By
odihost on April 10th, 2012
Canada is quite different than the US and a major reason why is because of the Federal Governments oversight of our banking system. In Canada, if banks want to be able to lend more than 75% of a property’s value they must obtain high ratio mortgage insurance from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). When a mortgage is insured by CMHC, both CMHC and the bank will have to approve your mortgage application. CMHC has legislated guidelines that banks must follow in order to obtain high ratio mortgage financing.
Last year Minister Flaherty tightened up CMHC guidelines and Canadians can no longer amortize CMHC insured mortgages longer than 30 years. In addition, they reduced the percentage to which you can refinance your home and no longer will high ratio insure home equity lines of credit.
This week in Ontario’s mortgage news, TD bank released a report asking the government to increase the minimum down payment required to purchase a home from 5% up to 7%.
Minister Flaherty met with economists in early March and received advice that he should clamp down on Canadian’s appetite for housing and new debt. TD Bank’s chief economist Craig Alexander suggests that the Minister reduce the maximum amortization on mortgages to 25 years from 30, or increase the minimum down payment that Canadians are required to make when purchasing a home from 5% to 7%, or mandate a “means test” for those seeking loans by ensuring they can afford to make payments as if mortgage interest charges rise to 5.5 percent, about twice as high as many current rates.
Debt has continued to rise in Canada and especially in Ontario faster than incomes; the average debt service ratio in Canadian households exceeds 150%. With the latest figures released indicating that household debt accumulation is still rising at six percent annually and the fact that The Bank of Canada has asserted that household debt is the “biggest domestic risk” to Canadians; one or more of these options may be considered by CMHC.
With that said, Minister Flaherty has expressed fears that discouraging home buying could cause a loss of construction jobs, a sector the economy was hit very hard with in Ontario during the last recession and was covered extensively in Ontario mortgage news. Disruption to other parts of the economy has also been a major reason that The Bank of Canada has held back on raising interest rates.
What does this mean to you? Well, if you are someone who has aspirations of owning a home and only has a 5% down payment or cannot afford a large mortgage payment, the time is now to act to ensure that you can secure your mortgage financing before more changes come down the pipeline. Increased pressure from economists may result in Minister Flaherty taking recommendations in the coming months that could seriously impact your ability to buy a home and qualify for mortgage financing. One thing that is important is that you pay attention to Ontario mortgage news and keep on top of announcements so that you don’t find out that something major has changed after it’s too late.
Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/ontario-mortgage-news-td-bank-wants-government-to-increase-required-down-payment-5803251.html
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By
admin on June 26th, 2010
Forget everything you thought you knew about the benefits of taking a variable-rate mortgage instead of locking in for the long term.
A new study suggests the security of a five-year mortgage costs little or nothing beyond a riskier variable-rate mortgage, providing you get a jumbo-sized rate discount.
“Interest costs on discounted closed five-year mortgages have been close to, and often lower than, those of variable-rate mortgages since late 1996,” senior Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. economist Ali Manouchehri writes in the study.
Homeowners have made variable-rate mortgages hugely popular in the past few years in the belief that you can save on interest costs by pegging your mortgage rate to your lender’s prime lending rate. As the prime rises, or as has generally happened in the past few years, fallen, so goes your mortgage rate.
The prime rate at the major banks is now 4.5 per cent, while the posted five-year rate at the big banks is 6.15 per cent. In just one year, the variable-rate choice would save you about $1,700 on monthly payments toward a $150,000 mortgage amortized over 25 years (assuming a level prime rate).
Historically, you would also have saved a lot. The CMHC study shows that five-year mortgages taken out from 1993 through 1998 would have cost anywhere from $50,000 to $5,000 in additional interest paid over the term of the loan (the example is based on a $100,000 mortgage amortized over 25 years).
The flaw with this analysis is that it doesn’t reflect real-world mortgage pricing. These days, very few people take out a mortgage without a sizable discount off the posted rates at major banks.
For that reason, the CMHC’s Mr. Manouchehri decided to compare discounted five-year mortgages with discounted variable-rate mortgages. Incidentally, five years is the most popular term by far for fixed-rate mortgages at about 59 per cent of the total.
The size of the discounts Mr. Manouchehri applied was based on the difference between posted major bank rates and the best deals available from other lenders. For five-year mortgages, he used a discount of 1.25 of a percentage point; for variable-rate mortgages, it was 0.4 of a point off prime.
For five-year mortgages taken out between 1993 and mid-1996, the five-year mortgage was costlier in terms of interest costs. Since then, however, variable-rate mortgages have generally been a little bit more expensive.
Obviously, there’s nothing in this study that decides the fixed-rate versus variable-rate debate once and for all.
In fact, the CMHC study may just confuse anyone who recalls some research done for Manulife Financial back in 2000 by York University finance professor Moshe Milevsky. His research found that the extra interest charged on a five-year mortgage would have cost $20,000 on average between 1950 and 2000 for a $100,000 mortgage amortized over 15 years.
To make some sense of the variable-rate versus five-year question, let’s go back to the CMHC study.
It shows that five-year mortgages, discounted or otherwise, were especially bad choices for a three-year period starting in mid-1993. Rates were high for a while back then, but they subsequently fell.
You were a spectator to these rate declines if you were stuck in a five-year mortgage, while people in variable-rate mortgages would have benefited almost immediately.
It’s a different world now, though. Five-year mortgage rates are close to a 50-year low, which suggests they’re far more likely to rise over their term than fall.
So what’s the best choice here, variable-rate or five-year fixed rate? People who want to pay rock-bottom mortgage rates for as long as possible will probably still want a variable-rate mortgage. Remember, you can lock this sort of mortgage into a fixed term without penalty in most cases.
The case for the five-year term looks almost as strong, though. First, the CMHC study tells us there may not be a significant cost to locking your mortgage in for five years, and you might even save a little over a variable-rate mortgage.
Second, the likelihood of higher rates in the years to come would suggest that this is a good time to lock in.
If you had a variable-rate mortgage discounted to 4 per cent, the prime would have to go up by 0.85 of a percentage point to equal the current five-year rate. That’s not a lot of ground to cover in the span of 12 to 18 months when the economy is doing well.
Arguably, the variable-rate versus fixed-rate debate is all about risks and rewards. Right now, the five-year option offers much less risk, and almost as much reward.
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