News, Views and Trends!
Rumour has it the worst is yet to come. On October 26th, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem will very likely increase rates by another 0.50%. Not only will this push the bank prime rate up to 5.95% – it could lead to the average 5-year fixed rate mortgage well above 6.00%. What a mess. As I mentioned in my previous article, the BoC made a critical error and the Canadian people are continuing to pay for it.
Continue reading “How To Navigate Today’s Economy”
The Bank of Canada has always avoided forecasting rate hikes and rate cuts. It’s always been a closely guarded secret left to speculation – that is, of course, until July 2020. In what might have been the first announcement of its kind in the history of the BoC, Governor Tiff Macklem publicly stated that “interest rates are low and will stay low for a long time.”
The central bank didn’t anticipate having to raise rates until 2023 and for some reason made a choice to communicate that to Canadians. Naturally, Canadians made financial decisions accordingly. Big financial decisions. All on the basis of a promise made by a government institution they knew and trusted.
As we’re now learning, that promise was impossible to keep.
Continue reading “A Broken Promise Leads To A Broken Economy”
For millions of Canadians, the Bank of Canada meetings are a major cause of anxiety. Will rates go up? By how much? Will I continue to be able to meet my monthly mortgage payments? It’s only natural to ask these questions. Recent hikes have been dramatic to say the least. And to make matters worse, the media has a way of making everyone feel like these hikes are in a perpetual uphill climb.
But in my opinion, a plateau is coming sooner than expected.
Continue reading “When Will Variable Rates Stop Climbing?”
My father keeps the news on constantly. It’s like an addiction, and CP24 is his drug of choice. It hurls bad news all day and all night. Not because it’s helpful, or even that interesting – but because it keeps his eyeballs on the screen. My father isn’t alone. CP24 and other 24-hour news sources are tattooed onto screens across the country.
Unfortunately, a lot of that bad news has to do with the housing market. It seems as though there’s a constant parade of “experts” telling you that we’re in a bubble. To sell now and rent until the market corrects itself. To avoid “risk” and go with a fixed rate mortgage.
This last myth in particular has gone viral and needs to be dispelled.
Continue reading “What Nobody Is Telling You About Fixed Rate Mortgages”
I originally posted a breakdown of how mortgage penalties are calculated by different lenders on January 4, 2011.
A recent article outlining how TD Bank charged a $30,000 mortgage penalty to a woman forced to sell her home due to the Covid-19 pandemic shows how this remains relevant today.
WE TOOK THE MYSTERY OUT OF HOW PENALTIES ARE CALCULATED
We decided this needed a more detailed explanation… but a strange thing happened when we started to answer these questions. We made a startling discovery. We caution you – the results could get your blood boiling if you’ve had to pay a penalty!
We found that the banks have shrunk or reduced the spreads between their Posted and Discounted rates on shorter-term mortgages over the past few years… and this has had a huge impact on Interest Rate Differential (IRD) penalty calculations. Continue reading “Beware of Mortgage Penalties”
CanadaMortgageNews.ca 