When writing this the Bank of Canada has just announced this past Wednesday a increase of its overnight lending rate, the rate it lends money out to the banks, from .05% to .75%.  This anticipated gloom and doom predicated by the media creates fear in how this will negatively affect the market. and consumers and destruction is about to happen.  To put matters into perspective, I have attached a chart demonstrating the 25 year history of our mortgage rates.

25 Historical Rate Sheet on Fixed vs Variable. Source: Bank of Canada Monetary and Financial Analysis

When looking at the charts we can see that the variable rate has outperformed the fixed rate, which is interesting to note, and if we were to start going up the chart we would see the same thing.  There really is not anything new when it come to rates, they go up and they go down and the market bounces along with it.  The biggest concern is our government which keeps tightening the qualifications for getting a mortgage which is keeping people out of the market or qualifying with lenders that charge high interest rates.   We enjoy and continue to enjoy low rates, so let’s use that to our advantage instead of being driven by media fear.