Why do I need CMHC ratio mortgage insurance?

It’s amazing how many times I hear different references all for CMHC high ratio mortgage insurance.

The Canadian Mortgage & Housing Corporation.

SO what is CMHC (Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation) high ratio insurance and why do you need them?

Well, lets start by saying, you don’t really need them the bank does.
You see, many moons ago it was illegal to provide a mortgage in Canada without having at least 25% down payment. Well that’s since changed to 20% down, but the bottom line is, in Canada it’s illegal for a bank to provide a mortgage unless they have 20% down payment.

Of course we all know you can buy a home with less than 20% down, even zero down, but here’s the catch.

By law, the mortgage MUST be insured with CMHC high ratio mortgage insurance
That insurance is called High Ratio Mortgage Insurance.
In a nutshell, it protects the bank in the event that you default.
Now, the cost of the high ratio mortgage insurance depends on the amount of your down payment.

The less you put down, the higher the high ratio mortgage insurance.

As I mentioned earlier, if you put 20% down payment or more, you do mot need CMHC high ratio mortgage insurance. If you put less than 20% down payment, you must pay the CMHC high ratio mortgage insurance and it’s added to the top of your mortgage.

For example, if you purchase a home for $500,000 and you put 20% down payment, or one hundred thousand, there’s no CMHC high ratio mortgage isurance added to your mortgage.

It’s simply the difference between the purchase price and your down payment.
So in this example, the mortgage would be for four hundred thousand.

Now if you purchase that same house for five hundred thousand, but you put 10% down payment, or fifty thousand, then the mortgage is the difference, four hundred & fifty thousand, plus a 2% CMHC high ratio mortgage insurance fee, or $9,000. So the actual mortgage now becomes four hundred & fifty nine thousand.

There’s a lot more to mortgages that just great rates.

For the right advice at the right time

Go ahead and call me to discuss

Mark Fidgett, Your Vancouver Mortgage Broker For Life

www.notapennydown.com

604-273-2002

P.S. Who’s the next person you know who wants to save thousands off their mortgage?
Be sure to give me a call so we can help them!

Why should you trust my skills as a mortgage consultant, negotiator and organizer of the transactional details?

Some people think that all Vancouver mortgage companies are alike.

Money is money, so what’s the difference?

The difference is great service!

So, what does great service really mean?

It means we make the mortgage application process as easy and painless as possible.

We’re happy to spend time answering ALL of your questions
rather than rushing you through the application process.

We will NOT pressure you into making a decision,
and because we are completely independent Vancouver mortgage brokers,
we won’t steer you into one product like most traditional lenders.

A great quote from Seth Godins Blog

The honest broker

It really is a choice, one or the other.

Either you happily recommend the best option for your customer, or you give preference to your own items first.

Either you believe in what you sell, or you don’t.

Either you treat your best partners better, or you treat everyone the same.

Either you shade the truth when it’s painful to do otherwise, or you consistently share what’s important.

Either you always keep your promises or you don’t.

Either you give me the best price the first time, or you make me jump through hoops to get there.

Earning the position of the honest broker is time-consuming and expensive. Losing it takes just a moment.

Go ahead and call me to discuss

Mark Fidgett, Your Vancouver Mortgage Broker For Life

www.notapennydown.com

604-273-2002

P.S. Who’s the next person you know who wants to save thousands off their mortgage?
Be sure to give me a call so we can help them!

The interesting thing about mortgage debt, nobody talks about it.

You talk about the house, the kids and work, but rarely do you hear people talk about their mortgage.

Our new i-Care Program is revolutionizing the way we treat debt.

Let’s face it, banks love debt, it’s how they make money.

What if there was a secret strategy to get rid of that mortgage
sooner and SAVE thousands, would you want to know?

Secrets the bank doesn’t want you to know.

If you’re curious about how much money the bank is taking,
these incredible savings are only one click away.

Go ahead and take your money back from the bank.

Simply fill in your basic mortgage info below and we’ll do the rest.

Oh yeah, did I say it’s FREE!

Mark Fidgett,

Your Vancouver Mortgage Broker For Life

www.notapennydown.com

If you’re a seller or a real estate agent in Vancouver, you’re probably loving these overpriced bungalows and million-dollar crack shacks.

But, if you’re a buyer, well let’s just say, that’s another story.

