Here's why - and what to tell them
For the past two years, the mortgage renewal conversation in Canada has been written almost entirely as a stress story. The Bank of Canada hiked aggressively through 2022 and 2023, a generation of borrowers locked in at historic lows, and their approaching renewal dates became a shorthand for household financial pain. The "mortgage cliff" entered the conversation and never quite left.
That framing isn't wrong - for borrowers who took five-year fixed rates at pandemic lows of around 1.95 to 2.03 per cent, renewing today does mean a meaningful payment increase.
But Statistics Canada's April 2026 data tells a more interesting story about another segment of the renewal cohort - one that often gets missed because it doesn't fit the stress narrative. Borrowers who locked into three-to-five-year fixed rates in 2022, 2023 and 2024 aren't returning to a market that's more expensive than what they're leaving. They're returning to one that's cheaper. In some cases, meaningfully so. And the broker who understands which clients fall into this group, and reaches out with the right message, has a real opportunity.
The rate history you need to know
Statistics Canada tracks volume-weighted average rates on chartered bank lending, month by month, going back to 2013. The numbers for the relevant renewal cohorts are pretty clear.
Borrowers who took an uninsured five-year-and-over fixed in April 2021 paid an average of 2.03 per cent. Those who locked in October 2021 paid 2.22 per cent. These clients are renewing in 2026 and 2027, and the market they're coming back to is at 4.18 per cent for the same product. That's a roughly 195-basis-point increase - around $450 more per month on a $400,000 outstanding balance. For these clients, the renewal stress story is accurate, and they need proactive advice.
But look at what was happening at the shorter end during the peak rate period. In April 2023, the uninsured three-to-five-year fixed averaged 5.08 per cent. By October 2023, it hit 6.03 per cent - the highest in the dataset. In April 2024, it was 5.31 per cent. Borrowers who locked into those rates are now heading for renewal in 2026, 2027 and 2028 - and the rate waiting for them is 3.89 per cent.
Depending on when they locked in, that's a decline of 119 to 214 basis points. On a $400,000 outstanding balance, the payment improvement runs from roughly $270 per month (for the April 2023 cohort) to around $500 per month (for those who locked in at the October 2023 peak). These aren't clients who need to be braced for bad news. They're clients heading for a genuine financial improvement - and they may not even know it yet.
Two cohorts, two conversations
The Statistics Canada data lets you map your client book fairly precisely by renewal situation.
The payment-increase cohort is mostly borrowers who took five-year fixed rates between 2019 and early 2022, when rates ran from around 2.0 per cent to 3.3 per cent. Their renewals run from 2024 through 2027. For this group - the one CMP and the Top 75 Brokers report have covered extensively - the broker's job is rate shopping, term selection, and where needed, amortization restructuring to keep payments manageable.
The payment-improvement cohort took shorter terms during the peak rate years - primarily one-to-three-year and three-to-five-year fixed between mid-2022 and mid-2024. Their renewals fall mostly between now and 2028. As CMP reported earlier this year, TD Economics specifically flagged this group: "borrowers who took out a fixed-rate mortgage with a term under five years around 2023 or 2024 are much less likely to see their mortgage payments shoot dramatically upwards."
The Bank of Canada's own analysis, as documented by CMP, made the same point: borrowers renewing in 2026 face materially lower rate increases than those who renewed in 2024 or 2025, precisely because the 2026 cohort includes more people who locked in at peak-rate terms.
Why the improvement cohort needs outreach too
Here's the part that's easy to miss. Payment-increase clients feel the urgency - they know something uncomfortable is coming. Payment-improvement clients don't. Their rate is about to fall, their budget is improving, and their instinct is to just take whatever renewal offer their current lender sends. They're not stressed, so they don't call their broker.
That passivity is exactly where the bank's retention team has its advantage. The bank sends a letter, the client signs it, and the broker never gets the call - because from the client's perspective, things are fine.
But "fine" isn't the same as "best available." A client who locks in at their lender's renewal rate when the whole market is offering something cheaper has left real money on the table. The broker who reaches that client first - with a straightforward message that their rate is about to improve and they should make sure they capture all of that improvement, not just part of it - is offering something valuable. Sushanta Sen of MCAP said it well at the Canadian Mortgage Summit, as CMP reported: "I'm talking really early. Not 90 days - even sooner than that."
The clients in your CRM who took fixed terms between mid-2022 and mid-2024 are the ones to look at. Flag the maturity dates. Get in touch six months out. The conversation practically writes itself.
The next wave is already being written
One more thing worth noting. The $24.5 billion in uninsured three-to-five-year fixed mortgages advanced in April 2026 alone will themselves come up for renewal between 2029 and 2031. Nobody knows what rates will look like then. But those clients are being originated right now - and the broker who closes those deals, stays in contact through the term, and shows up for the renewal conversation in 2029 is building something compounding. Shorter terms mean more frequent renewals, which means more frequent chances to demonstrate value.
Niloo Fazeli of Neighbourhood Holdings put it neatly in a May 2026 interview with CMP: "Together, we shift the focus from reacting to a renewal deadline to planning for a successful transition."
The data gives you the map. The cohort is identifiable. The rate improvement is calculable. The window is open. The only question is whether your client hears about it from you first - or from their bank.
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