Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, conventional mortgage lending rate, 5-year term — AI AnalysisCanada's 5-year conventional mortgage rate, tracked monthly from January 1951 to January 2026 across 901 observations, tells a dramatic story of economic extremes — peaking at 21.46% in September 1981 during the inflation crisis before falling to a historic low of 3.20% in July 2021 during the COVIDKey Findings

The all-time peak rate of 21.46% was recorded in September 1981, driven by aggressive Bank of Canada anti-inflation policy, making the 1980s the most expensive decade for borrowers with an average rate of 13.55%.

The historic low of 3.20% occurred in July 2021, reflecting pandemic-era emergency monetary easing, making the 2010s–early 2020s the most affordable borrowing period on record with a 2010s decade average of just 4.17%.

The long-run mean rate of 7.98% exceeds the median of 7.00%, confirming a right-skewed distribution pulled upward by the extreme high-rate period of the early 1980s.

50% of all 901 monthly observations fall within the interquartile range of 5.75% to 10.25%, with a standard deviation of 3.27% reflecting substantial long-term variability.

Statistical outlier detection identified 19 extreme data points (Z-score > 2.5), concentrated in two distinct anomaly periods: the 1980–1982 inflation surge and the 2020–2021 COVID-19 rate collapse.

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