Obtaining a mortgage or secured line of credit in Canada at the best rates is often a daunting task. We can help! Read the articles below for more info.
Latest News
“Should we refinance our mortgage?” + MORE Dec 23rd
We’re thinking about breaking our existing home mortgage to take advantage of low interest rates and would appreciate some guidance. This is our scenario:
Mortgage principal: $572,000Weekly payments: $746.00Interest rate: 3.78% fixed and locked in until December 2024Penalty fee for breaking mor.... More »
How much do you save with bi-weekly payments? + MORE Feb 7th
For years, we’ve been told to pay our mortgage bi-weekly. Magically, it will pay your mortgage off faster. Hmm, let’s put that to the test.
(SPOILER ALERT!) Around 10 years ago, I wrote an article showing some simple but effective math to explain this. I’m constantly getting e.... More »
Mortgage borrowers to see payments increase by 20-40% at renewal: Bank of Canada May 19th
The Bank of Canada says it it concerned about the ability of households to service their debt, particularly as mortgage holders are facing payment increases of up to 40% at renewal..... More »
The latest in mortgage news: National Bank among first to offer First Home Savings Account Apr 19th
National Bank has become one of the first of the big banks to make the new First Home Savings Account (FHSA) available to its clients..... More »
How to protect yourself from identity fraud in Canada + MORE Dec 15th
In 2024, Canadians lost a jaw-dropping $638 million to fraud, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC). That’s already a hefty $60 million more than losses reported the previous year, but the true total is likely much, much higher—experts at the CAFC say that less than 5% of scams are .... More »
Mortgage Industry Reacts to Liberal Budget
– canadianmortgagetrends.com
Hoping for minor tweaks to the mortgage stress test, the Liberal government’s 2019 budget instead left many in the industry underwhelmed and with more questions than answers. The stress test was left untouched, and instead Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced two key changes aimed at easing affordability for new homebuyers: Introduction of the First-Time Home […]
Rolling in the Debt: Canada sees a rise in Household Debt
– ratesupermarket.ca
While the value of Canadian homes has decreased for the first time many years, the same cannot be said for Canadian debt levels. This past week, Statistics Canada released its National balance sheet and financial flow accounts looking at the last quarter of 2018, and it shows that the amount Canadians owed relative to their income increased towards the end of the year. The average debt-to-disposable income percentage went to 178.5 per cent (up from 178.3 per cent in the previous quarter). That means for every dollar of disposable income a Canadian household has, they owe $1.79 in credit market debt. The report also dove into the latest housing figures and interest rate trends.
Demand for mortgage loans rising
In the last quarter, Canadian households borrowed $21.1 billion. While the demand for consumer credit and non-mortgage loans did go down, demand for mortgage loans rose $2.3 billion to a total $12.3 billion.
In terms of overall credit market debt, including consumer credit and mortgage and non-mortgage loans, Canadians owe a total of $2…
Q1 2019 Bank Earnings – Mortgage Morsels
– canadianmortgagetrends.com
The dust has settled after the latest round of Big 6 bank earnings, which indicated a sluggish start to the year on the mortgage front. Residential mortgage growth was subdued in the quarter, hit by a housing slowdown in the country’s largest markets, Toronto and Vancouver, but exacerbated due to higher activity a year ago […]
Federal Budget 2019: New Co-Pay Incentive for First-Time Home Buyers
– ratesupermarket.ca
The Federal Government has tabled their last budget before they head to elections this Fall, and in it is one very big announcement for first-time home buyers.
Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau has announced $23 billion in new spending. This will be spread out over more than 127 areas. As we had expected this includes money for, first-time home buyers, seniors, skills training for adults, pharmacare and indigenous services.
They are breaking one of their key promises in their 2015 election campaign of balancing the budget by 2019. Now there is no timeline for when they will balance the books. This will inevitably become a major talking point among their opposition as they head to the polls.
Help for first-time home buyers
The headline announcement is aimed at millennials. Called the ‘First-Time Home Buyer Incentive’ it promises to help young people purchase their first home. It will be administered by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The government says they will provide up to $1…
Mortgage Rates have Dropped and Will Fall Further
– canadamortgagenews.ca
Rate forecasting isn’t rocket science – it’s more common sense than you think! But, it requires a clear mind to make sense of all the rubbish that’s being published these days.
I’ve been forecasting for a while now that interest rates would start to come back down this year. Currently, interest rates are down by around 0.4% and will come down further.
WHY ARE RATES FALLING?
In 2017, the Bank of Canada started raising the prime rate. Rates were raised five times over a 15-month period from July 2017 to October 2018. That’s a 1.25% increase. Most experts believed rates would continue to increase by another 1-2%. This is hard to imagine when you look at the facts, but this is what the “experts” forecasted.
I couldn’t understand how or why anyone could expect the average homeowner would be able to absorb these anticipated rate hikes. Over this 15-month period, if you had a $300,000 mortgage, your payments would have increased from $1,420 to $1,618, or $198 more per month! And, yet, the “experts” were calling for rates to rise by another 1-2% over the next year…
