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The lowest advertised uninsured fixed rates in Canada mostly climbed this week, by four to eight basis points. Joe Raedle/Getty Images The lowest advertised uninsured fixed mortgage rates in Canada mostly climbed this week, by four to eight basis points. Popular two-year fixed rates, which attract people who want to lock in for a few years and refinance when the Bank of Canada cuts rates, jumped 22 bps. As for the lowest insured fixed rates, they mainly held steady. The exception was one-year and two-year terms, where Quest Mortgage launched new market-leading offers of 4.99 per cent. Variable rates didn’t move this week. They will remain steady until the central bank presumably increases interest rates again on Dec. 7 and pushes some borrowers closer to their trigger rate. Last, but not least, are rates for home equity lines of credit, where Tangerine finally pulled its stellar offer of prime rate minus 0.1 per cent, which it has featured since 2019. The lowest-cost widely advertise...

Private mortgage lenders are having a harder time accessing capital and are making it more difficult for borrowers to get a loan, choking off a major source of funds for those unable to qualify at a Canadian bank. Some private mortgage lenders, also known as alternative or subprime lenders, are requiring borrowers to have higher down payments or more equity in their homes to qualify for a private mortgage. The higher standards are being rolled out as Canadian banks clamp down on lending in the face of falling home prices and rising interest rates. That has sent a flood of new borrowers to private lenders and shored up their business. MCF Mortgage Investment Corp., which provides loans to Ontario homeowners, had to suspend new loan applications for two weeks in October because it was inundated with new borrower applicants. As a mortgage investment corporation, or MIC, the lender uses capital from investors, as well as funds that have been repaid by its borrowers to provide new mortgag...

Bank of Nova Scotia BNS-T reported a lower fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday, as a lull in its investment banking division dented income from its capital markets unit and compelled the lender to set aside higher provisions. Net income, excluding one-off items, came in at $2.62 billion, or $2.06 a share, in the three months ended Oct. 31, compared with $2.72 billion, or $2.10, a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected $2 a share, according to Refinitiv data. Canada’s third-largest lender reported overall net profit of $2.09 billion, or $1.63 a share, compared with $2.56 billion, or $1.97 a share, last year. https://www.tausiinsider.com/scotiabank-profit-falls-on-capital-market-slump-provisions/?feed_id=332134&_unique_id=645b38ed26a87

Never in my 15 years of watching interest rates have I seen a lender spur mortgage competition like HSBC’s Canadian unit. But with Royal Bank of Canada’s planned acquisition of HSBC Bank Canada, the mortgage business could regress, costing consumers far too much. Why HSBC matters Consider one example. As I’m writing this, HSBC Canada’s uninsured five-year fixed rate is 5.29 per cent , the best of any national lender. That’s a whopping 40 basis points below RBC, its proposed acquirer, which advertises a “special offer” of 5.69 per cent . RBC’s uninsured five-year rate is the fourth-highest of the 27 national lenders I track. (There are 100 basis points, or bps, in a percentage point.) Were you buying Canada’s average $644,643 home with 20-per-cent down (that is, a $515,715 mortgage), and had you paid RBC’s advertised discounted rate, that 40 bps would cost you almost $10,000 more interest over five years. Now, most smart people refuse to pay big bank’s “special offer” rates. Qualifie...

It’s been a tense year for homeowners in floating-rate mortgages. They’ve watched their interest rates catapult 400 basis points in just nine months. DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press Mortgage rates are getting closer to a turning point based on Wednesday’s Bank of Canada announcement, which signalled that its rate-hike campaign may be nearing an end. Variable-rate borrowers shouldn’t plan on rate cuts for at least 12 to 18 months from today. If it happens sooner, borrowers should consider themselves lucky – very lucky. Default-insured borrowers saw fixed rates sink as much as 30 basis points on some terms this week. The lowest rates on one-year to five-year insured terms are now all below 5 per cent again, thanks partly to competitive discounters such as QuestMortgage. Unfortunately, the news was less cheery for uninsured borrowers. Unlike insured rates, which benefit from liquid government-backed securitization, uninsured rates are dominated by big deposit-taking lenders – mostly larg...

