Finance committee  Thanks very much indeed for the question. The stress test is currently at a rate of 2% above posted. I'm oversimplifying it, but essentially if a contract is issued today for a five-year term at around a 3.5% rate, people have to qualify at a 5.5% rate. The logic is that you ca

Finance committee  I think that anybody who has been paying attention to real estate transactions will see that there's been a pretty significant fall-off in that since the beginning of the year when the uninsured stress test was introduced. We're quite concerned that it really does disproportionat

Finance committee  Thank you very much indeed for the question. The recommendation we're making regarding providing interest-free loans to municipalities actually ties into this, to a degree. I think a lot of measures have been implemented that are essentially trying to tamp down demand when the a

Finance committee  Do you want to take that one?

Status of Women committee  Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for inviting Mortgage Professionals Canada to speak to you today. My name is Paul Taylor, and I'm President and CEO of the national association. I'm joined today by mortgage expert and Mortgage Professionals Canada member Jacquie Bushell of O

Status of Women committee  I suspect that the reason we were invited is we are somewhat peripherally related to this for the folks who are transitioning out of those shelters and trying to create new homes for their families, as victims of this abuse. Jacquie would know this directly, but it's not uncomm

Status of Women committee  Right. To respond directly to the question, it might be smart for some group such as CMHC, which provides mortgage insurance to folks who have the smaller down payments, to potentially provide products that are specifically tailored to individuals who can show that they've been

Status of Women committee  Recent changes made rental vacancy rates really tight in a lot of areas of the country, too, which has just increased overall costs of living for people. As an individual with children finding a place to live, any sort of assistance that can be created through the insurance mecha

Finance committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, committee members, good morning. Mortgage Professionals Canada has more than 11,500 members across Canada, and I want to thank you on their behalf for giving us an opportunity to comment on Bill C-97 and the 2019 federal budget. My name is Paul Taylor. I'

Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  We've done our own “back of the napkin” math on this as well. A lot of times people talk about the maximum purchase price, but to do that you have to assume that a household is making exactly $120,000. That number comes in somewhere around $550,000 for a home. The average family

Finance committee  There are definitely some differences between the two programs. In B.C. it was almost an interest-free loan. The CMHC program is a shared equity program. In B.C., if you purchase a home and the government gave you $50,000, five years later when you sell the home, you owe B.C. $50

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. I'd like to answer in English, if I may. You're absolutely correct. Because of the structure of the program, people who were qualified to take part in it would already qualify for an insured mortgage. The number of potential first-time buyers in the m

Finance committee  We actually run consumer surveys twice annually, and most of the folks who are purchasing homes will suggest that it's taking longer and longer to amass that down payment. I think the real estate market has actually been performing very well for the last number of years. I don't

Finance committee  I actually don't, no.