Tag Archives: rbc

debt, economy, mortgage, predictions, prices, rates

RBC first to cut mortgage rate

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69 Comments

Last week when the Bank of Canada announced their surprise rate cut none of the big banks seemed to be in a rush to announce lower lending rates on mortgages.

We asked which will be the first lender to lower mortgage rates and now we have the answer:

RBC is the first to cut mortgage rates as bond yields plunge.

Royal Bank, the country’s second-biggest lender by assets, offered a five-year fixed rate of 2.84 per cent on Jan. 24, down from 2.94 per cent last week, according to rate-tracking website Ratespy.com. That’s below RBC’s posted rate of 4.84 per cent. The bank also trimmed its three-, seven-, and 10-year rates, according to CanadianMortgageTrends.com, an industry news website.

Race to the bottom or just a good time to renew?

Open Topic

Friday Free-for-all! The Late Edition.

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23 Comments

It’s the weekend again, but not just any weekend, this is the relaxing weekend in the midst of holiday and vacation land.

But it is Friday, and that traditionally means it’s Friday Free-for-all time here at VCI.

This is our open topic discussion thread for the weekend, here are a few recent links to kick off the chat:

–RBC: healthy 15% drop
–Soft landing is?
–Oil nosedives, what about stocks?
–Zinc, Wood, is all good
–An order of Canada for Carney
–Some debt numbers
–

So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent holiday!

Open Topic

FFFA! Ben! CMHC! BOC! Fear! Fraud!

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232 Comments

It’s that time of the week again! Let’s do our regular end of the week news roundup and open topic discussion thread for the weekend. Here are a few recent links to kick off the chat:

–North Americas #1 Bubble
–Who will be the next BOC head?
–Fear, not foreign investment
–Historical inventory graph
–Cooling house prices not bad
–Rabidoux/lepoidevin talk impressions
–CMHC MI levels drop 37%
–Short the banks?
–RBC 22% profit increase
–Flaherty asks for budget input
–Flipping and fraud
–

So what are you seeing out there? Post your news links, thoughts and anecdotes here and have an excellent weekend!

BC, Budget, Canada, debt, economy, mortgage, prices

Housing Affordability deteriorates to new low

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98 Comments

Thank goodness we don’t have a housing bubble in Vancouver!

Otherwise one might start to worry about these latest numbers on housing affordability.

The housing affordability index takes local family income and then looks at what percent of it would would be required to service the debt on an average benchmark bungalow.

The entire province of BC is at 69.7% and blows away the rest of Canada for overpriced houses. Only Ontario starts to come close with an affordability index of 43.9%. Even Toronto can’t compete in the overvalued housing arena, coming in at 54.5%.


According to RBC Vancouver is the champion of overpriced houses. To buy the benchmark bungalow here it would take 91% of a local families pre-tax income to service the debt.

From Macleans magazine:

Nothing, of course, could persuade condo king Bob Rennie that the Vancouver housing market is in a bubble (or, worse yet, a bubble that’s starting to let the air out).

For everyone else, take a look at this chart RBC put out today with its latest survey of housing affordability in Canada (which is deteriorating in most provinces, by the way)

No problem, just arbitrarily knock 20% off those Vancouver numbers and we’re not much worse than Toronto.

If you look around the world, you may be able to find a few markets that have an even worse affordability index than Vancouver, with lower incomes or higher house prices. But for some reason, most of those places seem to be able to pull in higher rents than Vancouver.

Canada, debt, mortgage, rates

Mortgage rates rise at RBC, more to follow?

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107 Comments

Looks like RBC just upped two of it’s mortgage rates by one fifth of a point.

What will we do without our record low mortgage rates?

It’s probably just a minor fluctuation, but other banks are expected to follow as bond yields have edged up in the last month.

So if you want to do a rate lock in now might be the time.

Helmut Pastrick of Central One Credit Union explains:

“Sentiment has improved with respect to Europe and the economic outlook,” Pastrick said. “The economic news was quite negative for a period of weeks and now it is somewhat less negative.”

RBC’s posted rate for a three-year, fixed-rate mortgage will go up 0.2 percentage points to 4.05 per cent. Meanwhile, an RBC special-offer rate for five-year closed mortgages rises to 3.69 per cent.

The rise in the cost of funds for banks will mean other lenders will probably also raise their rates, or absorb some of the cost increase to hold onto or gain market share,” Pastrick said.

Read the full article over at the Vancouver Sun.