Eitan Pinsky and his wife were still settling into their newly purchased $4-million home when the Bank of Canada raised its benchmark interest rate by a full percentage point to 2.5 per cent in mid-July.
For the Vancouver couple – who are among the estimated 53 per cent of Canadian homeowners with a variable rate mortgage – that translated into an increase in their housing loan’s interest rate.
“So we ended up increasing our payments a couple of days ago because if we didn’t do that, our amortization period would be longer,” says Mr. Pinsky, owner of Pinsky Mortgages, a Vancouver-based mortgage broker. “Now a lot of clients are asking us: What should they do with their mortgage?”
That’s the burning question today for Canadians looking to buy…