Mortgages Rates: Use it or Lose It By James Barry At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

The housing market is looking fairly good right now. Sales are on the rise, thanks, at least in part, to ridiculously low mortgage rates. An article last week in the Financial Post discussed a survey by Royal LePage Real Estate Services Ltd, who sampled their agents to find out if they felt the current housing trend would continue. 61% of those surveyed felt it would, 28% did not and another 11% were undecided.

Mortgage rates are almost certainly a contributing factor in the housing market. We Canadians are drawn to low rates the way young children are drawn to candy. We see it and it makes us drool.

According to Statistics Canada, new home and resale home markets are up for the month of July. With the major banks and mortgage companies competing heavily for mortgage dollars, it’s not surprising those in the real estate industry are crediting low mortgage rates.

There is no definitive data regarding the impact of the home renovation credit on housing purchases, but it certainly stands to reason that members of the do-it-yourself crowd were spurred into action before the opportunity expires. You can barely pass a street corner without seeing the home renovation tax credit in a marketing campaign. Everyone from government, to hardware stores, to banks is urging Canadians to take advantage of the tax savings – now!

So, will the trend continue? The water-cooler chatter bugs across the nation are in an escalating debate over the answer. Yes, everybody’s got an opinion. Mortgage rates should stay low, with Bank of Canada promising to keep the Key Rate at 0.25% at least until June 2010. Then again, banks need to earn a profit too, so rates might creep up anyway.

Once the tax credit expires, less people will be interested in buying fixer uppers. Then again, a successful tax credit initiative for homeowners might mean it continues for at least another year. The points of dispute are endless, and what it comes down to is, nobody can really say for certain what is going to happen. The best we can do is deal with what we know today. Right now.

What we know right now is this: if you’re thinking of buying a home, you will get a fabulous mortgage rate. If you wish you had taken advantage of the below prime variable rates on mortgages, stop kicking yourself. Deal with right now, which has variable rates pretty close to prime.

What else do we know right now? We know it’s a great time to buy a house or condo. Prices are affordable on resales, pre-construction and new builds. Buyers are the current power of the market, after years of being at the mercy of the seller. If you’ve been watching the listings and witnessed some red hot deals pass you by, now is the time to jump on the bandwagon and make an offer on the next great buy you see. Save the tales about the one that got away for fishing.

When everything in the market is working to your benefit, you owe it to yourself to take advantage of the opportunities. You can argue and speculate about how long the current mortgage rates will remain this low, but one thing is agreed upon unanimously: sooner or later mortgage rates will definitely go up.

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