BROKERAGE LICENSE ID
10343

Craig Blower
Broker of Record
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Ste 211 Century Place 199 Front St, Belleville, Ontario
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Many Canadian homeowners pay too much for their homes because they are not getting the best mortgage financing available in the market.
The mortgage process can be intimidating for homeowners, and some financial institutions don't make the process any easier.
But I’m here to help!
I’m a VERICO Mortgage Advisor and I’m an independent, unbiased, expert, here to help you move into a home you love.
I have access to mortgage products from over forty lenders at my fingertips and I work with you to determine the best product that will fit your immediate financial needs and future goals.
VERICO mortgage specialists are Canada’s Trusted Experts who will be with you through the life of your mortgage.
I save you money by sourcing the best products at the best rates – not only on your first mortgage but through every subsequent renewal. So whether you're buying a home, renewing your mortgage, refinancing, renovating, investing, or consolidating your debts — I’m the VERICO Mortgage Advisor who can help you get the right financing, from the right lender, at the right rate.
Many Canadian homeowners pay too much for their homes because they are not getting the best mortgage financing available in the market.
The mortgage process can be intimidating for homeowners, and some financial institutions don't make the process any easier.
But I’m here to help!
I’m a VERICO Mortgage Advisor and I’m an independent, unbiased, expert, here to help you move into a home you love.
I have access to mortgage products from over forty lenders at my fingertips and I work with you to determine the best product that will fit your immediate financial needs and future goals.
VERICO mortgage specialists are Canada’s Trusted Experts who will be with you through the life of your mortgage.
I save you money by sourcing the best products at the best rates – not only on your first mortgage but through every subsequent renewal. So whether you're buying a home, renewing your mortgage, refinancing, renovating, investing, or consolidating your debts — I’m the VERICO Mortgage Advisor who can help you get the right financing, from the right lender, at the right rate.
BLOG / NEWS Updates
CMHC Privatization
As Jim Flaherty continues to make waves in the broker channel, limiting the use of portfolio insurance by mortgage lenders in the 2013 budget, the question of privatizing the CMHC has once again been raised as a means of levelling the lending playing field for mortgage insurance. “It served as admirably in the recent financial crisis,” Jane Londerville, associate professor and interim chair of the Department of Marketing and Consumer Studies at the University of Guelph, stated in a recent position paper. “But it has one important failing: it denies consumers benefits from full competition by giving the CMHC an unfair advantage over private firms.” Londerville, who also teaches real estate finance and appraisal, wrote a report in 2011 recommending privatizing the CMHC to level the playing field. Privatization might, in fact, loosen the government’s control over the mortgage industry, says some industry insiders. “I really see this as a double-edged sword, with the consumer taking the brunt of the blade in either case,” says Chris Karram, founding partner of Safebridge Financial. “If we leave things as is, that enables the government to make decisions that can drastically impact our real estate market as we’ve seen since last July.” The CMHC is currently very near or at the $600-billion cap set by Ottawa last year on mortgages it insures. CMHC, which controls about three quarters of the mortgage insurance market, is 100 per cent backed by the federal government. The two private insurers, Canada Guaranty and Genworth Financial, control the rest of the market and are 90 per cent backed by Ottawa. Their limit is $350-billion each. “Some may say it gives them more power than necessary for the specific service that CMHC provides and based on the original purpose of CMHC,” says Karram. “On the other hand, privatizing mortgage insurance will eventually put the decisions in the hands of a business, which has one goal, to make profit.” The new rules introduced by Flaherty will gradually limit the sale of insurance on a conventional mortgage - those with more than a 20 per cent down payment - which may cause lenders to, once again, tighten-up their mortgage approvals. Some of the recommendations for privatizing the CMHC include it being repositioned as an affiliated non-Crown public entity, equal to the terms set out for private insurers. Transforming the CMHC from a primary insurer to a re-insurer has also been suggested to help mitigate the risk to taxpayers. “In the end, it’s a tough decision either way,” Karram points out, “but at least if it was private then the Canadian government wouldn’t be able to dictate decisions that are made as they did in the case of the Manulife scenario.”
Mortgage Deferral Agreements and Their Impact
CMHCs Fall 2020 Residential Mortgage Industry Dashboard discusses mortgage deferral agreements and their impact.
At the end of the second quarter, credit unions, mortgage finance companies (MFCs) and mortgage investment entities (MIEs) have allowed mortgage deferral agreements for about 6%, 7% and 7% of their respective residential mortgage portfolios.
Chartered banks have allowed 16% of mortgages to go into deferral since the beginning of the pandemic. Of these, close to 2 out of 3 borrowers had resumed payments on their mortgages at the end of the third quarter of 2020. In the coming months, we could see higher delinquency rates if some borrowers are unable to resume their payments; these mortgages will have to be booked as arrears.
These deferral agreements have affected financial institutions cash flows, with reductions of:
4% in scheduled mortgage payments
3% in non-scheduled payments (accelerated monthly payments and lump-sum payments)
While remaining at low levels, mortgages in arrears (90 or more days delinquent) have increased slightly between the first and second quarters of 2020 from:
0.24% to 0.26%, on average, for chartered banks
0.23% to 0.25%, on average, for non-bank mortgage lenders
We also observe an increase in early-stage delinquencies (31 to 59 days and 60 to 89 days), which suggests that arrears could continue on an upward trend.
Source: CMHC
Bank of Canada will maintain current level of policy rate until inflation objective is achieved, continues its quantitative easing program
The Bank of Canada today maintained its target for the overnight rate at the effective lower bound of percent, with the Bank Rate at percent and the deposit rate at percent. The Bank is maintaining its extraordinary forward guidance, reinforced and supplemented by its quantitative easing (QE) program, which continues at its current pace of at least $4 billion per week.
The rebound in the global and Canadian economies has unfolded largely as the Bank had anticipated in its October Monetary Policy Report (MPR). More recently, news on the development of effective vaccines is providing reassurance that the pandemic will end and more normal activities will resume, although the pace and breadth of the global rollout of vaccinations remain uncertain. Near term, new waves of infections are expected to set back recoveries in many parts of the world. Accommodative policy and financial conditions are continuing to provide support across most regions. Stronger demand is pushing up prices for most commodities, including oil. A broad-based decline in the US exchange rate has contributed to a further appreciation of the Canadian dollar.