Tagprepayment penalties

Posted April 24, 20125 Comments Money saving tips

$4k penalty on a $109k mortgage… $8k penalty on a $213k mortgage.

This week I received a few more examples of the ridiculous penalty calculations that the BIG SIX Banks have been using… If these penalties don’t scare you, then continue to deal with the BIG SIX.

One client has a mortgage with Scotiabank….$109k balance with a 3.60% interest rate and 3 yrs remaining… her penalty to get out is $4,000…! That’s 10 months worth of interest.

Another client has a mortgage with TD Bank…. $213k balance with a 5.35% interest rate and 1 yr remaining… his penalty is over $8,000…..! That’s equal to almost 9 months worth of interest.

If these penalties scare you then keep reading…there is a solution…

There are better alternatives to the BIG SIX Banks…. There are several smaller Lenders, good reputable firms, that don’t use the same formula to calculate your penalty….. and you don’t have to give up anything on rate, terms or prepayment privileges…

Had the Scotiabank client gone with one of my other Lenders, then her penalty would have been around $1340… and the TD Bank client’s penalty would have been around $5140.

Get an unbiased opinion…. Speak with a neutral party…. Call your Mortgage Broker before making any decisions…. If you don’t have a broker, call me…I’ll be glad to help.

Posted April 19, 2012 Case study

$24,000 and $19,000 in savings by refinancing their mortgages.

We’ve seen a growing trend lately… Customers calling to find out if there was any way to take advantage of today’s record low rates….. If you are buying for the first time or are renewing a mortgage, then the answer is simple… YES.. But what if you are one of the thousands of Canadians that listened to their Bankers and the media or so-called ‘Experts’ and took at Fixed rate mortgage a few years ago.

You have a rate of 4.00% to 5.50% and you keep reading about record-low interest rates in the low 3.00% range….. what can you do? Well, here are 2 recent examples…. These are real clients…. These are real savings…

So where was the Banker in all this? Why didn’t the Banker call these clients to make them aware of the huge savings? In case you didn’t know it, the Banks are a business… and they want to maximize their profit. Don’t ever forget that.

CASE STUDY #1… 6 YEARS REMAINING AT 5.45%

We had a new client contact us with a $350k mortgage… they were with a BIG SIX bank.. their penalty to exit would be $10k… that’s a lot of money, and we don’t like anyone to pay penalties…..but we did the math and found this client a 3.29% mortgage for 5 years… the end result worked out to be a gross savings of $34,000… After paying the penalty, they realized a savings of $24,000 over the next 5 years. WOW! That’s an easy decision to make.. the clients also decided to add the penalty into the mortgage…. imagine savings almost $5,000 per year!

CASE STUDY #2… 7 REMAINING AT 5.25%

Another client had a $235k mortgage… also with a BIG SIX Bank… penalty to exit was $4k…. we also found a 5 yr mortgage at 3.29% for this client… the savings worked out to $23,000…less the penalty, that worked out to $19,000 in savings over the next 5 years!… Again, a no-brainer… Clients moved on this right away… we added the penalty into the mortgage and put almost $4,000 per year, into their pockets.

CAN YOU SAVE ON YOUR MORTGAGE?

We’re seeing more opportunity to save money by taking advantage of today’s low rates…. Don’t wait for your Bank to call. These are just a few, recent examples. If you’ve been thinking about how you can save on your mortgage, then take a few minutes and look into it. Get your mortgage reviewed by an unbiased person. Call a good Mortgage Broker. It could be worth a closer look. If you don’t have a broker, then feel free to contact me and I’ll do some quick math. You might be pleasantly surprised with the results.

We’ll be sharing more of our success stories and tips on how you can save money on your mortgage.

Posted March 5, 20122 Comments Mortgage News

Mortgage penalty rules change… finally.. well, sort of…

The Federal govt announced some changes to protect Canadian Consumers… including rule changes to credit cards and mortgage prepayment information. Here’s a link to the entire news release.

For our purposes, we are focusing more on the mortgage prepayment announcement. Here’s a link to that portion of the news release.

There are 5 Elements to the Code of Conduct for Federally regulated institutions. The changes must be implemented within 6 to 12 months. In short, the new Code of Conduct rules will require these lenders to provide clear disclosure on how penalties are calculated, along with online calculators and access to knowledgeable staff that can be contacted through a toll-free phone. Continue reading “Mortgage penalty rules change… finally.. well, sort of…”

Posted March 23, 201119 Comments Case study

CBC news reports Scotiabank slams client with $30,000 penalty!

A word about world events the past 4 weeks… We have seen a lot of turmoil overseas…… Egypt, Libya and other middle east countries…. We need to pay attention…. Let’s hope for an immediate and peaceful resolution…

The Tsunami in Japan has been horrible… the images on TV are tough to watch…what a tragedy… Our hearts go out to the people of that nation.

Fixed rates drop slightly and Variable rates remain flat.

We have also seen how mortgage rates can be affected by these events… The uncertainty has caused the Bond market to fall…. and we even saw a very small rate reduction by the Big Banks… Posted Fixed rates are down around 10bps… 5 yr fixed is 5.34%. Continue reading “CBC news reports Scotiabank slams client with $30,000 penalty!”

Posted November 26, 2010 Mortgage News

Don’t expect new mortgage penalty laws til next year…maybe.

Mr. Potter would be proud

Seeing that it’s near Christmas, I thought this old classic movie pic was appropriate for today’s topic. “The house always wins” (in case you can’t read the small print). And how true that is…

It sounds like the long-awaited Federal Govt’s Standardization of Prepayment Penalties won’t happen til some time next year at the earliest….maybe. A good source told me that the Govt wants to put that Bill through together with several other Finance laws…..but I’m beginning to wonder if they will make any changes at the pace they are going.

The Bank lobbyist’s have done their jobs well. Mr. Potter would be proud. Record low mortgage rates brought us record high mortgage penalties. 6, 10 and even 14 months of interest were charged as prepayment penalties to Canadian borrowers in the past 20 months. To put it another way, we have seen penalties of $10,000, $20,000 and more. Continue reading “Don’t expect new mortgage penalty laws til next year…maybe.”