From a recent Robert McLister article in the Globe And Mail.
Committing to a mortgage for five long years exposes people to the most insidious aspect of residential financing: prepayment charges.
And when it comes to such charges – the penalties you pay come when you back out of your mortgage early – some lenders take a greater toll on your bank balance than others.
Big banks are usually the worst. Mortgage finance companies are often the best.
And these bank competitors want you to know it. More and more, smaller lenders are using their preferential penalty calculations as a selling point, as well they should.
This year I’ve seen lenders such as Equitable Bank, Manulife Bank of Canada, XMC Mortgage Corp., Merix Financial, CMLS Financial Ltd., RFA Mortgage Corp., First National Financial LP, and MCAP all go out of their way to step up marketing and educate consumers on how bad penalties from major banks can be. (Mind you, a few of these lenders also have “no-frills” mortgages with high penalties – for example, 3 per cent of principal. So watch out for those.)