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The shakeup follows British Columbia’s July decision to impose a 15 per cent tax on Vancouver homes purchased by foreigners, effective Aug. 2. Average prices for detached homes in the city had surged to about $1.6 million, putting them out of reach of many local families.

“If there was to be a bit of a slowdown I don’t think it would be surprising given the strength that we’ve seen in the market over time,” Bank of Montreal Chief Financial Officer Tom Flynn said of the Vancouver market in an Aug. 23 phone interview. “We’re protecting ourselves from a risk perspective by having higher levels of equity down payments on more expensive properties, and we’ve been doing that for a period of time.”

To be sure, there are signs consumer confidence remains healthy. The Nanos Pocketbook measure rose to 62.5, the highest since February 2015. That helped keep the headline confidence measure of 59.3, close to the 2016 high of 59.9 set the week before.

Here are some of the other highlights from the report: Job prospects brightened, with the sixth straight increase in the share of respondents calling their positions “secure” to 50.4 per cent; The confidence of people aged 40 to 49 rose to the highest since August 2014 at 60.1 per cent; The economy will be little changed in six months according to 44.1 per cent of those surveyed, up 2 percentage points from the prior tracking period; That was higher than the 26.5 per cent who predicted strengthening and 23.2 percent who said it will be weaker.

The Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index is based on a four-week rolling average of telephone polling with 1,000 respondents. It’s considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The latest round of polling ended Aug. 26.

Bloomberg News