Two steady housing years ahead: CMHC

Canada’s housing market has two good years ahead of it yet, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Monday, with low interest rates and a “moderately” expanding economy keeping price corrections at bay. The Crown corporation – which insures Canadian mortgages – has had a consistently rosier view of the market than many private sector forecasters. Canadian banks […]

Mortgage brokers undercut banks

Mortgage brokers are once again undercutting the banks and some are willing to buy down your rate — eating part of their commission in the process — to gain customers. Steep mortgage discounts from the major banks have all but disappeared from the market, leading mortgage brokers to make sacrifices for market share amid new […]

TD, RBC end 2.99% mortgage deals early

After briefly offering record-low rates of less than 3% on some of its mortgages in response to its rivals, Canada’s two biggest banks have pulled back their offers prematurely. Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canada’s second-largest bank, raised its special four-year closed fixed rate mortgage 40 basis points to 3.39%, effective Wednesday, while also introducing a special five-year […]

CHILTON TAKES A SWIPE AT REVERSE MORTGAGES

The list of detractors of reverse mortgage has another name added to it: David Chilton, otherwise known as ‘the wealthy barber’, after the title of this famous book on personal finance. At a speaking engagement Thursday night in Scarborough, Ont., Chilton discussed various mistakes people make while managing their financial affairs. Taking out reverse mortgage, […]

Beware the debt-reduction pitch

With Canadian household debt levels at historic highs, some consumers might be looking for ways to reduce what they owe – or at least make repayment a little less painful. A number of companies offer debt reduction deals to help provide relief from creditors. But the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) haswarned that by using […]

No housing crash for Canada: BMO

Canada will likely avoid a crash or serious correction in its “somewhat pricey” housing market, with the possible exception of Vancouver, says a new paper from Bank of Montreal. The analysis by BMO economists suggests alarms about Canada’s housing market by international observers, from the International Monetary Fund to The Economist magazine, are exaggerated or […]

CMHC backing fewer loans

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. is cutting back on mortgages it insures as the Crown corporation edges closer to a $600-billion cap imposed on it by the federal government, the Financial Post has learned. A CMHC spokesman confirmed that it had approached a number of lenders at the end of 2011 about reducing its “bulk or portfolio […]

CMHC Insurance Limits: A Wake-up Call for Lenders

Many have now seen thisNational Post article. The gist of it: CMHC is approaching its $600 billion government-imposed limit on issuing mortgage default insurance. That’s happening largely because of lenders’ enormous appetite for something called portfolio insurance (a.k.a., “bulk insurance”). No one fully grasps the repercussions yet, but our sense is that the news is not […]

Happy Clients Are Gold

How important is client satisfaction to a mortgage broker? The answer is in this stat: A whopping 82% of broker clients find out about their broker via referral. (Source: Maritz/CAAMP) Existing clients are gold. As a broker, they’re our best source of new business. That’s why it pays to take care of and invest in them. […]

Top 5 Mortgage Trends of 2011

Cheap money fuelled anotherbuoyant year for real estate in 2011. That helped housing values climb a wall of worry (prices rose another 4.6% Y/Y as of November) despite numerous predictions of a correction. Mortgage balances went along for the ride, growing another 7%. 2011 was a year marked by new mortgage regulations and a rate market that continually surprised most […]

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