Are you watching the Stanley Cup playoffs? Year of the underdogs… I’m a huge hockey fan and although my favorite teams are out of it, I’m still watching… and I’m still willing to put up with the commercials… but some of these ads are rubbing me the wrong way.
Like most TV ads, the truth can be exaggerated… Take the Old Spice commercial… “I will have big muscles and cool hair”…. have you seen that one? My son loves it… makes me laugh too….
But when we’re dealing with something more important, like your money and your mortgage, the truth shouldn’t be cryptic…. The ‘BIG SIX BANK’ ads, bother me… I’ll explain.
A few years ago, during the Olympics, RBC hit us with a commercial that showed a young couple searching for homes.. Their RBC mortgage rep recommended they split their mortgage “part variable and part fixed… to save money.” Remember that one? click here to view it. I strongly criticized this product and the so-called advice because it didn’t make sense to break up the mortgage…. Fast forward to today…. My criticism was well justified….Anyone that listened to my warnings would have saved money… Anyone that took this RBC product lost out… Clearly, that was NOT the right product to ‘save money’.
This year it’s BMO….We can’t seem to escape these ads. How does it go again? .. A young couple are shopping for a home, walk through the bedroom and into the closet, when they magically appear in the BMO BLUE ROOM with a BMO Banker…
They want to pay their mortgage faster… Have no fear, the BMO Banker is here to the rescue with their pearls of wisdom… The Banker says, “we can help…by restructuring your payments and getting you into a low-rate fixed mortgage, you’ll pay your mortgage off sooner“… Wow! That’s GREAT!! The young couple are excited… Cue the music!!
Now let’s decode this cryptic message… ‘restructuring your payment’…. What could the Banker possibly mean? No mystery folks… It means you must increase your payments. Yes, that’s all it means…There is only one way to pay your mortgage faster…. increase your payments or make at least one lump sum payment annually… click to here to read about the bi-weekly payment myth.
The Banker continues and says ‘…..getting you into a low-rate fixed mortgage, you’ll pay your mortgage off sooner’. This must be some magical product… it sounds great…! Uh, no.. guess again. Let me give you the straight goods…… BMO refers to their NO FRILLS mortgage as their ‘low-rate mortgage’. That’s quite misleading if you ask me. So once again I am issuing a STRONG WARNING. For the record, this is probably the worst mortgage product you could ever take, in my opinion. It’s just slick marketing…
You can’t pay the mortgage out for 5 years, without selling your home…..meaning you can only refinance with BMO but there is no obligation for BMO to give you the any future discount, let alone the best discount…..you have limited prepayment options…… and let’s not forget, the infamous BIG SIX Bank penalty calculation….we’ve seen how this one has cost borrowers $20k, $30k and even $40k in penalties!.. click here to read more about how BIG SIX Banks calculate penalties.
The Banks have deep pockets and spend hundreds of $$millions on ads… It’s up to the little guys, like me, to tell it like it is… Hey, I won’t promise you good looks and cool hair, but I can promise you to tell it like I see it… There are better mortgages available… Better terms, rates, privileges and options and ultimately, these better options will SAVE you money on your mortgage. That’s our goal… to pay the least amount of money to own our homes. Don’t get fooled by a flashy low rate… Rate is important but it isn’t everything. These aren’t opinions, these are facts. Just do some research or speak with an unbiased professional. Speak with a Mortgage Broker.
As always, let me know if I can help… and feel free to send this article to someone you think could benefit from it…
Steve Garganis
steve@mortgagenow.ca
416 224 0114
I’m a huge hockey fan. I love watching Olympic hockey. It’s fast paced and every game counts. If you’re like me, then you’ll probably be glued to the TV set watching and cheering on Team Canada. GO CANADA GO!
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