MII Mortgage Group is Launched!

We are very excited to announce the launch of our new mortgage company MII Mortgage Group!

Our Regina office has made the transition together with 7 brokers to form our new brokerage. We are excited about the opportunities this brings to us and our clients as we help take our mortgage business to the next level with a state-of-the-art technology system. Our clients will experience a very personal level of service as our new system allows us to stay in touch more often and keep you up to date on your mortgage!

We will continue to work with all the major lenders in Canada as we strive to always give our clients the best rates and products available in the Canadian market place!

Please visit our new website at www.MIIMortgageGroup.com! We will continue to keep our visitors up to date on rate changes, real estate and mortgage news, and a weekly video blog! Also watch for our growing video series covering every topic you can imagine!

If you have any questions about your current or next mortgage, please contact us at MII Mortgage Group and we will help answer any questions you may have!

Market Update

Stats show sales and prices are picking up again across the country. The worst of the country's housing market woes appear to be past but I don’t think we are completely out of it yet.

The latest Canadian Real Estate Association data shows May resale home prices rose 0.4 percent to $319,757, topping the previous record set a year earlier. It was the first year-over-year increase since May last year. And sales activity climbed for a fourth straight month.

Regina's housing market is expected to lead major Canadian cities in year-over-year price increases, according to a new forecast by Royal LePage. In its 2009 market survey forecast released Tuesday, Royal LePage said the year-to-date average resale home price of $245,228 in the city is anticipated to rise to $254,000 by the end of 2009. This would represent a 10.6-per-cent increase from the average of $229,716 in 2008.

But the Canadian economy is still on shaky ground, contracting for the ninth straight month in April. And the jobless rate spiked to an 11-year high in May, boosted by layoffs in Ontario's manufacturing sector. Experts warn that further job losses could slow the sector's momentum.

These record low interest rates have increased affordability, but weakness in the bond market has pushed mortgage rates higher. The posted rate on a five-year mortgage at most banks has risen to 5.85 percent from 5.25 percent in April.

Mortgage Rates Still Low…But Rising!

We saw a sudden jump in fixed rates last week which means Canadians looking to break their existing mortgage and refinance at a lower rate may have missed the best rates in recent history. But that doesn't mean people can't still trim their payments.

TD was the first to raise their rates, raising its five-year closed mortgages by a whopping 0.4 percentage points to 5.85%. Three other big banks followed in TD's footsteps and raised their posted rates in the last twenty-four hours, and other lenders are expected to follow suit.
With interest rates floating near historical lows, Canadian home owners who locked in last week may have been fortunate enough to negotiate a fixed-rate five-year mortgage as low as 3.54%. Although no one knows where interest rates are headed, the consensus is that they are unlikely to be this low again for a long time.

Economists believe interest rates will rise, not now but in the very near future, three, four, five months from now they will be higher. Definitely a year from now they will be higher. And in two years, they could be notably higher.

The stunningly low interest rates have led many Canadians to break their existing mortgage and get in at a lower rate. The decision to break an existing mortgage depends on the penalty, as well as how many years are left on the existing mortgage. It might, for instance, make more sense to break a mortgage with a year left on it as opposed to one with four years left.

Penalties for breaking a mortgage loan can be either the greater of three months' interest or the difference between the interest the bank could make on your mortgage as originally arranged versus lending money out at current rates. Most recently the so-called interest rate differential, or IRD, is the larger penalty and the one many lenders use. All of this is specific to the lender and subject to negotiation. Contact a mortgage broker to help you determine if refinancing makes sense for you right now or if it is best to wait until the end of your term.

Given that the Bank of Canada has said interest rates are likely to remain unchanged until the second quarter of 2010, a variable rate can provide huge savings for home owners who can stomach a little risk. These rates are as low as 2.65% today!

Bank of Canada Holds Prime Rate

OTTAWA - The Bank of Canada today announced that it is maintaining its target for the overnight rate at 1/4 per cent. The Bank Rate is unchanged at 1/2 per cent and the deposit rate is 1/4 per cent.

Information received since the Bank's April Monetary Policy Report (MPR) is broadly consistent with the Bank's medium-term outlook for output and inflation in Canada. The economy is undergoing major restructuring in a number of sectors. The already significant output gap will continue to widen through the third quarter, putting downward pressure on inflation. The Bank continues to expect that the global and Canadian recoveries will be more muted than usual.
In recent weeks, financial conditions and commodity prices have improved significantly, and consumer and business confidence have recovered modestly. If the unprecedentedly rapid rise in the Canadian dollar (which reflects a combination of higher commodity prices and generalized weakness in the U.S. currency) proves persistent, it could fully offset these positive factors.
The outlook is subject to considerable uncertainty. While the underlying macroeconomic risks are roughly balanced, the Bank judges that, as a consequence of operating at the effective lower bound, the overall risks to its inflation projection remain tilted slightly to the downside.
Conditional on the outlook for inflation, the target overnight rate can be expected to remain at its current level until the end of the second quarter of 2010 in order to achieve the inflation target.
The Bank retains considerable flexibility in the conduct of monetary policy at low interest rates, consistent with the framework outlined in the April MPR.

Information note:The next scheduled date for announcing the overnight rate target is 21 July 2009. A full update of the Bank's outlook for the economy and inflation, including risks to the projection, will be published in the MPR on 23 July 2009.

Mortgage Rates on The Rise

It has been expected for some time as we were experiencing the lowest mortgage rates in Canadian history. Bond rates have been rising for the past few months which has now pushed lending rates higher.

RBC, BMO, TD, Scotiabank, and CIBC all increased their posted rates on five-year, fixed-rate mortgages by 0.2 per cent to 5.45 per cent. The changes at RBC and BMO took effect yesterday, while new rates at TD, Scotiabank and CIBC will be available today.

Rates are still very low and it is still a great time to borrow money but it does appear we have seen the bottom and most experts agree rates will rise for the remainder of 2009.