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More good news for home buyers.

Chris Wattie/Reuters

Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney.

As the nail biter in Europe continues this week, two economists are predicting the Bank of Canada will move to cut rates in a big way next year.

Sheryl King, an economist at Bank of America Merril Lynch, said in a note that the volatility hitting Europe and the risk of damage to the global economy means the Bank of Canada will move to cut its benchmark interest rate to ward off the risk of recession. Her prediction is the cut will be a whopping 0.75% decrease from the current rate of 1%.

“With the Eurozone sovereign debt and banking crisis showing no sign of containment, we think the Bank of Canada will cut rates back to the effective lower bound of 25 basis points (0.25%) early next year,” she said.

Ms. King forecasts that the cut would come in two phases, with a 0.50% trim being announced during the bank’s January 17 meeting, while the second and final 0.25% cut coming during the March 8 meeting.

Also predicting a lower interest rate next year is David Madani, Canada economist at Capital Economics. He is forecasting a more mild cut of 50 basis points, however, saying he expects it to occur in April or June.

Either way, Mr. Madani said he expects interest rates in Canada will remain low for some time.

“The Bank might communicate that its policy rate will remain at 0.50% for a lengthy period of time, conditional on its projected outlook for consumer price inflation,” he said, in reference to the Bank of Canada’s target of 2% annual inflation.

“Even if we are wrong, the broader message remains that interest rates will remain unusually low for a very long time.”

Most economists, however, are still predicting that the Bank of Canada will raise interest rates rather than lower them in 2012. In a recent Reuters survey of 40 economists last month, the consensus was that an interest rate increase will occur in the third quarter of next year.

If rates are cut, it will mark a sharp turnaround for the Bank of Canada, which only last year raised interest rates. Canada became one of the first advanced economies to raise its benchmark interest rates following the recession when the Bank of Canada implemented a 25 basis point hike in September of last year. The benchmark rate has since remained unchanged at 1%.