Paula Siemens

In recent weeks the bond markets have performed very well as investors stayed away from the stock market This created a fairly large spread between the lending rates and the cost of money so we saw lenders lower their rates over the last 2 weeks. Investors have returned to the markets after stronger economic data and this has caused these spreads to shrink somewhat. While we see some lenders ...

Bonds are rallying over concerns about the Greece crisis and what the overall effect will be in the other European countries. This is good news for the fixed term mortgages as it is creating a larger spread for our lenders and will help stabilize our mortgage rates which recently have increased due to the lack of stability over in Europe.

Whenever we see a spike in rates it typically means t ...

Computerized trades sent to electronic networks turned an orderly stock market decline into a rout, according to Larry Leibowitz, the chief operating officer of NYSE Euronext. Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. canceled trades in 286 securities that rose or fell 60 percent or more.

While the first half of the Dow Jones Industrial Average's 998.5-point intraday plunge probably reflected normal trading, th ...

The Federal Government announced that effective April 19th significant changes will take place to mortgage qualification. Some of these changes have been publishe! d, while others are being slid into effect without the publics' knowledge. The changes being made are:

All variable rate clients and anyone taking less than a 5 yr fixed term must qualify at the "posted rate". Until this morning n ...

Jim Flaherty announced today that effective April 19, 2010 buyers will have to qualify under this set of guidelines:

• Any borrower arranging a mortgage less than 5 years in term or a variable rate mortgage must be qualified as if they are taking a 5-year term. It is not yet clear whether there will be a huge impact, as variable rate mortgages and terms of 3 years or less are alread ...

The Bank of Canada announced today that they are leaving the overnight rate unchanged. They also indicated that they will conditionally keep their plan to leave rates unchanged until the 2nd quarter of 2010. The bond market thought that the Bank of Canada would go back on their word to leave rates alone after Australia and Israel raised their overnight rates, and after strong employment data. ...

Great news. We are finally seeing variable rate mortgages priced below prime. We have not seen any mortgage even close to prime for the past 12 months. In September 2008 we had rates as low as prime -.60% which quickly changed to prime and then to prime + 1% by the end of the first week in October.

We hope that this downward trend in the variable rate market will continue into spring 2010. V ...

As many of you know the Federal Government came announced a new tax credit (HRTC) for those individuals doing renovations to their home.

The renovations must occur between January 27^th 2009 and February 1^st 2010. The HRTC can be claimed for renovations and lasting alterations to a dwelling, or the land on which it sits. You must have proper receipts to benefit from this program the Governmen ...

As you know the fixed rates have had 2 significant jumps over the past 10-14 days. This is a result of the bond market activity and shrinking spreads for the lenders.

The Bank of Canada has held rates as is and will continue to do so for another year most likely. Anyone in "old" variable rate mortgages will have a significant discount below prime and should likely stay floating. I would rec ...