The Fed’s decision to hold US interest rates steady at near zero Thursday is good news for Canadians with a long-term mortgage. With mortgage rates for home loans with longer terms affected by US bonds, which are tied to US interest rates, any increase will begin to have an effect down the line. Shorter-term mortgage rates often […]

The Fed kept the overnight rate unchanged today, choosing to delay an increase owing to stubbornly low inflation, an uncertain outlook for global growth and recent financial market volatility. It appears that recent losses in China’s equity markets reflect deeper worries over growth prospects for the world’s second largest economy. Slowing growth in China has […]

As expected, the Bank of Canada refrained from cutting interest rates at today’s policy meeting. The recent economic news has shown a marked improvement, precluding the Bank from following on the previous two rate cuts this year. The key policy overnight rate is only 50 basis points (one-half of one percentage points) and another 25 […]

The Bank of Canada will maintain its benchmark rate when it meets next week, according to one ScotiaBank economist. “We expect the Bank of Canada to remain on hold on Wednesday with the overnight rate unchanged at 0.5%,” Derek Holt, vice president of Scotia Economics, writes in the bank’s latest economic forecast. “It will be a statement-only […]

Statistics Canada is reporting that GDP fell in the second quarter, confirming fears that the economy was in recession for the first half of 2015. StatsCan says the economy contracted at an annual pace of 0.5 per cent in the second quarter of the year. That was a smaller decline than analyst estimates but Statistics […]

National Bank Financial predicts that the BoC will cut interest rates next month. In a note the bank says that it would be better for the central bank to act now and withdraw some of the cut later if conditions improve, rather than wait until it’s too late. The BoC’s meeting is set for Sept. 9.

Analysts were talking about an increased chance of an interest rate cut Monday following the Canadian dollar’s decline to its lowest value against the greenback in 11 years. Concern about the global economy and the dollar’s weakness have led to speculation as to whether the two interest rate cuts so far this year will do enough to […]

Beware Of Early Discharge Penalties!Have you ever needed to get out of your mortgage before the maturity date? It can be a confusing and surprising experience. Don’t forget that your mortgage is a legal contract, therefore, like most contracts it is expected that it would cost you something to break it. The lending institution will […]

The Fed minutes from its July 28-29 meeting, released Wednesday afternoon, reveal a rate hike is still in the cards but that a hard date has not yet been reached. “In determining how long to maintain this target range, the Committee will assess progress— both realized and expected—toward its objectives of maximum employment and 2 […]

Why banks want you to sign the renewal agreement that they mail out to you. Most banks boast a higher than 90% renewal rate on their mortgages (some even higher than 95%). Since it costs them a lot more money to acquire a new client vs. keeping an existing one, banks love the savings of […]