Mortgages in Canada can be a murky subject – one that we hope to shed some light on with a series of highly informational articles.
Latest News
Can I cancel my mortgage life insurance? It’s too costly + MORE Jan 26th
Q: My daughter and her husband did not earn enough, so my wife and I decided that we would help them by putting her name on the mortgage for the purchase of a new-build condo in Hamilton, Ontario. We opted to go with RBC and the mortgage was approved at a rate of 2.65%. In order to get the mortgage.... More »
How much total ‘credit’ should a couple have? + MORE Aug 1st
Q: I’m wondering how much total ‘credit’ I should have? My husband and I have a few credit cards and two Line of Credit (LOCs) between us totalling about $50,000. We don’t have a habit of maxing it out and we pay it off fairly regularly. I’m being offered another LOC f.... More »
How much income do I need to qualify for a mortgage in Canada? + MORE Jun 20th
The Bank of Canada made a long-awaited rate cut on June 5, but the effects of lower mortgage rates have yet to trickle down into housing market data. That was evident in May, as real estate affordability continued to worsen for would-be home buyers.
The latest monthly affordability report from Ra.... More »
Is your mortgage up for renewal during the pandemic? Here’s what you need to know Sep 8th
First things first: If you’re staying with your existing lender, then you typically don’t have to requalify..... More »
This millennial left her job to go back to school, but scholarships have left her with no debt. Can she afford a GTA home? Jul 28th
“I do eventually want to buy a home, but the housing market in the GTA is intimidating to say the least, and I’m not so committed to home ownership that I’ll tie myself down to an unmanageable mortgage,” Maggie said..... More »
How to Negotiate Your Mortgage Rate
– ratesupermarket.ca
Negotiating a great deal on your mortgage is kind of like asking your boss for a raise – you need to do a bit of homework before the meeting, go in prepared and confident, and if you’re making a fair request, you should leave happy.
Nobody wants to waste money on high-interest charges on what will probably be the largest and longest-running debt of your life. Here are a few tips on how to negotiate the best mortgage product at the best possible rate.
#1: Be honest
Your mortgage agent will ask you a number of questions in order to find out which product will fit your needs. Tell the truth. If you’re stretching yourself thin to make the monthly mortgage payments, or if you’re worried about increasing rates or moving in a few years, these are important details that will help form your profile so the agent can recommend a product best suited for your personal situation.
#2: Ask questions
If you’re confused about something or if you don’t fully understand some of the mortgage terminology, don’t be afraid to ask…
Meet Evan Siddall, the CEO who remade the CMHC
– canadianbusiness.com
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation CEO Evan Siddell. (Portrait by Jessica Deeks)Evan Siddall, the chief executive officer of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., likes to give books to people he is getting to know. A favourite is This Is Water, an essay about self-centredness by David Foster Wallace, which begins with an allegory:
“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’
And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’ ”
CMHC was a lot like that insular fish when Siddall arrived at the end of 2013.The agency, created in 1946 to build houses for veterans of the Second World War, liked to describe itself as the “heart of housing”—an enormous Crown corporation that dominated the mortgage insurance market, guaranteed complex, bond-like assets called mortgage-backed securities, and subsidized the building and upkeep of First Nations and social housing…
The State of Rental Financing
– canadianmortgagetrends.com
Last November the Department of Finance banned default insurance on single-family rentals. That was a near-knockout blow to the rental financing businesses of lenders who rely on securitization. Since then, lenders who compete with the big banks have been forced to find new balance sheet funding. The extra cost of that funding has led a majority of lenders to jack up their rental rates by 15-25 bps. That’s up to $2,300 more interest that folks must now pay on a $200,000 rental mortgage. Or do they? While the rental businesses struggle at monoline lenders, some of the largest banks are READ MORE
Housing Speculation An Addiction Canada's Economy Can't Kick
– walletpop.ca
Here’s another data point on the Canadian housing bubble, how immense it really is, and how utterly crucial wild housing speculation has become to the Canadian economy.
Housing starts surged to 253,720 units in March seasonally adjusted, the highest since September 2007, according to Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. Of them, 161,000 were multi-family starts of condos and rental units in urban areas. In Toronto, one of the hotbeds of Canada’s house price bubble, housing starts jumped by 16,600 units, all of them condos and apartments, defying any expectation of a slowdown.
Homes for sale or for lease in Toronto on Feb. 1, 2017. (Photo: Carlos Osorio/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
Housing starts are an indication of construction activity, a powerful additive to the local economy with large secondary effects. Housing construction gets fired up by the promise of ever-skyrocketing housing prices, and thus big payoffs for developers, lenders, real estate agents and the entire industry…
