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South Okanagan Photos

Time to lock in your mortgage rate – while still low

Mortgage rates are on the rise with all the big banks announcing increases this week. Pundits predicating further rises within the next six months.

This will affect people with variable rates and those people who want to enter the market.

Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest home-loan lender, said it is increasing interest on most new mortgages by 20 basis points, a hike that follows Bank of Montreal’s own rate bump made earlier. TD has now followed.

The moves, two in a series of rate hikes among big lenders recently, may help douse the country’s still-hot housing market with some cold water, something policy makers have been trying to do for the past year or so, anxious over a potential bubble amid historically low borrowing rates.

At RBC, the bank said its fixed five-year closed mortgage rising to 5.34 per cent and its five-year special rate to 3.89 per cent.