Over the past few weeks we have seen the fixed mortgage rates take a few jumps in the upward direction. This increase was inevitable as the historic lows we were seeing just couldn’t last forever.

For those of you that got in at rates under 4% on a 5 year fixed, consider yourself lucky and ride those out for as long as you can...we may never see that again. As for the rest of you that just didn’t want to rush into anything, rest assured that rates are still low. A few years ago, a fixed rate under 5% was fantastic and even those of us in the industry were locking our mortgages in thinking those were as good as they were ever going to get. Almost all of the major banks are still offering a 5 year fixed between 4.49%-4.79%, not the 3.69% we were seeing but still a great rate for a mortgage if you look at historical rates.

Next rate increase to keep an eye on will be the Prime lending rate with the Bank of Canada making it’s next announcement on June 1, 2010. On 20 April 2010, the Bank kept its target for the overnight rate at 0.25 per cent but removed the conditional commitment. With the promise to keep rates as is until June and the removal of the commitment we can expect to see a move on June 1, question being how much.