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TORONTO — The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says the country’s mortgage debt increased at a slower pace in the last quarter of 2017 compared to the year before.

The Crown corporation attributes the slowdown to rising interest rates and decreasing home sales.

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In its quarterly mortgage and consumer trends report, CMHC also reveals that the growth rate of home equity line of credit debt more than doubled when compared to the fourth quarter of 2016, trailing credit card and auto loan debt.

Meanwhile, the demand for new mortgage loans was sluggish with the number of loans opened in the last quarter of 2017 falling by 7.7 per cent from the year before to reach 234,000.

CMHC says the number of consumers with a mortgage loan in the fourth quarter reached its highest point in the last three years.