The Mortgage Report – May 19 5% Down Payments at Risk? Canada’s housing agency says it must “avoid exposing young people” and “taxpayers” to “amplified losses that result from falling house prices.” CMHC CEO Evan Siddall said today, “Unless we act, a first-time homebuyer purchasing a $300,000 home with a 5% down payment stands to lose over $45,000 on their...
Daily Mortgage Report – May 7 A Record 4 million: That’s how many jobs disappeared in April, predict economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That’s a stunning one-fifth of the labour force, and only a portion of those jobs will return soon. How many of these families own homes? A meaningful minority. But the bigger question is, how many will continue paying...
Daily Mortgage Report – May 5 Trap Door for GTA Home Values: The average home price in the Greater Toronto Area fell a startling 11.8% versus March (those details). And Toronto’s drop wasn’t alone. Among the larger cities reporting April prices, Ottawa fell 6.8%, Calgary was down 5.3% and London dropped 5.4%. Vancouver is holding up for now, at basically...
The First-Time Home Buyer Incentive can’t be considered a dud, yet. But it’s surely not impressing anyone. What is the FTHBI? As the feds put it, “the government offers you financing [i.e., a 5-10% bigger down payment] without interest. This helps reduce your monthly mortgage payment without increasing your down payment.” One of its champions, CMHC CEO Evan Siddall, said...
Where did all the first-time buyers go? New data from CMHC suggests there are noticeably fewer of them out there (stats below). Maybe they’re hibernating until they can save up a bigger down payment, amid home prices that (in many regions) remain near record highs. Or, perhaps fewer of them are able to pass the mortgage stress test given today’s...
More people are researching mortgages online before they confront a lender or broker. That’s the good news. The bad news is that less than 1 in 3 are using sites like this to research mortgage rates, if CMHC’s latest data is accurate. The percentage that do use rate sites is up materially from last year’s 22%, but still too many...
It didn’t take the government long to propose changes to the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive (FTHBI). Just 10 days after the program launched, and following criticism that the Liberals’ new program didn’t address housing needs in high-priced markets, the Libs have tweaked it. Effective as soon as November, if you live in one of three high-cost regions, qualifying for the...
After five months of buildup, the government’s controversial First-Time Home Buyer Incentive is now live. Kind of. Applications for the program, which lowers borrowers’ interest and default insurance costs (using taxpayer dollars that may or may not be recouped), are supposed to be available here. But the forms aren’t on the government’s website yet, despite the September 2 launch date....
Here are seven things you may not know about Canada’s mortgage market. The source: CMHC’s insightful new Residential Mortgage Industry Report. 1) Variable Rates Looked Good (Keyword Being “Looked”) Almost 3 in 10 borrowers (29%) went variable in the first quarter. That’s12 percentage points higher than two years prior. And that’s despite the historically narrow gap between fixed and variable...
If you’ve been waiting for details about the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive (FTHBI) program, hoping it would help you qualify for a mortgage, you may be disappointed. The government finally showed all its cards with the FTHBI scheme and we can’t find many cases where it would actually improvesomeone’s buying power—i.e., bridge the gap between high home prices and what...
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