When it comes to personal finance, 2021 was another year to remember, but not necessarily for the right reasons. Interest rates remained low and government COVID support continued for the most part, but inflationary pressures hit hard and Canadian families from coast to coast felt the impact from increased prices on everything from vehicles to gasoline and groceries. For the third consecutive year, Rob Carrick of the Globe and Mail joins me to discuss economic and personal finance trends in the year ahead. I asked Rob for his thoughts on government COVID supports and whether he sees them continuing in 2022. We also chat about the continued rise in house prices, low interest rates and the impact of inflation on Canadian families in the coming year. 

 

Welcome to the Maple Money Show, the podcast that helps Canadians improve their personal finances to create lasting financial freedom. Do you prefer to invest in socially responsible companies? If so, our sponsor, Wealthsimple, will help you build a portfolio that focuses on low carbon, clean tech, human rights, and the environment. To get started with socially responsible investing, head over to maplemoney.com/wealthsimple. Now, let’s chat let’s chat with Rob… 

 

Tom: Hi, Rob. Welcome back to the Maple Money Show. 

 

Rob: Thanks, Tom. 

 

Tom: The last couple of years we’ve had you on we’ve taken a look back at the previous year, made a prediction for next year and graded you on it later. I wanted to have you back so we can go through this again because you have your finger on the pulse of this stuff better than I do when it comes to things outside my zone (like economy) so it’s nice to kind of just see this whole annual view of everything from your perspective. 

 

Rob: I look at personal finance from the point of view of the economy and financial markets as being a foundational influence. It probably goes back to my background. About 25 to 30 years ago I started covering economics and business and did that for many years before I even got into personal finance. I still fall back on it a lot to explain what’s going on. 

 

Tom: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I didn’t realize you had the economy background so that definitely makes sense. Just to start off, I wanted to give a quick recap of your predictions. Last year, I gave you a hard time because everything fell apart, and there’s no way anyone could have saw how our 2020 was going to work out here for 2021. I think you did pretty well. Basically, you said parts of the economy would start to burst out, but there would still be a segment of the population that’s really struggling and a push for governments to spend money to support these people. Those are the three big things. The fourth one was maybe more of a hope that people would see the benefit of an emergency fund. We now have an actual case to use instead of just telling you should have this money because something can happen. Can you run through your thoughts on those? I think you did pretty well from economy to individuals and such. 

 

Rob: Sure. One thing I think could be amplified at this point is the idea of government supporting individuals. I think the pandemic has refocused us on what the role of government is. There seems to be this tension between “Let’s get spending back into line with revenues and attack this deficit,” and “Let’s just keep spending since interest rates are low.” There’s this new thinking on government deficits that we should just take advantage when we should actually start to look at other ills in society and try to address those like we did with CERB and some of the support programs. I think that’s going to be a huge theme going forward, this tension for governments—do we spend or do we pull back and start to get our finances in order? I think the federal Liberals won the last election emphasizing spending over the containment of spending. It will be interesting to see how the federal government plays that out. Also, the Ontario government is going to be in an election in 2022 and I think that kind of thinking is going to be front and center. 

 

Tom: I almost forgot there was a federal election. Not much changed, but you’re right, people wanted to continue what they had so far. 

 

Rob: Yeah, absolutely. And some of the biggest promises made in that election campaign will play out in 2022 in terms of supporting homebuyers. That’s going to be big because we’ve got a market that is just smoking hot as we go into 2022. And prices are rising firmly, not just in Toronto or Vancouver. In fact, they’re actually the “less interesting” story than what’s going on at some smaller communities. The federal government’s probably had three, four, five, or maybe even half a dozen promises to homebuyers. What’s that going to do to prices? That would facilitate poor buying. It seems to me prices are going to go up—and we’re going to offset all these things with more expensive houses? That is one of the hot spots for personal finance in 2022, housing. 

 

Tom: Yeah, housing’s been interesting for me to watch and be a part of it with my own personal house. But here in the Calgary area, it’s been up and up and up and there doesn’t seem to ever be an end to that. Is it just government support in general or is it where they have interest rates stuck? I can’t figure that one out myself. 

