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As widely anticipated, the Bank of Canada today increased its prime rate to 2.75%, affecting variable mortgages. The Bank of Canada is the first central bank in the G7 to raise rates once, let alone twice as they have did for the first time 5 weeks ago.

On the Globe and Mail website today is a segment in which a reader poses a question about her financial situation and a financial planner provides some advice. In this segment, a 57 year old woman on disability with some savings, some equity in a condominium and a fairly manageable mortgage asks how to best…

In this article on the Globe and Mail today, they talk compare sales from this past June with the June of 2009, and that sales are down about 30% from last June. They correctly attribute the slower market (in my opinion) to the mortgage lending rule changes that were made in April. The market saw…

The bank of Canada has decreased the their 5 year qualifying rate to 5.79%. This is the rate that “A” mortgage lenders have to use in their calculations when qualifying for variable rate mortgages or fixed rate mortgages where there is less than 20% equity in the home. This change is often a reflection of…

I came across this interesting article today that talks about the struggles in the US mortgage industry and housing market and also contrasts this to Canada. There has been a lot of news lately about US housing and mortgages being a large mess and continuing to be so almost 2 years after the initial hit,…

There is a news report today following a report from Statistics Canada stating that the Canadian economy added 93,000 jobs in the month of June pushing unemployment rates to their lowest levels in 1 1/2 years. Unfortunately for most people in Vancouver and BC, the job gains were mostly in Ontario and Quebec, where most…