'Pretty cheap money': Canadian mortgage rates falling to their lowest level in 2 years!
06 Jun 2019
Fixed and variable loans have gotten cheaper because costs for lenders are down too.
Spring is typically a busy time for home sales, so lenders are competing fiercely right now for new business — and that's adding up to record low rates for borrowers.
House prices may be as high as ever in many parts of the country, but Canadian homebuyers are being offered some of the lowest mortgage rates seen in years as lenders battle to drum up new business.
Rates on a standard five-year fixed-rate mortgage have fallen to their lowest level in two years, according to rate comparison website, Ratehub.ca.
Borrowers just about everywhere across the country can take their pick of offerings well below three per cent at the moment, says James Laird, the site's co-founder and president of mortgage brokerage, CanWise Financial.
That's partly for seasonal reasons, he says, in that the spring months are typically the best ones for home buying, as families try to get moved and settled before summer vacations and then the new school year sets in.
"Promotions are April, May and June … when all mortgage companies try to make sure they are on track to hit their annual targets," Laird said in an interview. "Anyone who's behind at this point would be aggressive with the margins they're willing to fund mortgages at right now."
At the moment, Laird says he's seeing five-year fixed rates as low as 2.64 per cent for certain buyers, and even higher-risk borrowers can easily find a loan for 2.89 per cent. That's the lowest range since the summer of 2017, he says, and a big reason why is the bond market.