 

Rob: I think low-interest rates built this market we have and then the pandemic just sort of set it free because everybody decided they needed to make housing moves. I’m going to be locked in. I want more space. I want the ability to dictate how I live in my space. Renting downtown is less attractive. We had this pivot in preferred lifestyle at the same time as historically low-interest rates. It was like gasoline and a match. It set the housing market on fire. So governments are forced to look at this. I noted last year, in 2021, that dismay among young buyers was turning to anger. I think as a politician, you’ve got to note that. This is a generation that accounts for a very big piece of the pie. They blame governments for this fairly or unfairly. And I think there’s going to be a lot of pressure on governments to somehow navigate this. We’ve got interest rates dictated by the Bank of Canada and let the market do it what it may. This has given us unaffordable housing so where do we go from here? At a certain point, you have to think, the gains cannot be economically supported. I mean, this is basic personal finance. How much of my household cash flow can I devote to my mortgage and other housing costs? I wonder if there’s going to be a limit we might hit in 2022 and beyond where people just think, “I’m out. I can’t afford it. My parents are tapped out.” All the parents that could give gifts have done so, and everybody’s on their own. All of a sudden people are saying, “Get in on that house? Forget it! I can’t even afford the asking price.” 

 

Tom: Yes, especially in Toronto and Vancouver, the amounts (from where I am) just seem ridiculous. But even here it’s been going up a lot. I can’t imagine being someone younger and having to save up that 20 percent to get into a place. I’ve been lucky enough that I could go with it over time. 

 

Rob: What’s blowing my mind is the price increases in small places. I was just looking at a blog post about Bancroft, Ontario. It’s about 250 kilometres northeast of Toronto. It’s a small, sort of cottage town. The average price has gone up 50 percent in the last 12 months. It’s now getting close to $470,000—let’s say (in round numbers) half a million dollars… for Bancroft! Basically, that’s closing it off for the marginal wires, even by Toronto standards. So you can cross Bancroft off the list for affordable cities. There are people in Bancroft who were used to housing prices at $250,000. Now they’re saying they’ll never own in their hometown which they thought was a refuge from big-city housing prices. I’m thinking we’re going to see more of that in 2022. At a certain point, the longtime residents of Bancroft have to ask, “Is this good for us or bad for us?” I think you can make arguments on both sides. 

 

Tom: I hadn’t heard this, but my initial thought is two things. I get the idea of getting away from the more expensive city. I’m in Airdrie, just outside of Calgary. It’s not anywhere near as far as your example, but the prices get lower as you move outward. But could some of this also be people hoping that this work from home is more of a thing? Because I don’t think anyone that works in downtown Toronto is going to go two to three hours out. 

 

Rob: I think people have already done it. I think they basically coasted on that “work at home” with the pandemic atmosphere. They’ve moved out thinking, let the chips fall where they may. I’ll deal with this later. I think there are people who are going to be finding they have to come into the city two or three times a week, and they’re not going to like it one bit because when traffic gets back to normal… I live in Ottawa, but I grew up in Toronto and know how bad the traffic is there. That’s going to take years off your life, stress-wise. In less frantic traffic environments, it’s doable. But I think we’re going to see a snapback in terms of the housing moves that people make, fleeing for the small towns, going to the country, and buying a big place with a big property. A lot of people will be super happy there and will be so glad they did that. But I think there’s a lot who are going to be thinking, “I don’t like it,” and they’re going to try to move back. And when they do, they’re going to find that Toronto went up 20 percent. Even if their little town or house grew in value, it’s going to be hard to come back now. There’s going to be a sort of a period of sober, second thought about housing and where people want to live it. There’s going to be more movement, I think. 

 

Tom: But when you say people aren’t going to like it, do you mean beyond just the work commute or lifestyle-wise too?

 

Rob: I think lifestyle-wise too. It’s a slower pace. That’s going to suit some people just fine. But others, not so much. They’re going to find their cars pointed towards the nearest big city more than they thought it was. And they’re going to think, why don’t we just move back? People made some really drastic lifestyle moves in the intensity of the worst of the pandemic. And sometimes, in the heat of the moment, we make decisions that aren’t right for the long-term. 

