With low interest rates, is it time to reconsider your mortgage?

Vancouver Sun- With mortgage rates low and more likely to go up than down, some borrowers may want to think long and hard about whether they want a long and hard — fixed, that is — mortgage rate.

The first question is whether to go fixed or variable when borrowing to buy a home. Statistics show that 88 per cent of the time, a variable mortgage is cheaper than a fixed-rate mortgage, said Feisal Panjwani, senior mortgage consultant with Invis-Feisal & Associates Mortgage Consulting in Cloverdale. But the problem with a variable rate is that it is just that: It changes over the life of the mortgage…

With low interest rates, is it time to reconsider your mortgage?

CMHC: Canada’s very own ticking economic time bomb

The Star- For the past few years, Canada has been basking in the glow of international economic praise.

Our banking system is the best in the world. There has been no need for government bailouts. True, we have recently been running large deficits. But they are manageable in terms of the size of our economy. Our dollar is strong. Investors want to invest in Canada. Best of all, our real estate market, with a short hiccup in late 2008 and early 2009, has been moving steadily upward. Historically low mortgage rates have made housing affordable to practically anyone wishing to purchase.

Not for us the housing disasters that have occurred practically everywhere in the world. No toxic investment paper, as was created in the U.S., by bundling mortgages into investment vehicles that had very poor underlying security. Not for us the “ninja” borrowers (no income, no job, no assets)…

CMHC: Canada’s very own ticking economic time bomb - thestar.com

Five reasons to love rising interest rates

The Globe and Mail- With the Bank of Canada poised to raise interest rates as early as June, nervous borrowers are bracing for the end of cheap money.

Big disaster, right? Hardly.

Sure, consumers carrying onerous amounts of debt will feel the pain when rates climb from today’s ultralow levels. But for others – savers, seniors and fixed-income investors, for example – higher rates can’t come soon enough.

Rising rates might even restore some sanity to segments of our economy that have gotten drunk on all the easy credit. So, with banks already ratcheting up mortgage rates and bond yields creeping higher, let’s take a deep breath and focus on the positives.

Here are five reasons to love rising interest rates…

Five reasons to love rising interest rates - The Globe and Mail

Canada’s brewing debt storm

The Globe and Mail-Canadian borrowers are fast approaching a day of reckoning.

Lured by cheap money to buy up, buy in, expand and make over, families have pushed credit levels to a record high.

Now, mortgage rates are beginning to creep up and the Bank of Canada is poised to retreat from the record-low interest rates it adopted to fight the recession and spur recovery.

The end of the free-money era has left consumers more vulnerable than ever, and those who threw caution to the wind could soon face costs they can’t handle.

Household debt has surged three time faster than income in recent years and now stands at a record high of more than $1-trillion. Put another way, Canadians owe about $1.47 for every dollar of disposable income. Even more remarkably, they took on more debt during the slump – a first for a recession – because borrowing was so cheap…

Canada’s brewing debt storm - The Globe and Mail

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