I just came across ING Direct and they are offering a low interest 5 year variable interest rate at 2.10%. I ame curently paying 2.25% at the TD bank although they are offering the same 5 year open mortgage at 3.55%. Currently, ING Direct’s 5 year variable rate is based on prime minus 0.65% while I secured a 5 year variable rate mortgage at prime minus 0.5 %. Now TD is offering the same 5 year variable rate mortgage at prime plus .8%. Mind you, all this is in Canada. I understand that all the rest of the banks in Canada besides ING Direct are going prime plus instead of prime minus now to determine the variable rate because of the current tight money supply.
I’ve been around for a long time, way back when I was happy to get a mortgage at 10%. Before that I was paying 16% for a second mortgage. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the cost of financing the purchase of a home, an expense that should comprise about 30 % of a family’s income has been drastically reduced. Which makes all that talk of foreclosures today somewhat perplexing.
I’d like to know what the rest of you are paying for your mortgages, especially in the USA. Am just lucky to pay such a low rate today.
And what’s with ING Direct. They seem to stand alone with the lowest rates. When I renew in a couple of years I’ll be checking them out. Has anyone here dealt with them ?
I notice you are assuming a variable rate. Perhaps that’s the norm in Canada? In the U.S., fixed rates are widely available and for those of us who intend to spend 30+ years in the same house, they offer a nice security.
True, I don’t think you can get a fixed rate term in Canada above 10 years.
I didn’t assume a variable rate for everyone. I wanted to understand what dopers assumed was a reasonable rate to finance ownership. For 14 years, I was taking on 2 to 5 year fixed terms and renewing my commitment in advance of the renewal date to ensure future mortgage payments at less than 6 % through a “blended interest rate” option whereby the bank was able to secure the interest amount a I contracted for during the previous term.
6 % was the magic number for me as a reasonable attainable mortgage rate until I was faced with the option of only paying 4% variable instead of 7% fixed for 5 years a couple of years ago.
Two 30 year fixed in the low 5% range. Both are about 1/3rd paid off. I’m happy with the rate and have no desire to ‘reset the shot clock’ with any kind of re-fi. That’s the big secret, it’s not that you get $200 a month back, it’s that you get another 7 or 10 years where 95% of your payment goes to interest!
5% fixed for 7 years at the Royal Bank of Canada. We’re up for renewal in 2012, and locked in before interest rates took a dive. 5% is still pretty good, but not great considering we probably could have got less than 4% had we locked in later.
But what you can do is refi to a lower rate, but continue to make your old payment. The difference goes straight to principal, so your equity builds faster and you knock years off the original mortgage term. We refi’d from 5.625% to 4.875% last year. We had 26 years left on the original mortgage, but by refinancing and making the same payment, we’ll be done in 22 instead.
USA. Bought my place in October of 2002 at what was then the lowest rate I could find for a 30 year fixed “jumbo”, 6.25%.
Refinanced a year or two later and caught another low, 5.25% which is what I’m still on. If it drops to about 4.25% it might be worth another refi (plus I’m below the conforming limit now) but it’s working fine as is.
15 year 3.875% fixed–just closed on our new house a week ago.
Now we have bragging rights among our friends! Actually I locked a day early, if I had waited a day it dropped to 3.75% but it wasn’t worth paying the penalty on the lock. If I had taken a 30 year loan the best I could get was 4.625% fixed. I don’t like variable loans so that wasn’t an option for us.
I’m the only under 2%er so far. Oops, that should be the only one in the US.
Actually our interest rate is 0% since we paid the house off when Ms Hook retired December 1, 2008.
I believe ours is a 5 year variable rate at Prime - 0.75%, which makes it 2% right now. It was under 2% until fairly recently. We’ll have to renew in 2013.
Just re-fi’d at 3.99% for a 10-year fixed. Even doing that (going from a 15-year fixed at 5.5% with 8 years to go) means we’ll be able to save a year of mortgage payments. That is a heck of a lot of money.
I’ve got about 13 years left on a 4.75% 20 year fixed.
I could probably refi down to a 10 year fixed at 3.99% but from what I’ve read it’s not worth the hassle unless you can shave an entire 1% off your rate.