This week: Carpets and rugs get snagged by tariffs, and the push to relocate homes instead of tearing them down. Plus, breaking down how bond yields actually drive up fixed mortgage rates, and one property worth a look.

One of the latest targets of the trade war is likely in your home or under your feet at the office. Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on approximately $28-billion of U.S. goods will drive up prices on everything and the kitchen sink, builders and suppliers say. But perhaps no one is feeling the rug burn more at this time than those in need of a lot of carpet.

Unlike the last time Canada retaliated against the U.S., there’s no CUSMA exemption for the 25-per-cent tariff on the most in-demand commercial carpet, and as Shane Dingman reports, Canada doesn’t have a domestic manufacturer to meet the need. Instead home builders and suppliers are looking to international manufacturers to cover the floors of new and renovated homes, just when another big ‘Buy Canadian’ push has begun.

Carpet and rugs may seem like a random target, but it’s a calculated move to hit the industry’s centre in politically sensitive Georgia, which leans Republican but has swung blue in recent elections. But, as decorators and home-builders told Shane, it’s driving construction costs even higher in an industry already struggling to break ground and sell units. Read the full story about the latest snag.

Would you live in a home that had been transported from somewhere else? In Vancouver, there’s a growing push to move homes whole instead of tearing them down, and as Kerry Gold writes, the idea isn’t as novel as it might seem.

Between all the redevelopment signs in the Broadway Plan area and the emptied lots awaiting new shovels here in the city, it’s easy to see why Vancouver is the demolition capital of Canada. About 90,000 detached homes will be torn down across Canada in the next decade and one-third of those will be in Metro Vancouver, according to a new report by non-profit Light House and partially funded by the federal government.

But even as demolition makes way for much-needed denser housing in many cities, Light House estimates about 20 per cent of the homes could be salvaged and relocated to communities where there is immediate demand, at a fraction of the cost of building new. “It’s crazy,” Light House’s Gil Yaron told Kerry. “Not only are we wasting material, but the sad irony is that we are destroying housing at the same time as we have a housing crisis.” Read Kerry’s column about what it would take, and the companies already helping people repurpose homes.

Rates shown are the lowest available for each term/type and category (insured vs. uninsured) as of market close on Thursday, Sept. 17.

If your mortgage is up for renewal or you’re thinking of buying a home (or you just read this newsletter closely), you’ve probably been hearing a lot about the U.S. bond market’s impact on mortgage rates, inflation, car loans, GICs, long-term bonds and more. But what exactly is a bond yield, and why are they driving up fixed mortgage rates here in Canada?

To answer your questions, Scott Barlow, a market strategist for The Globe and a 20-year veteran of Canadian investment banks recently joined The Decibel podcast and spoke with host Sherrill Sutherland to break it all down.

And if you’d rather read than listen, my colleague Arisa Valyear put together this handy guide to Scott’s key points and why the bond market affects our finances so much.

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