• Bank of Canada (BoC) officials seem to be setting us up for a rate cut with all their concerned talk lately.
• A majority of Canadian economists expect a 1/4% cut on January 22, according to Bloomberg.
• “I think we’ve definitely passed the worst as far as [interest rate] spreads [are] concerned.” — CIBC’s Benjamin Tal.
• BMO expects two more interest rate cuts in the first half of 2008.
• HSBC’s Stewart Hall thinks the BoC will cut rates Jan. 22 so incoming governor Mark Carney won’t have to.
• If Canada’s economy slows Profit magazine thinks mortgage brokers will be in higher demand. They say more mortgage planners would be called upon “to help the overextended renegotiate their [mortgages].”
• The National Associate of Realtors thinks U.S. home sales will start recovering by late 2008.
• Today’s reality check comes from Laurie Campbell, executive director of Credit Canada. Campbell says, “Canadians have never been in higher debt.” She says we’ve been maxing out our “credit lines to the limit” and blowing our budgets “big time.”
• The American Dialect Society picked “subprime” as its 2007 word of the year.  It beat out stiff competition from “green” and “Facebook.”
• “In my 30 years’ experience, I have never seen [office space] fundamentals as strong as they are now.” — Brookfield Properties President Tom Farley.
• The Bank of Canada wants to increase the transparency of how it sets interest rates by providing the public with more data.
• Shares of Countrywide, America’s biggest mortgage lender, are at an all-time low. The company is shifting away from it’s (formerly more profitable) subprime business and grappling with mounting foreclosures.