“But maintain this diet of borrowing for five more years and debt obesity would indeed weigh down the household sector's momentum. It's time to start the borrowing diet now, and that means policies aimed at slower debt-financed consumption growth and a cooler housing market.”
Bank of Montreal’s head of Canadian retail banking supported the government’s move, since the bank has been primarily recommending mortgages with a maximum 25-year amortization to build more equity and retire the loan faster, rather than paying more interest.
“The actions announced today by Minister Flaherty are prudent, measured, responsible and timely,” Frank Techar, president of personal and commercial banking at BMO, said in a statement issued by the bank. “For many months, BMO has been encouraging Canadians to lower their total cost of household debt by paying down short-term higher interest debt and considering the benefits of a mortgage with a 25-year maximum amortization to help them save interest costs and pay down their mortgage faster.”
It’s not the first time the Conservative government has tinkered with the mortgage market. In 2008, Mr. Flaherty announced Ottawa would no longer back 40-year amortizations, with a goal of cooling down a hot real estate market and preventing the emergence of a housing bubble in Canada. At that time, the government said it would also back only mortgages where the buyer has put down at least 5 per cent, effectively eliminating zero-down mortgages.
Last February the Finance Department lowered the maximum amount Canadians could withdraw in refinancing their mortgages to 90 per cent from 95 per cent of the value of their homes. Mr. Flaherty also introduced a measure requiring borrowers to qualify for a five-year fixed-rate mortgage, even if they sought a variable mortgage at a lower rate. Until that change, home buyers only had to qualify for the higher of either a three-year fixed-rate or variable-rate mortgage.
The Canadian Association of Mortgage Professionals spoke to the government frequently over the last three months, and was pleased that the changes didn’t include any modification to the minimum down payment required to buy a home. And while president Jim Murphy said that he generally approves of the changes to amortization lengths, he hopes the government shows the same willingness to change if the market cools further.
“We understand why he did what he did,” Mr. Murphy said. “But we hope when the time comes, he’ll revisit that decision. Real estate is very important to the economy, and it’s crucial that we find a balance because you don’t want to overreact to temporary market conditions.”
He said a better choice would have been to keep 35 year amortizations, but force all applicants to qualify with the assumption of a 25 year amortization.
CAAMP, which represents the mortgage brokerage industry, released a study late last year that showed mortgage debt in Canada surpassed $1-trillion for the first time in 2010. About 22 per cent of all new mortgages had amortization rates longer than 25 years, up from 18 per cent the year before.
There was a jump in the number of Canadians using their mortgages to free up cash, with 18 per cent taking out equity as the cited a need for “debt consolidation or repayment.” The average amount borrowed against home equity was $46,000. Given that there are 5.65 million mortgage holders in Canada, CAAMP estimated the borrowing at $41-billion, about the same as last year.
“It is estimated that 30 per cent of the takeout was for debt reconsolidation and repayment,” the report stated. “Therefore, while the amount of outstanding mortgage debt would have increased by this amount, totals for other types of debt would be correspondingly reduced. About $15-billion was taken out for renovations, $6-billion for education and other spending, $7.5-billion for investments and $4-billion for other purposes.”
With files from Boyd Erman, Tara Perkins and Steve Ladurantaye
