On June 4, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) announced three big changes to how they’re underwriting mortgages for people buying a house with less than 20 percent down.
The first change was lowering the Gross Debt Servicing (GDS) to Total Debt Servicing (TDS) requirements. What does that mean to you? Previously, a $90,000 annual income would have been able to buy $450,000 house with a 5 percent down payment. After July 1st, that same income may only get you a $400,000 house with 5 percent down.
The second change was an increase to the Beacon score requirement. CMHC now requires at least one applicant to have a 680 beacon (credit) score requirement whereas before, a 600 would have been fine.
The third change is that buyers can’t borrow a down payment from anywhere like a line of credit or just getting a loan to supplement your down payment.
Now, only CMHC is following these tightened guidelines. Canada’s other two insurers, Canada Guarantee and Genworth aren’t following these changes and keeping things status quo.
If anyone has any questions, just get a hold of me. You can text or call if you have any questions about any of these changes or just getting qualified.