An Edmonton Real Estate Blog

A quick note and prop to Alberta’s current state of home affordability.

RBC’s housing trends and affordability report released in February announced the Alberta housing industry as the most affordable province in Canada.

“At the other end of the affordability spectrum from British Columbia is Alberta, which, in the fourth quarter of 2010, officially became the most affordable provincial market in the country, according to the RBC Measures.
Those Measures fell once again by 1.0 to 2.4 percentage points in the province, extending their long strings of declines since late 2007.” Read More…

Last week it was announced there would be some changes to the current mortgage rules. The following changes officially take effect March 18, 2011. However, many lenders have already started switching over in preparation.

The federal  government made the decision to reduce the mortgage amortization from 35 to 30 years. Similar to last years cut from 40 to 35. This will decrease the home owners ability to access their current equity.  This will also affect the amount consumers qualify for when purchasing a new home. It is speculated it will slowly make its way to 25 year amortization caps which, historically, was the norm for many years. Read More…