 

Tom: In the GTA, obviously, everything is just one big city. But in my case, I would guess it could have been at least 10 percent cheaper to be 10 or 15 minutes outside of the city. When you talk about lifestyles, everything’s there if I want it. But I’m somewhere cheaper. I’m somewhere smaller for the family. It gets my vote as kind of “the best of both.” 

 

Rob: To me, the classic moving to the suburbs says, “I’m raising a family. I’ll move to the outskirts. I’ll get a bigger house…” and that’s cool. What I’m talking about is people moving several towns away. We’re talking 200 or 300 kilometres. We’re talking two hours commute, each way. Calgary is probably one of the great bargain cities in the country. It’s a great city. You’ve got the full, big-city vibe. It’s comparatively quite affordable. Yes, it’s increased in value year over year, but it hasn’t come anywhere near the level of increases in so many other places. I think Calgary is sort of an undiscovered gem. Look, people are moving to Saint John, New Brunswick for affordable housing. Calgary is not as cheap as St. John although it’s getting a lot closer so look at Calgary, people!

 

Tom: Yeah, I’m a huge fan. Every once in a while, I get this urge to find somewhere cheaper or somewhere warmer. But when I weigh everything out, it’s hard to not stay in this area. 

 

Rob: I get it. You know what I think? For some reason, a lot of the movement from the expensive markets in southern Ontario has been east. The west, as far as Alberta’s concerned, is pretty inviting. 

 

Tom: And for those with careers, it seems like somewhere that’s going to continue to improve. With the government support, where do you see that going? I know a lot of the dates are in May, officially, I believe, and they can always get extended. I’m not asking you for predictions for the year yet but I am kind of wondering where that might go. 

 

Rob: I think the template has been to scale the programs down and make them more restrictive, harder to apply for, less generous. CERB was done in a flash. It was not generous, but it was considerable and made a difference. It was organized very quickly. It was given to people with very little oversight and that’s what was needed back in 2020. But I think supports are going to be micro-targeted going forward. They’ll be made harder to get. They may tinker with them to make them a little easier but I think the government wants to be seen doing something to help people hurt by the pandemic without spending a lot more money because it has spent a lot on COVID support already. And the deficit is monumental. I think it wants to move the spending to other areas now. They’re not going to suddenly press a button that stops all the programs but you can expect them to be a lot more targeted and a lot less generous going forward. That’s my pick. 

 

Tom: And that’s probably the best way to do it. I know when we were talking this time last year, we were both kind of expecting some shock when all these programs end where now you’ll have to start paying your mortgage and stuff. 

 

Rob: It was really interesting in 2021 because a lot of supports were removed or reduced and there was no crash, like defaults on mortgages. All the early warning lights of financial stress “on mass” have not been blinking red. But if you look at some of the quieter indicators like food bank usage and homelessness, some of the stats are still quite alarming. Homeless shelters are still reporting a huge need for their services. Food banks are busier than they’ve ever been. I wouldn’t want to say that we’ve transitioned away from these programs and everything is great but the economy isn’t unravelling because of that. The vast majority of people seem to be doing okay or better. There is a lot of wealth being created for certain groups out there. And the economy—insofar as we can open it up, we are getting the benefit of that. We’re seeing strong growth, strong employment, and wages are starting to rise more than we’ve seen them in ages. Of course, we’ve got inflation, but at least we’re starting to see some wages rising to help compensate for that. There is another super interesting topic for 2022. 

 

Tom: Yeah, you just gave a lot of positives about the economy, but the inflation was one of the ones I wanted to be a downer about and also the supply chain disruptions. How do these two things affect everybody? 

