It’s a commonly held belief that if you’ve made your mortgage payments on time throughout the entirety of your mortgage term, that the lender is somehow obligated to renew your mortgage. The truth is, a lender is never under any obligation to renew your mortgage. When you sign a mortgage contract, the lender draws it up for a defined time, so when that term comes to an end, the lender has every right to call the loan. Now, granted, most lenders are happy to renew your mortgag

Porting your mortgage is when you transfer the remainder of your current mortgage term, outstanding principal balance, and interest rate to a new property if you’re selling your existing home and buying a new one. Now, despite what some big banks would lead you to believe, porting your mortgage is not an easy process. It’s not a magic process that guarantees you will qualify to purchase a new property using the mortgage you had on a previous property. In addition to re-qualif

Although it’s ideal to have your mortgage paid off by the time you retire, that isn’t always possible in today’s economy. The cost of living is considerably higher than it has ever been, and as a result, many Canadians are putting off retirement, hoping to make just a bit more money to add to that nest egg. So if you find yourself in the position where you’re considering your mortgage options into retirement, you’ve come to the right place. The advantage of working with an in

If you have a variable rate mortgage and recent economic news has you thinking about locking into a fixed rate, here’s what you can expect will happen. You can expect to pay a higher interest rate over the remainder of your term, while you could end up paying a significantly higher mortgage penalty should you need to break your mortgage before the end of your term. Now, each lender has a slightly different way that they handle the process of switching from a variable rate to

Today, in its second scheduled policy decision of 2022, the Bank of Canada made good on its pledge to increase interest rates in the face of higher inflation. For the first time since the pandemic began to hurt the economy in March 2020, the Bank raised its overnight benchmark rate to 0.50% from 0.25%. As a result, the Bank Rate increases to 0.75% from 0.5% and the knock-on effect is that borrowing costs for Canadians will rise modestly although by historical norms, remain lo

This week’s interest rate announcement by the Bank of Canada was almost universally expected to bring an increase; probably 0.25% but possibly as much as 0.50%. Then Russia invaded Ukraine. Markets were thrown into a tizzy. They plunged. But the frenzy was short lived. By the end of the day markets were back in the black. Canada’s economic exposure to Russia and Ukraine is relatively small. Canada imported $1.2 billion from Russia in 2020; Russia imported roughly the same