On October 3rd, Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced material changes to the mortgage policies. These policy announcements created some deep concern throughout our industry and a high degree of uncertainty at all levels – brokers, lenders, insurers and most importantly, borrowers. Days later, we conducted a network-wide conference call to boil down some of the main impacts of those policy changes and to field some of your questions.
As indicated in that conference call, I was not confident that we had seen the last of these policy changes. I also indicated that we should remain confident in our abilities and our resiliency as mortgage professionals to prevail over these challenges, as we have in previous years when faced with other major market forces (i.e. subprime meltdown).
Our competitors had varying opinions, and reacted prematurely with press releases and collateral material that are now largely over-reactionary and inaccurate.
With that said, the industry has been pleased with some “give backs” from the Finance Minister, who has relaxed some of these policies only a week or so following their original announcement. Since then, lenders who had retracted their halting of refis, rentals and BFS products have returned to that space. Additionally, we have seen the abandonment of the MQR stress test for conventional loans. All of which are positive developments in a small space of time.
A Thoughtful Resource for Your Clients
You can find an updated version of the Fact Sheet here.
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Today we find ourselves in a much better and more positive landscape than where we were at the time these changes were originally announced.
I continue to encourage you all to remain confident in your abilities and resiliency to drive value to borrowers.
Albert Collu
President