 

Rob: Well, the supply chain disruptions are just cold, but we can’t run if the global transportation network efficiently because of the need to account for the spread of COVID and the number of people who are not at work because of COVID exposure. And with Omicron raging from early 2022, I don’t see a lot of reason for optimism, but that’s going to fix really quickly. On the other side, there’s the demand. There are mounds of cash built up in savings accounts to fuel strong demand for goods and services as far as people can afford them. And that’s a big part of inflation. People say, “Oh, it’s the federal government’s fault, the Bank of Canada’s fault. They kept interest rates low.” Actually, people are buying like crazy. You combine that with the supply chain issues, that’s accounted for a lot of inflation. I think that’s going to percolate through the economy right through 2022. If you find 100 economists, 50 will say inflation is not that big a deal and will ease and 50 will say, no, this has got a long tail. It’s going to last a while. I don’t really know, but I think households are going to feel the pinch of this right through 2022, like those expensive food bills. Every so often—you must find this too. You go to the grocery store and you say, “What? There’s no way this can cost that much!” There’s always that one thing that just jumps out at you, right? I think that’s going to continue to be the story in 2022. At a certain point, there are households who are going to be thinking, “I can’t make everything add up anymore. By the time I spend everything for our usual lifestyle, we are X-number of dollars short. We used to be just fine!” As much as there’s a lot of money sloshing around the system, some families are going to be saying, “We need to cut, but where do we do that?” 

 

Tom: Yes, I hear that quite a bit. It’s either groceries or fuel. Those are two things that seem to be your normal family thing where people are used to certain prices and they’re just not there right now. 

 

Rob: Here’s the other wild card, interest rates. When inflation is high it puts more onus on the Bank of Canada to raise rates to cool the economy down and bring inflation under control. So there’s the third area of inflation—debt repayment inflation. You’ve got your food bills going up and it costs more to gas up your vehicle. And then all of a sudden you go to renegotiate your mortgage and its higher than it used to be. Or you’re buying your first house and the interest rate is half a percentage point or a full percentage point more than it would have been 12 or 18 months ago. That’s going to be more pressure on you. We’ve talked, in personal finance circles, for ages and ages about this anvil—higher interest rates saying, “It’s going to drop,” and it never did. Interest rates went up a little bit after the last recession, and then they actually retrenched a little bit, then went up a bit again. And just when it seemed like maybe they would start to move up a little bit more, we got the pandemic. And now you tell everybody, “Watch out for rising interest rates,” and everyone says, “Yeah, I’ll worry about that when it happens.” In 2022, I think we’re going to see some higher interest rates. I don’t think it’s going to be too dramatic, but it is going to snap everybody’s attention that interest rates are abnormally and unsustainably low and we will go back to normal. The only question is the time frame. 

 

Tom: For what it’s worth, I just had a new mortgage and this is the first time in a long time I went with a fixed five-year. Not because I have this big prediction of where it’s going to go, but it was just so low. It’s pretty much the same as the variable so there wasn’t really a risk there. 

 

Rob: Looking at a five-year rate, it should not be looked at just in terms of the borrowing cost. It’s also your state of mind, your stress levels. We’ve had two very eventful years in finance and we’re not done yet. A five-year mortgage means I am just a bystander. I’m watching from the bleachers. I’m covered for five years. We’ll worry about this in five years. In four years you can start to worry about the renewal 12 months from then. But for now, you’re going to see a lot of action between now and then. A variable rate mortgage means every time the Bank of Canada has a rate announcement, you are front and center, waiting, watching what’s happening. Is my rate going up? The bell’s going to ring a couple of times for you in 2022. 

 

Tom: Certainly over the five-year at this point. I just recently found an old mortgage statement. I can’t remember the year exactly. I think it was 2003, 2004. It was six-something—pushing towards seven percent. It kind of reminded me that these rates actually can change to those kinds of numbers. 

 

Rob: That’s interesting, Tom, because I have an old mortgage rate on my desk here and it’s not that bad. It’s from 1998. The rate they were offering was 4.45 percent for a five-year mortgage. The point of raising that was to highlight that high twos and threes are exceptionally good borrowing costs and you should not feel any reservation about locking them in. On a historical basis, that’s excellent. 

 

Tom: And to be fair, back when I had my first mortgage, my credit rating wasn’t as good, so I probably did better this time around on top of the regular rate. 

