Richards Mortgage Group Blog

Last updated December 28, 2023 Effective January 1, 2023, the Canadian Government enacted a temporary two-year ban (2023-2024) on non-Canadian purchase of residential real estate. It's called the “Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act”, and the legislation link is here. Basically, the intention of the Act is to prevent speculative investment by foreign investors.

Life has certainly kept us on our toes the last couple of years. At this point, I'm sure that most of us are yearning for some of the relative normalcy of years past, however looking forward into 2023, it doesn’t seem like there will be much of a let up. Buckle up your seat belts and get ready for another interesting year. As a mortgage broker and economist by training, here is a list of 4 trends that I will be keeping a close eye on over the coming year, which should help provide some context to understand what is going on in the world of Canadian real estate.

Three-part series on best Canadian cities to invest in

Canada's banking regulator has once again updated its "B20" guidelines for residential mortgage underwriting, this time to include a financial stress test for buyers who don't need CMHC-mortgage insurance. OSFI (the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions) said today that the changes will come into force the first day of January 2018 and will "reinforce a strong and prudent regulatory regime for residential mortgage underwriting in Canada."

Last month in my blog, I talked about new Canadian Government rules coming into effect and how they might impact the mortgage lending landscape. Besides explaining the new mortgagequalifying stress test, I touched on CMHC’s (Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation) soon-to-be-gone role as a provider of “bulk” or “low-ratio” mortgage insurance to the mortgage lending industry, and how it provided stability and promoted competition. As of Nov 30th, 2016 CMHC officially no longer provides that and certain other services, hence many mortgage lenders who had previously relied on these categories of mortgage insurance to manage their lending operations have been forced – over the last 30 days – to dramatically scale back their offerings.

Breaking down self-employment, the aftermath of the global recession, and what it all means at the mortgage table. Did you know that one in six (16%) of working Canadians are self-employed? If this is or will be you or someone you know, and you are thinking about buying a home, please take a moment to understands how the new self-employed income documentation rules affect mortgage qualifying.