If you follow the real estate market—and who doesn’t nowadays?—you’ve likely noticed growing speculation about new mortgage rules. Home prices are seemingly out of control, with national average prices up a shocking 25% y/y — amid a recession no less. “Canada hasn’t had a market overheating of this scope since the late 1980s,” says RBC. A growing chorus of analysts...
We came across a mortgage customer this week who decided it was a good idea to change the date on his job letter. Apparently it was old and he didn’t want to ask his employer for a new one. Sure enough, the lender called his employer’s HR department to validate the job letter and sure enough, the lender asked the...
Normally, you don’t rock the boat when you’re already taking on water, but that’s what CMHC has done. Despite a weakened housing market, the nation’s largest default insurer is making it tougher for people to get a mortgage. That is, for borrowers with higher debt loads, lower credit scores and borrowed down payments. Here’s CMHC’s official announcement. Its changes take...
“There’s no doubt that mortgage rate declines since the start of this year have contributed to stabilize Canada’s housing market,”said RBC economist Robert Hogue in a report last week. That might be news to some, given the rates used to qualify borrowers for approval have barely moved in 2019. We asked Mr. Hogue to share what he sees and he...
Rarely have the heads of Canada’s housing agency and largest mortgage broker association been at such odds publicly. It feels like CMHC boss Evan Siddall and Mortgage Professionals Canada (MPC) chief Paul Taylor want to get in the ring and beat the stuffing out of each other. The former published his latest in a series of missives denouncing opponents of...
One of the worst mortgage policies in Canadian history could come to an end by next year. That is, if the Conservatives win the October 21 federal election. Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer summarizedthe problem for the Canadian Home Builders’ Association on Friday, saying: “If you want to switch lenders you have to go through the stress test. But if...
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...
“You usually need to be in a recession to see household credit rising this slowly.”—Ben Tal, CIBC Here’s something everyone in the mortgage industry already knew, and CIBC just re-confirmed. The government’smortgage stress testshave caused most of Canada’s lending slowdown since 2017. That’s the conclusion of CIBC Economics. As a result, the bank’s widely-respected econo-wizard Benjamin Tal concludes, “…Regulators should...
Summary: The CMHC Shared Equity Mortgage comes up short, based on the info the government has graced us with thus far. Some of these projections may change, however, as the government releases more information on the programs. OK, someone please tell us our numbers¹ are wrong, because from where we sit the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive (FTHBI) just announced by...
The Department of Finance is considering a return to 30-year amortizations on insured mortgages, says the Canadian Homebuilders’ Association (as reportedin the Globe and Mail). The last time we had 30-year amortizations on insured mortgages was 2012.This time, however, only first-time buyers might get access to them. Called “extended amortizations,” 30-year payback periods are still available to anyone getting an...
log in