 

Rob: I would make a prediction that we are seeing the lowest borrowing costs some homebuyers will ever see in their lifetimes. And if we get lower than we’ve had at the low end for the pandemic cycle, the economy is going to be a complete mess and you won’t be happy about low interest rates. We’ve had this magical mix of circumstances where interest rates are super low, but most people are still okay financially and they’re able to take advantage of the low rates. Usually, in a recession, everybody’s afraid to buy. That’s why they have low rates. And there isn’t that big surge in activity. Low rates aren’t usually handed over to people who are financially great. Usually, it’s for when everything is in trouble. Then you get low rates. We’ve had some weird outcomes. We’ve had this surge in stock prices and surge in all these speculative asset prices. The housing market’s up, inflation’s raging. Normally, when they cut rates, it’s because everybody’s afraid to stick their head out and go to the store to buy something. 

 

Tom: I did not send you my notes ahead of time, but it’s like you’re setting me up with these Segways. The next thing I wanted to discuss was TSX. The stat I saw was it was up a little bit over 21 percent in the year. That surprised me a little. I hadn’t been watching it that closely. I just make my regular investments and don’t get into the overall market so much. Two years in a row now, this has been a surprise to me, though. I feel like this should just be a devastating market with everybody being really concerned.

 

Rob: It’s super interesting, isn’t it? We keep getting negative surprises like the Delta variant and then Omicron. Every time we think everything is starting to come together, we get this curveball and for some reason, investors holding stocks don’t seem to get very alarmed about it. I’ve learned to just accept that. That’s how the markets are playing out. All the looks ahead to 2022 I’ve been reading seem to suggest a year of reasonable gains. Maybe not 21 percent, but the economy is going to expand and that should be good for corporate profits and stocks so you want to be in there. And the interest rates on the bond market are still very low, so there’s no real appeal for selling your stocks and buying something safe like a bond. In fact, people want to avoid bonds and that’s keeping money in stocks. The surprises for the pandemic—right after that initial shock where everything was shut down, have all been sort of manageable. If something happens and the pandemic gets nasty again, even worse than it is with Omicron, that could be a negative surprise for stocks. Otherwise, I think the investing environment is going to hold together. We both know—even if you’re not a market watcher, there is going to be some nasty drop at some point. And I would hope people would have taken a lesson from the last few drops—the financial crisis and the pandemic, and just put a lot of money in it when the stock market is way down because that’s a very rewarding opportunity. I would certainly be more comfortable buying after a big drop than I would even now. I’d put a big block of money in right now. But after a big drop, that’s a great time. It’s been proven in two huge, monumental, stock market drops in the past 15 years that it is a great buying opportunity. 

 

Tom: Yes, it’s the one thing I feel confident in. I obviously don’t suggest trying to time the market on both sides but buying on these big drops, you know it’s going to come back. It doesn’t matter. 

 

Rob: Absolutely. You know what? It’s one of the best investment strategies to get ahead. And you don’t need to time it. People say, “I can’t time the market and you should time the market.” Don’t bother. Just buy. When the market’s down 10 percent, I’ll put it in there. Don’t make bets on what’s the bottom and what’s the top. Just always be investing. And when it’s really down a lot, invest a bit more. 

 

Tom: Yes, because I put some money in on that large drop early on in COVID, and during that week or two, I felt like I went too soon. I could have waited for the bottom. But in the end, yeah, if you have some money you can put it in. It might drop lower, but you can feel relatively safe if it’s money you don’t need right away. It’s going to come back even higher. 

 

Rob: Absolutely. You have to be thinking about how you will feel in a year, two years, or five years. You’ll feel good because over longer time frames your chances of turning that into a great move just get magnified over and over. And that turbochargers your returns. If the stocks are going to go up about five percent, six percent every year, if you put a bunch of money in at the lows, give yourself a chance to do a little bit better than that. 

 

Tom: The other thing I never have and never will call an investment—but I’m getting more interested in, is Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. It was up 70 percent for the year, and that’s after quite a high in November. What are your thoughts on this? I don’t consider it an investment, but it’s definitely something you can make money on. 

