{"id":621,"date":"2018-04-19T21:38:20","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T01:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/?p=621"},"modified":"2018-04-19T21:38:20","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T01:38:20","slug":"mortgage-update-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/mortgage-update-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Mortgage Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-622 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/mortgage.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"284\" height=\"178\" \/><\/p>\n<p>An interesting update from our friend Jake Abramowicz:<\/p>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">&#8220;Hello<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">As was widely expected, the Bank of Canada today did not increase rates and did point to the B20 stress-me-out test as one factor in its decision-making.\u00a0 What I am worried about while our local housing market (mostly) rebounds (depends who you ask and what you&#8217;re buying and selling\u00a0<i>and where<\/i>), is if our rebound is too strong, then\u00a0<b>more<\/b>\u00a0mortgage rule changes are on the horizon.<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">Say it ain&#8217;t so!<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Government is always tinkering with our housing policy and rules as to how they pertain to mortgage lending. We have seen two major stress-test changes happen in 2016 and 2017, and while they are slowly playing themselves out, if our market does the expected and we start seeing a recurrence of what we&#8217;ve seen the last two years (especially last year in the Spring), then the Government MAY change the following (<b>and these are just my own predictions from my own observation of the market. HOPEFULLY none of the come to fruition)<\/b><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><u>1. HELOCs<\/u>\u00a0&#8211; this is the lowest-hanging fruit. Right now HELOC lending is limited to only 65% of the value of a property. Anything higher must be a mortgage. I could see HELOC lending further limited to 50% especially in light of John Pasalis&#8217; report that the majority of investors are repeat buyers using HELOCs. Does the Bank of Canada and Government of Canada care what one Realtor says? Clearly so, if he&#8217;s getting attention by the BoC in their most recent press releases.<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><u>2. Limiting amortization back to 25 years.<\/u>\u00a0Even though the stress-test kicked in for the majority of lenders (credit unions excluded, but the rates there are higher, so, meh), I can see the Government clamping down on amortization to 25 years across the board. One lender offers 35-years (B2B Bank) but their rates are absurd. Most lenders offer 30-year. But, limiting to 25-years across the board would further reduce borrowing capacity which is the intended effect for our Government (EVERYONE should be able to buy a house, right?*)<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">3. Provincially, it&#8217;s almost inevitable that the\u00a0<u>Credit Unions will be forced to act nice and play under B20 rules<\/u>\u00a0or they could lose their CMHC securitization. That&#8217;s just a fancy way of saying lose access to CMHC and that would not be nice. The big caveat to this is &#8211; our provincial election. Doug Ford has been on record that he believes in a &#8220;free-er&#8221; market. Great &#8211; then let&#8217;s keep the credit unions out of this (he might talk a big game but they might follow suit anyways since CMHC is a federal crown corporation and not provincially regulated)<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><b>While I hope none of these changes occur<\/b>\u00a0I am cognizant that this current Government regime wants to limit the potential losses to the housing market, and by way, limit access so debt isn&#8217;t as easy to get while rates\u00a0<i>may<\/i>\u00a0go up.<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">As always these are just my opinions and I&#8217;m always keeping an eye out on what&#8217;s going on out there. Let&#8217;s see if I&#8217;m right or wrong moving forward!!<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">Thanks for reading!&#8221;<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">Jake Abramowicz<\/div>\n<div class=\"m_-1871316904336998948gmail_signature\" data-smartmail=\"gmail_signature\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<div>..<br \/>\ntel: 416-910-4448<br \/>\nfax: 1-888-819-4816<br \/>\n..<br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/mortgagejake.com\/blog\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/mortgagejake.com\/blog&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1524274120075000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGb2dZMn7pjRYZyXnYDum6p-HINBA\">mortgagejake.com\/blog<\/a><br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/mortgagejake\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/twitter.com\/mortgagejake&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1524274120075000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHTeyrY-s8Uos0gl0PGagDsuMrhyA\">twitter.com\/mortgagejake<\/a><br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/mortgagejake\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/facebook.com\/mortgagejake&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1524274120075000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHIu-0xJN7GMbeACbE7FJsnqUTTmg\">facebook.com\/mortgagejake<\/a>\u00a0&lt;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mortgagejake\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mortgagejake&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1524274120075000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEAzFp2vqLdui1a84s3J6s7gPTgUg\">http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/<wbr \/>mortgagejake<\/a>&gt;<\/div>\n<div><b>#1 Mortgage Edge Agent in Residential Volume, 2016 AND 2017<\/b><\/div>\n<div>FSCO Agent Id: M08003274 a mortgage edge agent, MBL 10680<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting update from our friend Jake Abramowicz: &#8220;Hello As was widely expected, the Bank of Canada today did not increase rates and did point to the B20 stress-me-out test &hellip; [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/mortgage-update-6\/\">read more<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[24,7,92,126,43,151,331,329,191,332,217,333],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-real-estate","tag-danforth","tag-don-mills","tag-east-york","tag-karen-millar-team","tag-leaside","tag-mortgage-rates","tag-mortgages","tag-north-york","tag-toronto-homes","tag-toronto-housing","tag-toronto-mortgages","tag-toronto-real-estate-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623,"href":"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karenmillar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}