that schedule states for all of its releases, and then nothing until Tuesday October 20 and Thursday October 29. Freddie Mac published the weekly survey folded in above and nothing since: the rate history file, re-read on Saturday October 10, still ended with the week ending October 8, which is correct on a Thursday-only cadence and is not an absence. The United States Census Bureau published two releases inside the window and neither is a housing statistic: U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services for August 2026, on Tuesday October 6 at 8:30 Eastern, and Monthly Wholesale Trade for August 2026, on Thursday October 8 at 10:00 Eastern. It published nothing on the Friday or the Saturday, and its own 2026 schedule carries no bureau release at all between Thursday October 8 and Wednesday October 14. The Federal Reserve held no meeting, its next being Tuesday October 27 and Wednesday October 28, published the September minutes read above, and then published the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances on Friday October 9 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, which has its own entry on this page. The Bank of Canada published one item dated inside this window, and the Thursday October 8 read of this entry could not see it. When its press-release index and its speeches index were both read at midday on Thursday October 8 the newest dated item on either was Thursday October 1, the Rogers remarks and the Bank's own summary of them, which are the separate October 1 entry on this page. Re-read on Saturday October 10, both indexes were headed by an item dated Thursday October 8, the explainer Demographic changes are reshaping the Canadian economy, which was therefore published after that midday read. It is a housing document as much as a demographic one and it has its own October 8 entry on this page. The lesson is the one this window keeps producing: a same-day read of an index records the hour it was taken rather than the day, and the only thing that recovers the remainder of the day is the next window going back over it. Read the other way, the gaps this window opened were the Federal Reserve's minutes, now scheduled and folded in, the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, which is cited on this page for the first time in this window and sits on no release calendar this desk keeps, and the two American house-price publishers the previous entry named. One of those two is now half closed and the next paragraph carries it. One note on the Census Bureau's calendar, because it will otherwise cost the next run a step. The undated economic-indicator calendar at the list-view path served the 2027 schedule when it was read on Wednesday October 7, and the 2026 schedule sits at a separate dated path. That is the same shape as the construction-spending document the previous entry wrote up, with the vintages the other way round: an undated path serves whatever the bureau treats as current, and what is current has rolled forward into next year's calendar rather than lagging behind in the previous month. The 2026 path is the one cited below, and read off it that morning: New Residential Construction for September on Tuesday October 20 at 8:30 Eastern, New Residential Sales for September on Tuesday October 27 at 10:00 Eastern, third-quarter Housing Vacancies and Homeownership on Wednesday October 28 at 10:00 Eastern, and September construction spending on Monday November 2 at 10:00 Eastern. The Federal Housing Finance Agency publishes its House Price Index release dates, and that retires half of a note three October entries have now carried. Both of the American house-price publishers this page cites were written down as publishing on a last-Tuesday convention rather than a published rule, with neither release hour verified. For the agency the dates are published: a table headed 2026 HPI Release Dates on its own House Price Index page, read on Saturday October 10, gives Tuesday October 27 for a monthly index covering data through August 2026, Tuesday November 24 for a quarterly index with monthly tables covering September 2026 and the third quarter, and Tuesday December 29 for a monthly index covering data through October 2026. So the three remaining 2026 dates are read rather than inferred, and all three do fall on the last Tuesday of their month, which is why the convention had looked like a rule. The release hour is still not stated on that table and this desk has not read it off the agency anywhere else, so it is not written down here: an unverified hour is the defect that writing any of this down is meant to prevent. The agency's monthly master file remains the machine-readable route to the series. The Case-Shiller indices are unchanged in status, and the reason is on the record: a request for that index family's page is refused to automated clients, so no figure from it should appear on this page that was not read. Ahead of the next entry, in date order, each hour as the source itself states it. Monday October 12 is Thanksgiving Day and a national holiday, so a benchmark close for that session is unlikely to be posted at all, in the way Wednesday September 30 never received one, and the Friday October 9 close that would ordinarily have been posted on it may be delayed with it. September Existing-Home Sales from the National Association of Realtors on Tuesday October 13 at 10 a.m. Eastern. Freddie Mac's next weekly mortgage survey on Thursday October 15 at 12:00 Eastern. The Canadian Real Estate Association's September resale package on Friday October 16 at 5 a.m. Eastern with its quarterly forecast at 10 a.m. Eastern, and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's September housing starts on or about the same date at 8:15 Eastern. The Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey and Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations on Monday October 19 at 11:30 Eastern. New Residential Construction for September from the Census Bureau on Tuesday October 20 at 8:30 Eastern. The Federal Housing Finance Agency's monthly House Price Index on Tuesday October 27, now read off that agency's own published release-date table rather than inferred from a convention, with its release hour still unverified by this desk, and S&P Global's Case-Shiller indices on the same date on a last-Tuesday convention rather than a published rule, with that publisher's hour unverified as well. New Residential Sales for September on Tuesday October 27 at 10:00 Eastern and third-quarter Housing Vacancies and Homeownership on Wednesday October 28 at 10:00 Eastern. The Bank of Canada's interest rate announcement with a Monetary Policy Report on Wednesday October 28 at 09:45 Eastern. September construction spending on Monday November 2 at 10:00 Eastern. On Wednesday November 18 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern, the next set of Federal Open Market Committee minutes, covering the decision described one line above. And Statistics Canada's October Labour Force Survey on Friday November 6, 2026 at 08:30 Eastern, read off the September release's own next-release line. Decide on your own numbers rather than on the calendar. The Maple Syrup Money mortgage payment, affordability and stress-test, and rent-vs-buy calculators at maplesyrupmoney.com/tools/residential turn a 4.34% fixed or a 4.45% prime into a real monthly payment, and the commercial and investing calculators, cap rate, cash-on-cash, DSCR and the cash flow analyzer, at maplesyrupmoney.com/tools/commercial do the same for income property. Not financial advice. For educational purposes only.