Basic Renewals
Will the impending doom, er… changes, hurt homeowners simply renewing their mortgage with their current lender? No.
If your life is easy, things are easy.
Thus far the government has continued to leave renewals alone. And one can only hope they maintain the logical stance of hands off existing mortgages.
The devastation that a ‘requalification at renewal’ policy would cause to the economy, the banking system, and people’s lives would be unprecedented. Many of us go through tough times, and most of us make it through the other side. Being forced to sell the family home because of unlucky timing of a renewal would be nothing short of brutal.
‘No new money’ and ‘no moving’ – that is now the path to no stress.
However, if you want to increase the current mortgage balance by one dollar (adding new money), or move your mortgage (i.e., porting a portable mortgage) to a new property – then you must meet the new guidelines.
To increase your mortgage by even one dollar from its current balance, even back to a balance below the initial approved amount, can no longer be done without a complete application, full documents, and requalification under current guidelines. Many do not currently meet these guidelines, and following this next round of changes, fewer still will meet them.
‘Porting’, or moving a mortgage to a new property, is the where people are learning some very hard lessons currently.
And again, this will only get tougher in the fall.
As for renewals, keep it simple and have zero problems.
As for why your ‘portable’ mortgage is perhaps not so portable after all – more on this next week.
Thank you