Hi everybody. It’s Rowan Smith with the Mortgage Centre. The last couple weeks we’ve seen a lot of announcements about mortgage changes, rules changes, and how people are going to be qualifying for mortgages going forward, especially the variable rate. And that’s one of the biggest changes and it’s something I wanted to cover today... [read more]

I get frequent questions from clients that say, “my lender is who?” and it is usually because they aren’t familiar with a broker-only lender and there are a LOT of broker only lenders. This video blog explains why we use them instead of the big banks 100% of the time. Transcript of Video Blog: Hi, everybody. It’s... [read more]

Too many people making offers on homes are getting themselves into trouble thinking that their PreApproval that they got from the bank is an actual Approval. To sweeten offers they are taking off Subject to Financing and then getting locked into a contract with no money to back up the purchase because their financing has... [read more]

The CMHC Simplified Program has been tightened up and modified. A brief background… This program was introduced just a few short years ago to assist self-employed individuals in the purchase of a home. Many clients in this category have a difficult time in easily providing proof of their income depending on how their company is structured, tax... [read more]

It has now been confirmed that the new qualifying rate, effective April 19, 2010, for all CMHC insured mortgages will be as follows: The greater of the chartered bank’s posted 5 year term rate or the contract rate. This will apply to all variable rate mortgages and for fixed rate terms under 5 years. We were all waiting... [read more]

There is a huge misunderstanding out there about how to get renovation money when you purchase a new home. It would makes sense to most that you get the house, get the reno money and do the renos. However, this is exactly wrong. Place yourself in the banks position. Say this was your money that you... [read more]