BROKERAGE LICENSE ID
10343
Craig Blower
Broker of Record
Office:
Phone:
Email:
Address:
Ste 211 Century Place 199 Front St, Belleville, Ontario
It PAYS to shop around.
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.”
National house price index rises again in August
The national HPI has grown at a below-inflation rate of 0.6% over the last 12 months. However, the weakness is not regionally broad-based. The national HPI has been depressed by 12 consecutive months without a rise in Vancouvers index, which dropped a cumulative 6.6%. Other Western metropolitan areas (Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg) also contributed to slow the national HPI. At the opposite, annual growth has been decent in most of the regions located in the central and eastern part of the country. That being said, home sales in August were up 55% from March in Vancouver, where market conditions went from favorable to buyers to balanced. Over that period, home sales rose 19% in Calgary and 12% in Edmonton. These improvements, if sustained, will sooner or later help limit home-price deflation in this region.
The TeranetNational Bank Composite National House Price IndexTM increased 0.4% in August, a fourth gain in a row after an eight-month string without a rise.
On a monthly basis, the index rose in 8 of the 11 markets covered: Victoria (+0.2%), Calgary (+0.6%), Hamilton (0.7%), Winnipeg (0.7%), Toronto (+0.8%), Montreal (1.1%), Ottawa-Gatineau (1.7%) and Halifax (1.8%). The index was down in Vancouver (-0.8%), Quebec City (-0.4%) and Edmonton (-0.1%).
From August 2018 to August 2019, the Composite index rose 0.6%. Over the period, the HPI declined in Vancouver (-6.6%), Edmonton (-3.1%), Calgary (-2.3%). It was marginally up in Quebec City (0.1%), Victoria (0.7%) and Winnipeg (1.1%). It grew more convincingly in Toronto (+3.8%), Hamilton (+4.4%), Halifax (5.5%), Montreal (+5.7%) and Ottawa-Gatineau (+6.4%).
Source: National Bank, Marc Pinsonneault
CREA Updates Resale Housing Market Forecast
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has updated its forecast for home sales activity via the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) Systems of Canadian real estate boards and associations for the rest of 2019 and looking ahead to 2020.
Economic fundamentals underpinning housing activity remain strong outside of the Prairies and Newfoundland and Labrador. Population and employment growth have both remained supportive and the unemployment rate remains low. At the same time, expectations have become widespread that the Bank of Canada is unlikely to raise interest rates over the rest of the year and into next.
More importantly for home buyers and housing markets, longer-term mortgage rates have been declining. Among those that have declined is the Bank of Canadas benchmark five-year rate used by banks to qualify mortgage applicants.
Additionally, the Federal Government has recently launched its First-Time Home Buyer Incentive, a shared equity program in which the federal government finances a portion of a home purchase in exchange for an equity share of the homes value.
Of these factors supporting Canadian housing activity, the decline in mortgage rates is arguably the most important development since the release in June of CREAs most recent forecast. The decline in the benchmark five-year mortgage rate has marginally relaxed the B-20 mortgage stress-test, which has dampened housing activity more than other policy changes made in recent years.
Home sales have improved by more than expected in recent months and there are early signs that home price declines in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and across the Prairies may be abating. Meanwhile, home prices are re-accelerating across Ontarios Greater Golden Horseshoe region.
Strong economic fundamentals, previously unexpected declines in mortgage interest rates and stronger than previously expected housing market trends in British Columbia and Ontario have resulted in CREA upwardly revising forecast home sales in 2019 and 2020. Nonetheless, the overall level of national sales activity this year and next is anticipated to remain below levels recorded prior to the implementation of the B-20 stress test.
National home sales are now projected to recover to 482,000 units in 2019, representing a 5% increase from the five-year low recorded in 2018. While this is an upward revision of 19,000 transactions compared to CREAs previous forecast (85% of which is due to upgraded British Columbia and Ontario forecasts), it represents a return of activity to its 10-year annual average. It also remains well below the annual record set in 2016, when almost 540,000 homes traded hands. Notwithstanding the upward revision, the forecast for 2019 on a per capita basis remains the second weakest since 2001.
