I’m a bit late in referring to this, but I thought that it was better late than never. Last week, the Federal government announced that they were putting a halt to guaranteeing the 40-year and zero-down mortgages. They hope to avoid the type of housing crisis that we’ve seen in the US that’s been caused by their sub-prime mortgages.
Any of you that have ever spoken to me about mortgages knows that I don’t believe our two systems are comparable (US vs Canada). In the US, their mortgage lending practices were far, far more liberal than our own. Even with the 40-year and zero-down mortgages that were introduced in recent years, our lending practices were by far more conservative.
Yes, increasing the amortization of mortgages and reducing the amount of equity a new owner must put down to own a property is not without risk. What these moves did was allow potential homeowners to stretch themselves a little further to purchase a little bit better home. I believe that most Canadians that used these products were doing so in order to take advantage of the flexibility that they allowed for, not as a means to enter into the market in the first place.
The new rules mean that government backed mortgages will require a minimum down payment of five percent (no longer 0%), and will be restricted to a maximum amortization period of 35 years (no longer 40). The changes will take affect on October 15, 2008 so you have lots of time to still take advantage of the old ones for now.
The difference to the homeowner, with a $400,000 mortgage is that on a 35 year amortization they will be paying $81 more per month in mortgage payments than if it was a 40 year amortization.
With a cooling housing market across the country, this might not be the optimum time to make these changes. One could question the governments timing on the policy change. I don’t believe that these are significant changes that would price many people out of the market. However, the market can be fickle and who knows how this might affect market psychology.
Sebastian Albrecht, Vancouver Realtor with Royal LePage Westside
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I think this is a step in the right direction for the Canadian economy. Although Buyers may not see it that way now, it will benefit them in the long term.