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Posted 2 Comments on Rate Cuts and Pending Deals – A quick note Bank News

Rate Cuts and Pending Deals – A quick note

As the dust starts to settle on yesterday’s Bank of Canada rate cut, here’s some clarification on what happens next.

To all my pending clients or clients with something on the go, your rates will be automatically adjusted downward.

For new clients, prospective purchasers, or people that want to take advantage of these falling rates, don’t hesitate to reach out to my office today. I am happy to discuss how you can take advantage of this.

Your best interest is my only interest.

As always, I welcome your comments, calls and questions.

Steve Garganis 416 224 0114 steve@mortgagenow.ca

why rent when you could buy
Posted Mortgage News

The affordability of homeownership… Rent or Buy?

why rent when you could buy

After years of seeing countless articles and posts about interest rates, housing affordability issues, mortgage stress tests disqualifying some people from being able to buy, higher personal debt levels, does it still make sense to buy a home?

Yes! There is positive news. You can still buy a home. And you can still qualify for a mortgage.

Continue reading “The affordability of homeownership… Rent or Buy?”

Adjustments to the Mortgage Stress Test
Posted Mortgage News

Adjustments to the “Stress Test” don’t go far enough

Adjustments to the Mortgage Stress Test

In case you missed it, Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced this week that adjustments to the “Stress Test” are coming on April 6th. While the government says the change will make the stress test qualifying rate more responsive to market conditions, what does that really look like?

On the bright side, this new qualifying rate will probably be lower by around 0.30%.  This will increase the amount of a house one can buy by around 5%.  

Example… $500k increases to $525k.  

On the dark side, this isn’t really making a whole lot of difference. I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but I’d like to point out the shortcomings of his announcement. It’s purely political. They said they would do something and I guess, technically they did. But it really has no significant impact. 

Continue reading “Adjustments to the “Stress Test” don’t go far enough”
Posted Mortgage News

Genworth Regional Risk Report

Some great stats just came out in Genworth’s regional risk reports. Here are a few of the highlights.

As expected, Ontario’s housing market has been very healthy and active and has been picking up steam over the last 2 years.

Alberta’s economy has been hit hard over the past 3 years due to the inability to bring its biggest resource, oil and gas, to the market. We’ve all read and heard about the pipeline debacle. However, the housing market is rebounding as is shown in the stats. Let’s hope action is taken to get our western Canadians some positive changes.  

Continue reading “Genworth Regional Risk Report”
bi-weekly-and-accelerated-payments
Posted Mortgage News

How much do you save with bi-weekly payments?

bi-weekly-and-accelerated-payments

For years, we’ve been told to pay our mortgage bi-weekly. Magically, it will  pay your mortgage off faster. Hmm, let’s put that to the test.

(SPOILER ALERT!)  Around 10 years ago, I wrote an article showing some simple but effective math to explain this. I’m constantly getting emails from my readers asking me what they should do. Obviously, a topic worth taking another look at.

Let me also say, there is merit to paying bi-weekly… I’ll explain further on.

HISTORY OF BI-WEEKLY PAYMENTS

Back in the mid-’90s, there was a huge marketing blitz by the Big Banks that promoted making bi-weekly payments instead of the traditional monthly payments. The sales pitch was that you could save huge amounts of money and pay your mortgage off much faster, shaving 4 or 5 years off your amortization. Sound familiar? While offering some benefit, BI-WEEKLY PAYMENTS DON’T SAVE AS MUCH AS YOU MIGHT THINK!

And I’ll prove it… Here are the straight facts!

Continue reading “How much do you save with bi-weekly payments?”

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