News, Views and Trends!
I recently participated in a conference call with Scotiabank’s Chief Economist & SVP, Jean-Francois Perrault and John Webster President & CEO Scotia Mortgage Corporation. It was good to hear real financial experts make sense of what has happened and what will most likely happen.
Here are of some of the highlights:
Continue reading “Is the COVID-19 emergency over? An economists perspective.”
Bridge loans are short-term loans that bridge the gap between two different closing dates. More commonly used when an existing homeowner sells their home, and buys another home, with two different closing dates. But bridge loans have become a very popular way to take possession of that new home while it’s empty for 2 or 3 weeks to allow for renos. Best of all, it’s really inexpensive!
THE OLD WAY
In the past, most homebuyers would have their selling and buying dates match. It’s always been a bit of a juggling act as you have to pack your moving truck and unpack it, all in less than a day. Somehow, everyone manages to get it done… but talk about one of the most stressful days in your life, moving ranks right up there! Throw in some kids, maybe a dog, and a house full of stuff and you have a real chore on your hands.
THE NEW WAY Continue reading “Bridge Loans… the what and why!”
Some years ago, I did a study on the benefits and disadvantages of online shopping. Sure, you can order food from your favourite restaurant, buy a new set of earbuds, book a hotel or flight… but can you get a mortgage online without speaking with your banker or mortgage broker?
Continue reading “What’s a Travel agent got to do with a mortgage?”
In 2009 and 2010, for the first time ever we saw mortgage rates under 2.00%. That’s right, if you were in a variable rate mortgage, you had a rate under 2.00%. We were coming off the catastrophic US sub-prime mortgage crisis. The financial US scam that cost the world trillions of dollars in lost pensions and investments. Tens of thousands of people lost everything they had. It was horrible. While we, in Canada, were largely untouched. We weren’t smarter, we were just lucky not to be exposed to the subprime mortgages to the extent the rest of the world was. As they say, Canada is five years behind the US, and in this case, we got lucky.
That said, let’s get back to mortgage rates and fast forward to 2020.
Continue reading “Navigate through these uncharted waters in 2020”
I originally posted a breakdown of how mortgage penalties are calculated by different lenders on January 4, 2011.
A recent article outlining how TD Bank charged a $30,000 mortgage penalty to a woman forced to sell her home due to the Covid-19 pandemic shows how this remains relevant today.
WE TOOK THE MYSTERY OUT OF HOW PENALTIES ARE CALCULATED
We decided this needed a more detailed explanation… but a strange thing happened when we started to answer these questions. We made a startling discovery. We caution you – the results could get your blood boiling if you’ve had to pay a penalty!
We found that the banks have shrunk or reduced the spreads between their Posted and Discounted rates on shorter-term mortgages over the past few years… and this has had a huge impact on Interest Rate Differential (IRD) penalty calculations. Continue reading “Beware of Mortgage Penalties”
CanadaMortgageNews.ca 