The banking world offers a variety of mortgage term options but it appears the five-year fixed variety is the most sought after. This locks your mortgage rate for five years, giving you an idea of how to budget for that time span. This is just the term, not the amortization length, which is limited to 25 years thanks to mortgage reform put into place in July of 2012 by Jim Flaherty, the finance minister.

At the end of each year forecasters look towards the future, trying to predict what’s going to happen round the New Year bend. That is true for the real estate industry as well. One of the subjects that is being looked at is cap rates. Those in the know don’t see anything much happening with them through2013.

Jim Flaherty, Canada’s Finance Minister, recently noted that the slow down in the country’s real estate market is the direct result of the latest round of tough mortgage rules implemented this past July. The industry saw a third quarter decrease of 3.5 percent during the third quarter of this year, nationwide.