Good morning everyone. Today the government announced some interesting new rules with respect to insured lending standards. This is not something that is unexpected, but here are the highlights:

• Mortgage qualification on five year fixed rates regardless of the actual term a borrower is taking
• Maximum refinance of an existing property of up to 90% (down from 95%)
• Minimum 20% downpayment for investment properties

In my view these are all sensible guidelines imposed on the market and should not hamper the market negatively. The above rules affect a very small portion of the overall market. The bigger question is whether this is the first step to more drastic measures down the road.

Changes take affect April 19.

Let me know if you have any questions.