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Rack Rate

A “rack rate” is colloquial expression for a mortgage rate that is not sufficiently discounted.

People who simply sign their lender’s renewal form, for example, are often given the lender’s rack rates (i.e.  rates that are higher than the lender’s best rates).

The term is derived from hotel parlance, where “rack rate” describes a hotel’s full published rate without discounting.

Almost no one pays rack rates today unless they fail to shop around, or cannot qualify with discount lenders.

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Last modified: May 22, 2010

Robert McLister is one of Canada’s best-known mortgage experts. A mortgage columnist for The Globe and Mail, interest rate analyst and editor of MortgageLogic.news, Rob has been covering Canada's mortgage market since 2007.

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