One year ago, people were paying prime rate for new variable-rate mortgages. (See: First to Prime) Today, the market’s down to prime – 0.70%, or thereabouts. For those who got...
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The odds are fair that prime rate is heading 25 basis points higher in one of the next two Bank of Canada meetings. (See this Reuters’ poll) After that increase,...
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Did you know that you can go to jail for letting someone use your name to falsely obtain a mortgage? Some people apparently don’t. There’s been dozens of cases in...
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08Aug
Calculating The Benchmark Qualifying Rate
Filed Under: Mortgage Tips & Advice by: Robert McLister
This week’s posted-rate cuts sparked a little confusion about how the benchmark qualifying rate rate will be affected. When RBC lowered its posted rate on Tuesday, some--us included--expected that to...
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If there's any chance you'll break your mortgage before its term is up, know what kind of penalty you’ll be slapped with. A lot of people never bother to look...
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23Jul
Pre-Paying a Mortgage Before Discharge
Filed Under: Mortgage Tips & Advice by: Robert McLister
Homeowners who break a closed mortgage before maturity will often make a pre-payment before the mortgage is discharged. The idea is to reduce the mortgage balance and thereby pay less...
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Whenever rate-hike talk starts heating up (like it has since Friday) questions about term selection become more frequent. People increasingly want to know if the next prime rate increase is...
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09Jul
RBC Lowers The Ceiling On Its Capped Variable
Filed Under: Mortgage Tips & Advice by: Robert McLister
RBC has significantly reduced the maximum possible rate on its RateCapper mortgage. The cap is now set at 4.875%. That’s down almost a point since our last review of the...
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For the last 4-5 months or more, newspapers have been chock full of headlines like: Are We In A Housing Bubble? That’s got many expecting a drop in home prices....
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A client asked us today if we knew of any lenders who allow “free switches” into a hybrid mortgage. (A hybrid is a mortgage that’s part fixed and part variable,...
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