—The Mortgage Report: Nov. 30— Trudeau’s government said Monday that it plans to lift Canada’s debt ceiling by up to 57% as it embarks on record spending and deficits in the name of pandemic relief. Canada’s historic deficit just keeps on climbing. It’s now estimated at $381.6 billion for the current fiscal year, up from $343.2 billion this summer and...
—The Mortgage Report: Oct. 29— 1.29% is now the variable rate to beat, in Ontario at least. This new rate is: effectively equivalent to prime – 1.16%, a discount we haven’t seen since the COVID implosion last March 11 bps below the lowest 5-year fixed in the province (that being 1.40% for default-insured mortgages). Unfortunately, 1.29% is only available on...
—The Mortgage Report: Aug. 5— Is This a Joke?: “The CMHC defines housing as affordable when ‘it costs less than 30% of a household’s before-tax income,’ which includes rent or mortgage (principal and interest) payments, property taxes and other home bills,” reports the Financial Post. The punchline is, you have to move to a remote fishing village in Newfoundland to...
—The Mortgage Report: Saturday Edition— The Readvanceable Shuffle: Got a fixed rate above 3% in a readvanceable mortgage? Does your lender let you lock in the HELOC portion to a low-cost short-term fixed rate? If so, here’s a tip that might save you some interest. Jargon Buster: A “readvanceable mortgage” is one that has a regular amortizing mortgage linked to...
—The Mortgage Report: July 23— Forget Posted-rate Cash-back Mortgages: Many borrowers with less than 20% down aren’t just short on down payment funds, they’re short on closing costs too. And that’s a problem, because lenders want to ensure buyers have at least 1.5% of the purchase price available for closing costs. If you can’t easily swing that, there are now...
—The Mortgage Report: Weekend Edition— It Might as Well Have: On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada threw caution to the wind and changed its playbook. It pledged not to hike rates until “the 2 percent inflation target is sustainably achieved.” The significance of that statement is now sinking in and here’s why. Normally, the Bank of Canada doesn’t wait for...
—The Mortgage Report: July 13— False Start: Parts of the U.S are going back into lockdown, Fed officials are warning the economy is regressing and Ottawa is extending wage subsidies until December. That’s the kind of ominous news that makes people buy bonds. And if enough investors think the economy is heading back into the toilet, bonds will go up...
—The Mortgage Report: July 3— Long Road Back for Jobs: Avid rate watchers all want to know the same thing: how long will unemployment stay elevated? The answer to that is essential to knowing how long rates could remain in a trough. On Thursday, we got a sobering projection from a reputable source. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says...
The Mortgage Report – June 10 Dot Dot Dot Plot: The U.S. Federal Reserve, which sways Canadian rates more than many realize, was more pessimistic than expected in its rate announcement today. It’s “Dot Plot” (the Fed’s official rate forecast) now projects no rate hikes for 2020, 2021 and likely 2022. It’s unlikely Canada deviates much from the Fed’s path...
The Mortgage Report – June 5 Big Drops from HSBC: The online mortgage juggernaut keeps shaking competitors’ trees. This time with Canada’s lowest bank-advertised 5-year fixed rate ever, according to our records. It’s also the first bank to crack the 2% barrier on a 5-fixed, albeit it’s for default-insured mortgages only. HSBC’s move not only reflects historically low funding costs,...
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