Prime rate hits 4.70% today as big banks act on BoC hike
TD also raised its separate mortgage prime rate — the benchmark used to price its variable-rate mortgage products — to 4.85% from 4.60%, a spread that sits 15 basis points above its standard prime.
For borrowers on fixed-payment variable mortgages, today’s change means a larger share of each instalment goes toward interest rather than principal. Those on adjustable-payment structures will see monthly costs rise immediately.
A housing market that wasn’t moving before today
The effective rate increase reaches a market that had already gone quiet.
Phil Soper, president and chief executive of Royal LePage in Toronto, told Canadian Mortgage Professional this month that anticipated buyer pull-ahead had not materialised even as rate-hike speculation intensified.
“You’d see some people that were planning to get into the market in the spring of 2027, for example, jumping in now to get ahead of anticipated higher borrowing costs. Yet we’re not seeing material changes in the trajectory of transaction volumes. It’s very flat,” Soper said.