People cross the street in front of the Bank of Montreal building in Toronto. The bank is launching a major share sale to raise funds to bolster its reserves. Doug Ives/The Canadian Press Bank of Montreal BMO-T is raising funds through a major share sale in a move to bolster its reserves just days after Canada’s banking regulator increased the ceiling on banks’ required capital levels. The lender said Monday that it plans to raise $3.15-billion through a share offering to meet the regulator’s raised capital requirements. Last week, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) increased the minimum capital levels that the country’s largest banks must hold starting Feb. 1, citing rising financial risks as inflation and interest rates strain the economy. BMO plans to sell 11,805,000 common shares to the public for $118.60 per share for total gross proceeds of approximately $1.4-billion. The bank is leading a syndicate of underwriters that it has granted an option to...

Since the peak one month ago, the lowest nationally advertised five-year fixed has dropped 30 bps to 5.14 per cent (uninsured). On a standard mortgage, that saves $1,445 of interest over five years, per $100,000 borrowed. JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images Christmas ‘rate sale’ in progress All right, it’s not exactly a fire sale, but we are indeed getting some Yuletide rate relief. Since the peak one month ago, the lowest nationally advertised five-year fixed has dropped 30 bps to 5.14 per cent (uninsured). On a standard mortgage, that saves $1,445 of interest over five years, per $100,000 borrowed. McLister: Where could mortgage rates - fixed and variable - head in 2023? See how rising interest rates will affect the cost of your mortgage Compared with the lowest uninsured variable at 5.90 per cent, a 5.14 per cent five-year fixed might not seem so bad. But it’s literally the fourth-worst term you could take if you’re well qualified and risk tolerant. The worst, second-worst and third-worst...

Bharat Masrani, Chief Executive Officer of TD Bank Group, outside the bank's offices in downtown Toronto, on Sept. 3, 2020. Fred Lum/Tausi Insider Bank of Montreal’s BMO-T major takeover of California-based Bank of the West has received the final green light from U.S. regulators, shifting the attention to another pending deal by Toronto-Dominion Bank TD-N that will expand its footprint further south of the border. Regulators approved BMO’s takeover of the lender from BNP Paribas BNPQY on Tuesday, ushering in the final stage of the largest purchase of a U.S. bank by a Canadian lender after the deal bumped up against costly deadline delays and heightened scrutiny. As TD navigates its deal to scoop up Tennessee-based First Horizon Corp., FHN-N the bank is also facing mounting criticism of financial mergers in the United States. The scrutiny is prolonging some of the most transformative deals in the sector’s history. The U.S. Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the ...

Regardless of expectations, the market compensates borrowers for taking risk. Over a five-year span, the risk-reward of taking back-to-back one-year fixed mortgages remains favourable. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press Mortgage shoppers are increasingly convinced the Bank of Canada will cut rates within a year. That’s leading most to avoid locking in long-term. Problem is, short-term rates are high relative to those longer mortgages that borrowers are trying to avoid. The lowest nationally available uninsured one-year fixed is 5.74 per cent, for example, versus 5.09 per cent for a five-year fixed. Higher one-year rates reflect investor expectations that the Bank of Canada (BoC) will maintain its elevated rates for three to four more quarters, before taking rates lower, says Royce Mendes, Desjardins’ managing director and head of macro strategy. The 4.25-per-cent policy rate, which could jump to at least 4.5 per cent at next week’s BoC meeting, is “not sustainable over a long period ...

A look at this week’s available mortgage rates on fixed and variable terms and HELOCs Rich Pedroncelli/The Associated Press HSBC is once again setting the pace for uninsured five-year fixed rates. Its new 5.09-per-cent offer leads all national lenders. Plus it’s forking out up to $5,000 cash back, depending on mortgage size. If you’re dead-set on a five-year fixed and there’s a meaningful chance you’ll break the mortgage early, find a lender with lower prepayment penalties than a bank. Mortgage brokers know who these lenders are. McLister: Does a short-term mortgage still make sense? Mortgages 101: What to know about fixed vs. variable rates in Canada In the one-year fixed market, note the dramatic savings for insured one-year rates versus uninsured rates. That’s largely thanks to much lower funding costs for government-backed insured mortgages where borrowers pay the default insurance premium. QuestMortgage’s 4.64-per-cent insured one-year fixed remains one of the nation’s best valu...