The International Mortgage Service offers Canadian residents the option to purchase or remortgage a holiday home, buy-to-rent or buy an investment property in 11 countries, including the UK, Canada and selected locations in the US. While payments are available in 10 different currencies, the currency selected must be the same as the applicant’s main income or the local currency of the property location.
Interest-only payments are an option for most international mortgages and Lloyds TSB also offers an international banking service for customers to set up their mortgage payments. The company’s Canadian representative offices are located in Toronto and Vancouver.
Mortgage rates are expected to remain within 25 to 75 basis points of their current level for the remainder of 2009, according to CMHC’s second quarter Housing Market Outlook, keeping them “very low in a historical context.”
“Movements in mortgage rates are difficult to predict due to volatile economic conditions,” the report stated. “Nevertheless, rates are expected to remain steady this year and edge higher in 2010.”
Along with mortgage rates, CMHC listed employment, net migration and low birth rate as having key effects on residential construction, and forecast housing starts to decline to 141,900 in 2009 (most notably in Alberta and Saskatchewan) before rebounding to 150,300 in 2010.
Now… don’t get too excited, but there are some encouraging signs from both sides of the border suggesting that we are getting close to the bottom of this recession. In fact, we are already starting to accumulate the ammunition we might need to fuel the recovery.
For the first time in many months, both US and Canadian investors are not adding to their cash positions. In fact, we are starting to see a reversal of this trend—a bullish signal since these mountains of extra cash ($1.1 trillion in the US and close to $90 billion in Canada) will be redeployed.
With commodity prices stabilizing, the gap between nominal and real GDP in Canada is narrowing back to its long-term average. This means that real economic variables such as real GDP will be much more relevant to corporate profits—eliminating a source of uncertainty and volatility in the market
The pace at which house prices in Canada are falling is moderating and at this rate, this housing market correction (from a national perspective) will end up being a mild one—both in absolute and relative terms. In fact, the notable improvement in housing affordability is injecting some life to the mortgage market, encouraging new purchasing and refinancing activities. Consumer confidence in both countries is starting to improve, while retail sales are surprisingly on the upside.
