If brokers want a barometer on what people are looking for in a mortgage, they need only check out the latest tracking numbers from RateHub.ca.
If brokers want a barometer on what people are looking for in a mortgage, they need only check out the latest tracking numbers from RateHub.ca.
“We have already seen a migration from fixed to variable, just in the June/July numbers,” says Alyssa Richard, CEO and founder of RateHub.ca. “Consumers are reacting to the increase in rates; and these tracking numbers we're getting are available to brokers.”
Tracking numbers from RateHub.ca show that people looking for a 5-year fixed mortgage have gone down from 28 per cent to 24 per cent from June to July, and increased in searches for variable mortgages from 5.4 per cent to 6.8 per cent, says Richard.
“Beginning in February of 2012, we saw greater than 80 per cent of leads submitted on our website go to fixed products over variable,” Richard told MortgageBrokerNews.ca. “But with the spread between variable and fixed mortgage rates starting to increase, we’ve already seen more interest in the 5-year variable rate from website visitors.”
Richard says that RateHub’s 2012 numbers are in line with the CAAMP 2012 survey, and is much higher than the percent of total mortgage holders – those who have bought in the last five years – which is 65 per cent.
“When the 5-year rate was so low, there was such a concentration on the 5-year fixed product,” she told MortgageBrokerNews.ca. “But now the savings are much greater, now that the rates have increased and the premium for the fixed product is no longer small.”
