Mortgage Market Update
Come January 1st, 2018, Canadians getting, or refinancing a mortgage might have to prove that they would be able to cope with interest rates substantially higher than their contract rate. Can you cope?
New rules by Canada’s federal financial regulator announced in October mean that even borrowers with a down payment of 20 per cent or more will now face a stress test, as has been the case since January of 2017, for applicants with smaller down payments who require mortgage insurance.
Ottawa has already moved to tighten the rules around the mortgage market six times since July 2008, with a series of regulatory tweaks aimed at limiting the amount of debt that Canadians and financial institutions take on.
This is the seventh turn of the screw — and it could have a big impact.Some 10 per cent of Canadians who got an uninsured mortgage between mid-2016 and mid-2017 would not have qualified under the new standards, a recent analysis by the Bank of Canada suggested.To put a number on it, the rules will likely affect about 100,000 homebuyers, who would qualify for a mortgage for their preferred house today but will likely fail the stress test for an equally large loan next year, according a report published by Mortgage Professionals Canada, an industry group.
