CanadaMortgageNews.ca

Posted April 27, 20131 Comment Money saving tips

What can $100 do when it comes to a mortgage?

When it comes to mortgages, $100 isn’t gonna get your very far. But what if you paid an extra $100/mth towards your mortgage? It’s not a lot of money these days but it can add up to some good savings.

We looked at a $300,000 mortgage with a 2.89% rate and a 25 year amortization. At the end of 5 years, the borrower had paid off an extra $6,444. The balance owing was $249,435. And their remaining amortization was 17 years and 9 months instead of 20 years. This also represented an interest savings of $11,423 over the life of the mortgage. Not bad.

Now let’s look at paying an extra $200 per month. At the end of 5 years, the borrower had paid off an extra $12,888 . The balance owing was $242,991. And their remaining amortization was 15 years and 11 months. This represented an interest savings of $20,708 over the life of the mortgage. Continue reading “What can $100 do when it comes to a mortgage?”

Posted April 10, 20132 Comments Bank News

RBC Boycott has gone viral with Facebook and twitter.

It’s official. Canadians are outraged over RBC replacing Canadian workers with foreign workers. The story broke this weekend from CBC and it’s not going away anytime soon.

Over 5,000 comments were posted before the comments section was closed. And now a Facebook page called ‘Boycott Royal Bank of Canada” and several twitter hashtags have popped up creating quite a buzz amongst Canadians.

RBC executives are trying to put a positive spin by saying they are trying to ‘redeploy the affected employees’. Come on RBC, we all know what’s happening. So let’s be very clear. RBC is replacing current Canadian jobs with cheaper foreign labor. The current jobs are being shipped overseas to India where labor is less expensive. End result is a higher net profit for the RBC shareholder. I guess 2012’s record $7billion profit just isn’t enough! Continue reading “RBC Boycott has gone viral with Facebook and twitter.”

Posted April 8, 20131 Comment Bank News

RBC accused of terminating Canadian workers in place of cheaper, foreign labor.

RBC reported a record $7.5billion profit in 2012. That was up by 17% from 2011. Not bad. In fact, all the BIG SIX BANKs had a great 2012… with a combined record profit of 30 billion!. There’s nothing wrong with profit. All businesses should expect to make a reasonable profit. And a healthy and profitable banking system is important for Canadians. Our Banks are so big that 5 of the top 8 most profitable corporations are now Banks.

But when is it enough? And how far will the BIG SIX BANKs go to increase their profits? Would you believe that Canadian Banks could or would outsource work to foreign countries to save a buck?! CBC News reports that RBC is terminating 45 IT systems support jobs and replacing them with foreign workers. iGATE corp. is an outsourcing corp from India with over 27,000 employees, according to their website. Continue reading “RBC accused of terminating Canadian workers in place of cheaper, foreign labor.”

Posted April 1, 20133 Comments Debt

Mortgage Penalties exposed… an in-depth study, part 2…the update.

Two years ago I published, what would become, my most widely read article. Mortgage Penalties exposed…. an in-depth study reveals unjust penalties was written to show just how unfair penalties had become. The surprising results showed that the BIG SIX BANKS were the leaders when it came to charging the highest penalties in Canada. If you had a Fixed rate mortgage and thought your mortgage penalty could only be a 3 month interest charge, you were in for a huge shock.

Consumers were experiencing $10k, $15k, $20k and even $30k in prepayment penalties and more! Ridiculous amounts. Put another way, these penalties equaled 12, 16, 20 months worth of interest and sometimes more! But we also discovered some good news.. There are better alternatives to the BIG SIX BANKS.! There are several other Lenders that don’t use the same inflated and unfair prepayment penalty calculation as the BIG SIX BANKS. There are other Lenders with competitive, and often better, interest rates, and with much lower penalties. That original study opened the eyes of Canadian borrowers. (another eye-opening stat…the BIG SIX BANKS reported a record $30billion in combined profits for 2012.)

Two years later, with more consumers being forced into Fixed Rate products, we thought it was time to revisit Mortgage Penalties and see what changes had been made, if any…

Continue reading “Mortgage Penalties exposed… an in-depth study, part 2…the update.”

Posted March 27, 2013 Consumer Debt

BMO caves in to Federal govt pressure and raises mortgage rate.

It was bound to happen. BMO announced their so-called ‘low-rate’ (NO FRILLS) 5 yr fixed rate mortgage would be increasing to 3.09% from 2.99%. This comes shortly after the Federal Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, said that he called BMO and asked them to pull their 2.99% ads. Last week, the Minister’s office asked Manulife Bank to withdraw their recent ad promoting a similar low rate.

While, 2.99% isn’t the best rate today, it was the lowest advertised rate from the BIG SIX BANKs. It was somewhat symbolic. Of course, Mortgage Brokers have access to even lower rates through the wholesale mortgage market, but these lenders don’t have the deep advertising pockets that BMO or the other BIG SIX BANKs have. So the publicity surrounding this rate and the increase will get much more air-time. You can actually find full-featured 5 year mortgages at 2.89% today, through a good mortgage broker (a word of warning.. I’ve seen lower rates offered, and I have access to these products… but these products are not full-featured and come with some limitations that make them less attractive… just be careful when choosing your mortgage and your mortgage broker)… Continue reading “BMO caves in to Federal govt pressure and raises mortgage rate.”