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...
There’s an increasingly ominous vibe to Canada’s economic outlook, and that’s got the market taking rates down another notch. Canada’s5-year bond yield is seven basis points lower today—to 1.63% as we write this. That’s the lowest it’s been since December 2017.All told, the 5-year yield has now sank 83 basis points since the November high. With the Bank of Canada...
No one thought the Bank of Canada would move rates today. What observers were looking for was a hint that we may be closer to the end of rate hikes than Governor Poloz has been letting on. Here’s what we heard from the BoC on that point, among other things: Rate Decision: Canada’s key interest rate remains at 1.75% Prime...
The number of Canadians who blindly trust mortgage rate comparison websites is staggering. This year, almost two million households will renew or take out a new mortgage. Of these, CMHC found that over 78% who research mortgages online compare interest rates. The majority of these folks, those who visit a rate comparison website, are simply not being shownthe market’s best...
Canada’s spring mortgage market is officially underway. HSBC kicked it off today with a head-turning 2.99% 5-year fixed rate. It’s the first time sinceSeptember 24, 2018, that Canadians have seen the best 5-year fixed ratestart with a “2.” Much has changed inthose five short months: Market expectations have gone from 100+ basis points of rate hikes in the next few...
Have you ever walked on a frozen lake and worried you’re going to fall through? That’s the feeling of many traders right now — the ones shorting Canada’s 5-year government bond. The yield on that 5-year bond is what guides fixed mortgage rates (among other things), and it’s seemingly on the verge of making a new 14-month low. The magic...
The two top policy-makers in Canada’s mortgage market don’t seem to be on the same page—at least not with what they’re feeding the public about the mortgage “stress test.” Observe these two statements about why the stress test—which is part of banking regulator OSFI’s contentious “Guideline B-20″—was implemented: Bill Morneau, Minister of Finance: “…We wanted to make sure that [home]...
Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz dropped some notable rate-related nuggets in a speech Thursday. Below we ponder the implications of those comments for mortgagors. Here’s what Poloz said: ****** “Inflation expectations have become firmly anchored on our 2 percent target…My children will never pay anything like the kind of interest rates I have paid in my lifetime.” Translation for...
So many factors can cause you to pay a higher mortgage rate. One of the least transparent is government regulation. Since 2008, Ottawa has layered mortgage policy upon mortgage policy, thereby boosting lender funding costs an estimated 25-50+ basis points depending on lender and mortgage type. These changes include the removal of insurability on various loan types (default-insured mortgages are...
In a speech last week, Canada’s banking regulator brushed off the “unintended consequences” of its controversial mortgage stress test with one sententious comment: “…The answer to this important problem…cannot be more consumer debt, fuelled by lower underwriting standards.” — OSFI Assistant Superintendent Carolyn Rogers She could not have been more right. More slack in “underwriting standards” was the last thing...
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