Mortgage shoppers and the bond market spent the week reminiscing about rock-bottom rates.
That, as Trump’s Iran “skirmish” — a word that now apparently means “war with no end date” — sent oil prices moonbound.
Toss in worries about pass-through to core inflation and mounting rate hike speculation, and suddenly Canada’s fixed-rate-leading five-year yield is at a 27-month high.
Big banks, which held out as long as they could, finally had to lift fixed rates to offset soaring funding costs.
All told, dozens of lenders across the country boosted fixed rates by roughly 10 to 15 basis points this week.
The gap between fixed and variable is now growing. But that alone is no reason to float.
If you flash back to February 2022, the fixed–variable spread ballooned to 140-plus basis points, and mortgage hopefuls were flocking into variables .
A month later began the biggest rate-hike cycle in decades: 475 basis points, delivered in instalments for maximum emotional damage.
In any case, as this is being written, fixed offers near or below four per cent still survive at online mortgage brokers — for insured mortgages, that is. (Add 25-plus basis points for uninsured.)
Sample vendors with those rates include True North Mortgage, Butler Mortgage and Ratebuzz.
About all I can say on today’s best fixed deals is, lock in pronto. It’s hard to brag about the rate you almost got.
Robert McLister is a mortgage strategist, interest rate analyst and editor of MortgageLogic.news. You can follow him on X at @RobMcLister.
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