News, Views and Trends!
The Bank of Canada governor, Till Macklem, made no change to interest rates on April 21st, the 3rd of 8 annual meetings dates. This comes as no surprise, though, There wasn’t a chance of an interest rate hike anyway. You can read more on this here .
Continue reading “Interest Rates to Stay As-is for Now. But When Will They Rise Again?”
There is big news that was announced earlier this month and it might affect home buyers in the market for a mortgage. The Office of Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) released a proposal to increase the qualifying mortgage rate for uninsured mortgages. Uninsured mortgages are ones where there is more than a 20% down payment.
The new qualifying rate will increase from the posted 5 year fixed rate, which is currently 4.79%, to the contract rate plus 2% or 5.25%, whichever is greater. This would effectively qualify consumers for 4% less mortgage. On a $1,000,000 purchase with a $200,000 down payment, buyers would qualify for around $755,000 vs $800,000.
Many are concerned that this could have an effect on our market by slowing it down.
Continue reading “New, tougher mortgage stress test? What will this do to our red hot real estate market?”
This week even more good news was announced by the Bank of Canada. A press release stated that the overnight rate will stay the same for the time being. This is great news for those with variable rate mortgages.
Only weeks ago, many were speculating on a micro-decrease but that didn’t happen. Now, we saw the media at it again. They were forecasting for a possible Bank of Canada rate increase. Well, this should shut them up.
Continue reading “Bank of Canada will keep its target rate as-is: Good news for those in a variable rate”
2020… It will be known as the year of the pandemic. It will also be known as a year of a record-setting real estate market. We saw records for volume of sales and new high prices in many cities across Canada. To say there was a lot going on is an understatement. I have to admit I was happy to close my office and give everyone the week off between Christmas and New Year’s.
Continue reading “New Year New Outlook”
Last week, I participated in a webinar featuring Economist Dr. Peter Andersen. While there was a lot of information covered, today I want to focus on a couple of key areas.
