Why Are Some Mortgage Rates Rising?

*I did not write this

Fears over the COVID-19 pandemic and plummeting oil prices have caused mortgage rates to plummet to multi-year lows over the past couple of weeks. However, now some lenders are actually starting to raise rates.

Fixed rates on certain terms have been creeping back up, while some of the big banks have been quietly cutting their discounts on prime rate (which affects floating rates). Scotiabank, for example, raised its published 5-year closed variable rate 60 percentage points on Saturday, from 3.45% to 4.05%. 

So, what's going on?  Fear has saturated the market to the extent that lenders are now concerned about liquidity and rising defaults... 

Read the full article here.