The world seems so uncertain, with
trade wars
, actual wars, violent protests and world leaders who need to Google what the word “ally” means.
In the
bond market
, which largely guides
fixed mortgage rates
, uncertainty usually has investors sticking their hands out for extra hazard pay, also known as risk premiums. Those, in turn, get baked straight into the fixed mortgage rates borrowers see.
So far, though, all this global angst hasn’t taken its frustration out on mortgage pricing. Lender fixed-rate discounts have been surprisingly generous compared with their funding costs.
This “tight spread” environment is helping online lenders offer as low as 3.69 per cent for insured fixed-rate mortgages (see Butler Mortgage and RateBuzz).
On the
variable
end, certain provinces (like Ontario) feature offers as low as 3.39 per cent (insured) and 3.70 per cent (uninsured).
Of course, it’s not like the “old days” (2021) when insured rates hit record lows of 1.23 per cent fixed and 0.85 per cent variable.
Still, we should be grateful mortgage spreads aren’t behaving more normally, because if they were, rates in the threes might already be in the past tense.
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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