 

Rob: I would agree with that. I think it is an emerging asset class. I think we’re still in the exploratory phase of cryptocurrency. What is it good for? What is the longevity of it? Which are the coins that are going to be the ones with staying power? It’s kind of a bit of a wild-west situation right now. In a way—and I don’t want to draw a direct comparison, but it makes me think of the late 90s and technology stocks—this excitement about every technology stock. There were hardware stocks, software stocks, internet stocks and B2B stocks. Some of the stuff crashed and burned while some, great monumental franchises were built. There was a sorting period. It was a bit of a shakeout in the tech market crash, but plenty of great companies emerged from it. I think we’re sort of in that exploratory phase now with crypto. Do all investors need to own it? No. But if it speaks to you and want to have a piece of it, I’m not going to be the kind of person who says, “Don’t do that. That’s garbage and has no place in our portfolios.” I would want to keep it separate from your retirement portfolio. I look at all the money flying into crypto ETFs, and I get it. It’s a very, very clean and easy way to play crypto, Bitcoin or Ethereum, in general. There are a bunch of others too. I get it. You can make a small, strategic, speculative investment but let’s keep it separate from your important money and see where it goes. 

 

Tom: One of the things I think made me more interested this year isn’t even the increased return of it. It was seeing more of an actual fintech use for this stuff. The idea of these smart contracts that could change real estate, banking, and everything—or  NFTs and metaverse stuff. It’s creepy and sounds like the Matrix but it’s starting to sound like a real thing. 

 

Rob: There’s a lot of flaky stuff right now, I think. But you know what? I put it all together along with what’s going on in housing and in the stock market. There is a speculative fever going on. I’m not quite sure how it all plays out, but the pandemic has given us a hunger to make money and there’s a lot of speculative investing and thinking going on. This isn’t the real world we’re in right now. This is some “hothouse” we’re living in, fueled by low-interest rates and this pandemic-driven sort of focus on your money because you’re not travelling. You’re not spending in other ways. You’re at home. If you’re working at home and you’re an investor, how often are you looking at your account online? And looking at Bitcoin charts? How much should I make today? I think we’re in a special environment and I wouldn’t want to draw any conclusions about Bitcoin or other assets from what’s happening now but they’re in the system and people are starting to find uses for them. I think today’s investor has to pay some mind to this. 

 

Tom: We touched on a few predictions. Is there anything else that you want to put down here for what you see for the rest of this year, 2022? 

 

Rob: I think 2022 is going to be sort of a year of recalibration. 2020 was, “Oh my God, what’s happening?” 2021 was, “We’re getting control of this and a lot of us are in great shape to spend.” So, in 2022 we’ve got to work through inflation. We’ve got to work through astronomically high house prices. We’ve got to work through the economy coming back and justifying what stock prices are. I see it as a more of a challenging year financially than 2021 was because although there was a lot of terrible news, pandemic-wise in 2021, a lot of us were sitting pretty, financially. Some were really struggling, but their story was eclipsed a bit by all this financial wave of speculation. In 2022 I think we’re going to see things calm down a bit. Then we’ll start to see the path out of the pandemic. What’s the market going to look like? What’s inflation going to look like? What are interest rates going to look like? In 2021, we guessed—we forecasted, we thought long and hard about what was coming in 2022. It’s coming, and we’ll see how it plays out. 

 

Tom: Great. Thanks for going through all this. I hope we get some kind of return to normal that we’ve been promised for a while. Hopefully, this is the last wave. We’ll have to wait to see how things come out. Thanks for being on the show. 

 

Rob: I was glad to do it, Tom. Take care.

 

Thank you, Rob, for your insights on Canadian personal finance as we embark on another year. Let’s hope 2022 is the year we put the pandemic in the rearview mirror and more Canadians have an opportunity to get ahead financially. You can find the show notes for this episode at maplemoney.com/179. If you have a moment, head over to our YouTube channel, and subscribe there as we will be getting back to releasing never-before-seen content soon. Search Maple Money or go to maplemoney.com/youtube and subscribe today. I look forward to seeing you back here next week when Andrew Hallam joins us to discuss his new book, Balance—How to Invest and Spend for Happiness, Health and Wealth. See you next week!