Mortgage Rules Tightened

Zoomer | January 17th, 2011

Worried that Canadians are borrowing at too frantic a pace, the federal government has announced moves that should address our record high levels of household indebtedness. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced these new guidelines on Monday.

One change will affect home equity-rich Zoomers: under new rules, the amount you can borrow against the value of your home will be reduced from 90 per cent to 85 per cent. Plus, the government announced it will no longer back the popular Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) loans, which Flaherty suggested are incorrectly being used to “buy boats and cars and big-screen
TVs.”