Understand why rates change and how you can adapt to increases.

There are many factors that influence the health of the economy: unemployment, inflation, consumer confidence, and the housing market are just a few. Let’s take a look at the ways these factors are able to impact your mortgage rate.

Factors Affecting: Fixed Mortgage Rates

A fixed best mortgage rate usually moves in alignment with government bond yields of the same term.

Bond Prices and Bond Yields (Negative Relationship)

When bond prices increase, bond yields decrease, and when bond prices decrease, bond yields increase. Bonds are typically considered safer investments than stocks.

Bond Yield: the return an investor will receive by holding a bond to maturity.

Bond Yields and Fixed Rates (Positive Relationship)

Typically fixed rates have a positive relationship with bond yields. They increase and decrease together with bond yields.

Stock Market is Booming– Bond Prices Decrease, Bond Yields Increase, Fixed Rates Increase

Whenever the stock market is booming, investors are far more likely to make a higher return on investing in equities (i.e. the stock market) than investing in bonds. Thus the demand for bonds decreases, meaning that the price of bonds decreases, and the bond yield increases. Therefore, fixed rates will likely increase.

Stock Market is Dipping– Bond Prices Increase, Bond Yields Decrease, Fixed Rates Decrease

When the Canadian economy becomes less stable, investors generally have the tendency to invest in safer financial commitments such as bonds.

Factors Affecting: Variable Mortgage Rates

The overnight rate changes the cost of lending/borrowing short-term funds and therefore affects the Prime Canadian mortgage rate. The Bank of Canada regularly updates this rate based on economic conditions.