unsecured personal loan

All this uncertainty has left Toronto homeowner Alan Zelcovitch unsure about what to do with his variable-rate mortgage on his three-bedroom townhouse.He was hoping for one last rate cut before deciding whether to lock in on a fixed-rate mortgage for five years.Also the owner of two local businesses, Zelcovitch is rethinking plans to buy a commercial property. “It is extremely volatile now and no one can predict what the next few years will bring,” he said.

“One month you hear it is going down, down, down. Now you hear it is going to go up, up, up … This up and down like a yo-yo just makes people sit on the fence.”Fixed-rate mortgages are linked to the performance of the bond market, whereas movements in the Bank of Canada’s overnight interest rate influences variable-rate mortgages.

That is because variable-rate mortgages are linked to the commercial banks’ prime rates, which also determine borrowing costs for a wide variety of other products including car loans, lines of credit and student loans.”Low rates are key for people to feel good about spending money because their mortgages take in a huge amount of their disposable income as it is,” Zelcovitch said.

“Especially with the size of mortgages people are carrying now – a half-million dollar house in Toronto is nothing…. You start to add on a half-point or a point to that, it is a huge, huge difference and it is going to force a lot of people out of the buying zone.”