The price lenders pay to fund mortgages has mostly gone sideways for a month and a half. That stagnation explains why nationally-advertised
mortgage rates
did a whole lot of nothing this week.
Behind the scenes, however, a few
big banks
dropped discretionary rates by five basis points or so. These are the off-menu rates reserved for borrowers with strong applications and a willingness to haggle.
For those seeking transparency and fewer games, there are plenty of leading lenders that show all their cards. Among them:
- Pine’s uninsured five-year fixed at 4.09 per cent
- Ratebuzz’s uninsured five-year fixed at 3.95 per cent (Ontario only)
- Vancity’s uninsured four-year fixed at 3.94 per cent (B.C. only)
- Butler Mortgage’s insured three-year fixed at 3.59 per cent (Alberta, B.C., Ontario only)
Elsewhere in the mortgage universe…
The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) announced on Thursday that it’s leaving its
mortgage stress test
in place. That’s the rule that forces uninsured borrowers at federally regulated lenders to prove they can afford rates that are 200-plus basis points above their actual rate.
In 2025, Superintendent Peter Routledge hinted that OSFI could potentially replace the stress test with its new
, which applies to a lender’s overall portfolio instead of individual mortgages. Industry types were hoping that would be the case.
Instead, the regulator decided to
rules for the time being. That means banks will be a bit more picky about who
they lend to.
The takeaway for borrowing costs is that the tougher it is for someone to qualify for a mortgage, the higher the rate they typically pay.
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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