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11 Feb

Tighter Mortgage Rules

General

Posted by: Kimberly Walker

ING president speaks out against tighter mortgage rules

| Tuesday, 9 February 2010

After providing several comments on the potential housing bubble in Canada, ING Direct Canada president Peter Aceto told the Globe and Mail that Ottawa shouldn’t tighten mortgage rules.

“High level, one-stroke fixes are too simple, and can have a very large impact,” Aceto told the newspaper. “I worry about government-based tightening of the mortgage rules creating a much worse reaction – too fast of a cooling, which is not really good for anyone.”

Aceto went on to say that banks can tighten rules themselves and do not need Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to “make the decision for them.”

The comments come alongside a warning from Scotia Capital economists Derek Holt and Karen Cordes, who predicted a housing bubble forming in a report released late last year.

“You can’t go from 100 km/h to zero in a nanosecond without suffering harsh consequences,” they wrote, according to the Globe. “Newton’s third law is the best caution that can be served up with respect to abruptly altering Canadian mortgage rules as per some of the whisper talk leading up to the March 4 federal budget after the currently government sharply liberalized the mortgage market in early 2007.”