The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) issued its quarterly housing market assessment and outlook yesterday, suggesting that, for the first time ever, there are “problematic conditions” in housing markets at the national level in Canada. As well, CMHC expects national housing starts and MLS sales to decline slightly in 2017 before stabilizing in 2018, which is pretty much the consensus view. What I find strange about the hype surrounding this report is that there is nothing new here. Moreover, the details seem encompass lagged data, before the sales decline and price slowdown in Vancouver–a slowdown that began before the August implementation of a 15% tax on non-resident buyers in Vancouver.