Posts from the ‘Mortgage Rule Changes’ Category

October 11, 2016

What Canada’s Fifth Round of Mortgage Rule Changes Mean For You – Part Two

If the first mortgage rule change raised the qualifying bar for mortgage insurance, the second wave of rule changes completely eliminates mortgage insurance for certain categories of borrowers. To be clear, these changes don’t mean that affected borrowers won’t still have access to mortgages, but they do mean that these borrowers will have fewer options than before and should expect to pay rates that are higher than the lowest available.
October 5, 2016

What Canada’s Fifth Round of Mortgage Rule Changes Mean For You – Part One

Yesterday our federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced a series of changes to the rules used to underwrite insured mortgages. There is a lot to unpack so I’ll do it in three installments: Part One will focus on the change that will take place on October 17, Part Two will cover the changes that will take place on November 30, and Part Three will offer my take on the longer-term impacts that these changes will have on Canadian borrowers and our housing markets across Canada.
March 3, 2014

All About CMHC’s Mortgage-Insurance Premium Changes

Last Friday Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) announced that it will increase its mortgage-default insurance premiums, effective May 1, 2014. Current premiums will remain in effect on all mortgage applications that are submitted before this date, even in cases where the transaction closes well after the changeover deadline. Bluntly put, the impact on the average borrower will be negligible. To highlight what the typical impact of this change might look like with an example, let’s assume that a borrower is purchasing a $400,000 property with a $40,000 down payment, that the property will be used as his/her principal residence, and that he/she can qualify for financing using traditional underwriting guidelines: This deal has a loan-to-value of 90%, which means that our borrower’s high-ratio insurance premium will rise […]