Sub-2% rates are here again. This time from Toronto-based DUCA Financial Services Credit Union — for default-insured 2-year fixed mortgages. This brand new offer is easily the lowest 2-year fixed rate out there. In fact, it’s the lowest mortgage rate in Canada period, and 57 basis points below the country’s next best offer. “This product is designed to help out...
It’s no secret. Many homebuyers that had no trouble qualifying for a mortgage in 2017 are finding big challenges in 2019. As we wrote yesterday, the government’s harsher mortgage “stress test” is a key reason why. The problem is exacerbated by the banks’ refusal to lower their posted 5-year fixed rates, despite a 55-basis-point drop in the 5-year bond yield...
Meridian Credit Union likes to shake things up every spring. For a few years now, it’s been releasing eye-popping mortgage specials during peak homebuying season, and this year is no different. The credit union, Ontario’s largest, just launched a 1.98% 2-year fixed that incinerates competing offers. How crazy is this rate? It is no less than 127 basis points below...
Not exactly. One month after the mother of all mortgage rule changes, the wheels are still turning in Canada’s real estate and mortgage market. They’re just turning slower. But make no mistake, OSFI’s mortgage stress test has changed the landscape—for both borrowers and lenders. Here’s how: Fewer Mortgages Our best anecdotal guesstimate after speaking to a sampling of federally regulated...
We’re one week into 2018, OSFI’s new mortgage stress test is live and the earth is still spinning on its axis. But that axis is now tilted…in credit unions’ favour. If you’re a mortgage shopper who’s been turned down by a bank—courtesy of the aforementioned new mortgage rules—then credit unions want to talk to you. Credit unions aren’t bound by...
Big-city home values were out of control. The real estate market needed de-risking. But the solution policy-makers gave us (the B-20 mortgage guideline) was imperfect, very imperfect. What’s About to Happen Effective January 1, 2018, the banking regulator (OSFI) will force the vast majority of low-ratio mortgage applicants to prove they can afford a payment based on a rate that’s...
Canada’s new “B-20” mortgage stress test will be a tectonic shift for the roughly 1 in 6 borrowers it affects, starting January 1. It’s going to force higher-indebted creditworthy borrowers to either: reduce their loan amount, seek help qualifying (e.g., find a bigger down payment or co-signor), defer their homebuying plans, or seek out a non-bank lender, like a credit...
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