Finding the ideal home can be challenging, if not impossible, especially in a hot real estate market. You might find a home where you love the layout, but the kitchen and bathrooms haven’t been updated for fifty years. Sure, that psychedelic wallpaper, and vintage cabinetry might have been quite the rage in the 70’s, but [...]

Anyone following the mortgage market is aware that fixed mortgage rates have been increasing since early October. While they have stabilized for now, it’s possible that we could see further increases in coming months. As mortgage payments will increase with rates, this will also reduce your maximum qualified mortgage amount, right? Logically, this makes sense, [...]

When purchasing a resale property, the closing date is a straightforward concept. It’s simply the date that the ownership is transferred from the seller to the buyer. Where it becomes more complex is when purchasing a pre-construction condo, as there is not just one closing date, but two. The first is your occupancy closing. The [...]

5 year fixed mortgage rates have been on the rise since late September, and have now climbed up over 2%. Should this surprise us? The fact that fixed mortgage rates have now moved up over 2% is not surprising. What is surprising is how quickly it has happened.     Why Are Fixed Mortgage Rates [...]

In this morning’s scheduled rate announcement from the Bank of Canada, they confirmed that they will be maintaining their overnight rate. This is the rate that mortgage lenders use to set their prime rate. While their rate remains unchanged as expected, they announced that they are not just winding down their quantitative easing program, they [...]

Bond yields continue to trend upward, which places more upward pressure on fixed mortgage rates. Some mortgage lenders have increased their rates over the last few days, with more expected to increase over the next week. This is in addition to rate increases we saw over the last couple of weeks. As long as bond [...]

Upward pressure on fixed mortgage rates remains, and if bond yields continue with their upward trend, then fixed rates will continue to rise. The regular readers of my blog will know that fixed mortgage rates are largely influenced by bond yields. When the yields begin to trend upwards, this in turn will place upward pressure [...]

Even with recent increases to fixed mortgage rates, they are still among the lowest in history. Rates this low are not typical, and not close to anything we would expect to see in a healthy economy. Remember, It took a pandemic to bring them down to where they are today. While fixed mortgage rates seemed [...]

Fixed mortgage rates have been trickling downward since the spring, however this trend has now reversed sharply. Fixed mortgage rates are largely influenced by bond yields, which have been steadily increasing since the beginning of September. In the past week alone, they spiked from 0.855 to 1.112, representing an increase of roughly 30%. Pretty significant. [...]

Income confirmation is a crucial part of the mortgage approval process as it assures lenders that the borrower has the capacity to repay the loan. It doesn’t matter how large your down payment is, or how much equity you have in your property. Mortgage lenders are required to confirm that the borrower’s debt to income [...]