Mitch Thibodeau
775 Blackburn Mews West K7P 2N5 Kingston, ON, Canada

ESSENTIAL WORKER CONTEST We are sending a little extra LOVE & GRATITUDE to ALL essential workers this Valentine'Da...y Please TAG any & all essential workers to this post for their chance to win $100 to ANY LOCAL KINGSTON BUSINESS of their choice. (Multiple prizes available) Please join us in sharing our Valentine's Day Gratitude video to all our essential worker friends and family. Thank you to all essential workers for getting up everyday to keep us all healthy & safe. HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY *All entries must be submitted by February 14th at 11:59PM.

The joys of working from home!

What a year for real estate in Kingston: Average cost of a home: $463,993 (17.4% higher than 2019) Number of homes sold: 4118 (9% higher than 2019)

Here are some updated numbers for the Kingston Housing Market as of the end of Sept: - Home sales were up 35% compared to Sept. 2019 - The average home sale price in Sept. was $491,156 (23% increase from Sept. 2019)... - New home listings were up 12% compared to Sept. 2019 Our market remains very competitive. If you are considering a purchase in the near future, be proactive and get your financing in order in advance as much as possible. You will need to act quickly once you find a home that you like.

Kingston's real estate market remains very competitive. Here are some of the stats from June that reaffirm this point: - Average home sale price in June was $457,332, a 12% increase from June 2019 - Average home sale price year-to-date is $433,541, up about 10% from last year. - Sales were up 22% from June 2019... The best thing you can do as a buyer in this type of market is to be prepared, be informed, and be ready to move quickly. Getting pre-approved for a mortgage is a great place to start!

In a competitive real estate market (like Kingston, Toronto, Ottawa), it is always tempting to make an unconditional offer to purchase to increase the odds of having your offer accepted. While I will always recommend making your offer to purchase conditional upon financing, I realize that some clients may choose to remove this condition in order to make their offer more competitive. If you are considering an unconditional offer, here is a good overview of some of the potential risks involved. It's important to know all the implications before deciding whether or not you want your offer to include conditions.

Last week, CMHC announced that, as of July 1st, they will be making changes to mortgage qualification rules that would decrease how much homebuyers would qualify for on insured mortgages (typically less than 20% down). They are also tightening up their credit score requirements. This change has made headlines and has caused some concern among homebuyers. Luckily, when mortgages are insured in Canada, banks and lenders can choose from 3 different insurers (CMHC, Genworth and ...Canada Guaranty). At this point, Genworth and Canada Guaranty have confirmed they will not be following CMHC and they will keep their guidelines as is. This was welcome news for all of us. So, for now, we can continue qualifying mortgages under the same guidelines as we did prior to the CMHC announcement. Feel free to contact me if you would like more information on this topic.

The mortgage industry has seen a lot of changes since March 15th. We are finding it increasingly difficult to qualify individuals if they are temporarily laid off or their income has been impacted in any way due to Covid-19. If you were pre-approved prior to March 15th, it would be worth checking with your mortgage professional if your pre-approval has been affected in any way. Better to determine if there is an issue now before offering on a house.

Reposting these phone numbers for anyone who still may need to contact their mortgage lender/bank about payment deferrals. My understanding is that the turnaround times, while still slow, have improved in the past couple weeks.

While home purchasing/selling has been pretty much put on hold while we work through social distancing, there is no reason why you can't use this time to plan for the future. If you have intentions to buy in the near future, now is a great time to get financing application in order and lock in a nice low rate for 120 days. That way, when things return to "normal" you'll be ready to go and will hopefully have a leg up on the rest of the market.

We are being told that banks and lenders are experiencing very high call volumes (expect to wait a couple hours) and they are prioritizing based on payments coming up in the next 7 days. If you think you will need mortgage payment relief but are fine to make your next payment, then it would be best not to call now while volumes are high. Ideally, wait to call until you are within 3-5 days of the payment you will need help with. This will help reduce the call volume and shoul...d decrease your wait time (and unnecessary frustration). With that being said, please ensure you contact your bank or lender before missing a payment. All banks and lenders are committed to helping clients through this difficult situation. If I can be of assistance in any way, please don't hesitate to reach out. [email protected]

If you are concerned about making mortgage payments and need to contact your bank or lender, here is a list of customer service numbers for most of the lenders that we work with. Please always feel free to contact me as well if you have any questions or concerns.

We have received many mortgage related questions and concerns over the past week. These are challenging times for everyone so here are a few things you should know that will hopefully help: - If you are currently laid off or unable to work and expect that you will have difficulty making your mortgage payments, there are relief options. All three mortgage insurers (CMHC, Genworth, and Canada Guaranty) along with most banks and lenders have offered to help clients who expect to... have difficulty paying their mortgage. Most will allow skip-a-payment options or will come up with creative ways to help you through this difficult time. Payments will not be forgiven entirely but will usually be capitalized onto the mortgage balance. The best thing you can do is to contact your lender or mortgage insurer BEFORE you miss a payment. Get ahead of the problem and they will do their best to help you out. If you are not sure who to call, please contact me and I can help. - As everyone knows, interest rates have decreased over the past couple weeks. I am getting a lot on inquiries to see if renewing early makes sense. While the lower rates are attractive, in a lot of cases the mortgage penalty to break the existing mortgage is so high (as rates fall, penalties often increase) that it negates most of the savings gained from the lower interest rate. With that being said, there are still situations where the penalty is low enough that there is a strong case to renew early (typically on mortgages with less time left in the term). If you want to explore your options, feel free to contact me and I can help. - If you are currently in a variable rate mortgage, the bank prime rate has decreased by 1.0% over the past couple weeks. This means that variable rate mortgages/loans will see a 1.0% decrease in their rate and their payment will decrease accordingly. You will receive notice of the decrease(s) from your bank/lender within the next month. - The Mortgage Professionals office is now closed indefinitely. Luckily we all have the ability to work from home so we can still help you with any of your mortgage needs or questions. If you need to reach me, please contact me by email ([email protected]) or cell phone (613-328-6647). Response may be slightly delayed given the amount of inquiries I am receiving but I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

Interest rates have dropped significantly in the past week. Likely only going to add some heat to our already very competitive market. If you're buying this summer, now is the time to get a rate locked in.

"While Canada’s economy has been operating close to potential with inflation on target, the COVID-19 virus is a material negative shock to the Canadian and global outlooks, and monetary and fiscal authorities are responding." More to follow as we find out more from the major banks. We assume they will drop the prime rate by .50% as well but we'll wait for the official announcements.

Last week, the Federal government announced that they will amend the mortgage stress test for insured mortgages, lowering the current qualifying rate by about .30% (as of April 6th). While this won't have a drastic impact, it will improve the average buyer's purchasing power by about 3%. For anyone currently in the market, it will be worth reviewing your mortgage application to see how these changes will affect you.

Had fun shopping for toys yesterday and supporting the Tree of Hope. Good to see some classic toys, like slinkies, Rubik's cube, etc. still have a spot on the shelves.

We are running our annual colouring contest. A good way to entertain your children and get them out of your hair for 7 minutes. Please see below for more details.

The First Time Homebuyer Incentive introduced by the government has now been in place almost two months. This program can be advantageous to some first time homebuyers looking to increase their down payment and potentially qualify for a little more. For more information on the program, please feel free to contact me or visit www.placetocallhome.ca