Posts from the ‘Monday Morning Mortgage Rate Updates’ Category

Today’s post provides highlights from the Bank of Canada’s latest statement and offers my take on how it impacts the appeal of our variable-rate mortgages.

In today's' post I simulate three different scenarios for Canadian variable rates over the next five years and provide a rationale for how each might unfold.

It’s time for a fresh look at the question every borrower loves to ask: Is now a good time to choose a fixed or variable rate?

There is no new post this week but I will be back up and running next Monday as usual. In the meantime, here are links to my five most popular posts thus far in 2018: Canadian Mortgage Rate Forecast for 2018 – Part 1 (Five-Year Fixed Rates) Canadian Mortgage Rate Forecast for 2018 – Part 2 (Five-Year Variable Rates) Do Higher Interest Rates Cause Lower House Prices? How to Make Your Mortgage Tax-deductible (Part One) Open vs. Closed Mortgages: The Surprising Winner Is… I am an independent full-time mortgage broker and industry insider who helps Canadians from coast to coast. If you are purchasing, refinancing or renewing your mortgage, contact me or apply for a Mortgage Check-up to obtain the best available rates and terms.

Posted rates from the Big Six banks are now used to determine how much we can borrow. As their importance grows, their use should be subject to more scrutiny.

The Bank of Canada (BoC) left its overnight rate unchanged last week, as most market watchers expected. The Bank also released its latest quarterly Monetary Policy Report (MPR), which provides us with the Bank’s assessment of the current economic conditions at home and abroad and includes forecasts for key economic data. The overall tone of the BoC’s latest MPR sounded cautiously optimistic – cautious over the short term but more optimistic over the longer term. Bluntly put, I think the Bank’s latest assessment makes it less likely to raise rates in the near term, but also reconfirms its belief that a rate hike will eventually be its next move. In last week’s post I outlined five key questions for the BoC’s latest meeting and in this week’s post, […]

The Bank of Canada (BoC) meets this Wednesday, and while most market watchers aren’t expecting the Bank to raise its overnight rate at this meeting there is still the possibility that its accompanying commentary could push Government of Canada (GoC) bond yields higher, along with the fixed mortgage rates that are priced on them. The BoC will also release its latest quarterly Monetary Policy Report (MPR). The MPR provides us with the Bank’s latest assessment of the current economic conditions at home and abroad and includes forecasts for key economic data. Simply put, if you’re trying to figure out where fixed and variable mortgage rates may be headed, Wednesday will be an important day. With that in mind, here are five key questions that I’ll be looking for […]

Last Friday Statistics Canada released our latest employment report, for March. It estimated that our economy added 32,300 new jobs last month, which was well above the consensus estimate of 20,000. While the headline result came as a surprise, the much bigger surprise, at least to me, was the bond market’s reaction. Over the past year, bond-market investors have become increasingly confident that our job market’s momentum will compel the Bank of Canada (BoC) to raise its overnight rate. This view was maintained even after our economy lost 88,000 jobs in January, reversing much of the late surge that we saw at the end of 2017. Only two weeks ago our bond futures market was assigning an 80% probability that the BoC would raise its policy rate in […]