Mortgage Security

A new study suggests the security of a five-year mortgage costs little or nothing beyond a riskier variable-rate mortgage, providing you get a jumbo-sized rate discount. "Interest costs on discounted closed five-year mortgages have been close to, and often lower than, those of variable-rate mortgages since late 1996," senior Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. economist Ali Manouchehri writes in the study.

Homeowners have made variable-rate mortgages hugely popular in the past few years in the belief that you can save on interest costs by pegging your mortgage rate to your lender’s prime lending rate. The prime rate at the major banks is now 4.5 per cent, while the posted five-year rate at the big banks is 6.15 per cent. In just one year, the variable-rate choice would save you about $1,700 on monthly payments toward a $150,000 mortgage amortized over 25 years (assuming a level prime rate).

For that reason, the CMHC's Mr. Manouchehri decided to compare discounted five-year mortgages with discounted variable-rate mortgages. Incidentally, five years is the most popular term by far for fixed-rate mortgages at about 59 per cent of the total.

For five-year mortgages, he used a discount of 1.25 of a percentage point; for variable-rate mortgages, it was 0.4 of a point off prime. For five-year mortgages taken out between 1993 and mid-1996, the five-year mortgage was costlier in terms of interest costs. Since then, however, variable-rate mortgages have generally been a little bit more expensive. Obviously, there's nothing in this study that decides the fixed-rate versus variable-rate debate once and for all.

You were a spectator to these rate declines if you were stuck in a five-year mortgage, while people in variable-rate mortgages would have benefited almost immediately.
Five-year mortgage rates are close to a 50-year low, which suggests they're far more likely to rise over their term than fall.

So what's the best choice here, variable-rate or five-year fixed rate? People who want to pay rock-bottom mortgage rates for as long as possible will probably still want a variable-rate mortgage. First, the CMHC study tells us there may not be a significant cost to locking your mortgage in for five years, and you might even save a little over a variable-rate mortgage. Arguably, the variable-rate versus fixed-rate debate is all about risks and rewards.