Many have been pushed out of the market due to foreign ownership.

“Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, last year the average price of a detached home in Metro Vancouver rose 11.2 per cent to $887,000. On the West Side, the average home price rose 20.7 per cent to $1.99 million. And according to a recent Re/Max report, the sale of Vancouver homes worth more than $2 million rose by 118 per cent in the first four months of 2011.”

If you ask any economist as to which country best resembles our mortgage and real estate model, they would say, Australia.

“In recent years, Australian cities have experienced Vancouver-style real estate booms, with housing prices soaring from Sydney to Melbourne. Like here, buyers from China help drive Australia’s speculative real estate market. Faced with mounting public pressure, in 2010 the Kevin Rudd government introduced strict regulation aimed at foreign ownership. Under the new rules, the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) screens foreigners (including temporary residents and students) to determine their land purchase eligibility. Foreigners can’t buy existing properties and must build on vacant land within two years of purchase or face government-ordered sale. Scofflaws face capital gains confiscation. Finally, before foreign homeowners leave Australia, they must sell. No more overseas landlords Down Under.”

Australia actually caved to mounting pressure.

Imagine the thought, making home ownership more affordable for people who live, work and raise families here!

But, is it too late?

Would real estate prices in Vancouver BC crash.

Would mortgage rates start to rise?

If you look closely at Australia, the answer would be NO.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts?

Go ahead and leave a comment below.

Mark Fidgett,

Your Vancouver Mortgage Broker For Life

www.notapennydown.com

604-273-2002

When homes near you come on the market and sell quickly, it’s tempting to wonder how the new buyers were able to purchase that home and qualify for the mortgage, especially in Vancouver

Were they lucky?

Did their parents lend them the down payment?

Did the ball simply roll their way?

Some people believe that fortune is subject to luck.  Experience shows, it’s not.  Only about 10% of our lives are completely out of our control. The rest is defined by the choices we make and the actions we take.  Lucky people tend to be open to new things.  Rather than approaching the unknown with an abundance of caution, they take risks, and feel relaxed enough to see the opportunities that exist.

You may know someone, right now, who has the ability to buy their very first home, but don’t yet know how to make luck reality.  Give me a call and I’ll send you my free report, How to Buy a Home With No Money Down, and together we’ll show them the real role that luck plays in home ownership.

Go ahead and call me to discuss

Mark Fidgett, Your Vancouver Mortgage Broker For Life

www.notapennydown.com

604-273-2002

PS – Who’s the next person you know who wants to be in charge of their luck? Be sure to give me a call to discuss how I can help them with a mortgage?

Many of you have probably been hearing about the latest dip in mortgage interest rates.

Let me start by explaining, what a No Frills Low Mortgage Rate really is?

You’re probably asking yourself, what the heck is a No Frills Mortgage Rate anyway.

Nobody said anything about “No Frills”.

The interesting part about the news, you never seem to get all the facts

Firstly, the “No Frills” is just that, it comes with many restriction or should I say lack of options.

Here are just a few for this latest “No Frills” mortgage :

1. Amortization limited to 25 years
2. Cannot refinance with, or switch your mortgage to, another lender before maturity
3. Heavy pre-payment restrictions
4. Complete in the 2 week special time frame

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but there are much better options.

In fact, just last month I witnessed a penalty of $49,000 from one of these “No Frills” programs.

The question still becomes, Is it worthwhile to try to break your current mortgage?

I’d like the share an article from the CBC

All across the country, mortgage specialists and brokers are busy fielding calls from people who’ve just heard about this week’s record low mortgage rates.

Bank of Montreal made the biggest splash by announcing a five-year fixed-rate mortgage of 2.99 per cent – the lowest advertised rate for such a popular mortgage term by any major Canadian bank, ever.

Yes, there are more restrictions than usual attached to this mortgage and it’s just a two-week promotion.

So what’s driving all these rate plunges at the chartered banks?

One element is that bond yields have been plunging recently, so market watchers say it’s not too surprising to see other rates drop, too, a reflection of there being more cash in the system.

“Mortgage rate declines have actually been lagging behind falling bond yields, driven by global economic uncertainty,” says John Andrew, a real estate expert and professor at Queen’s University’s School of Urban and Regional Planning. So what we are seeing here is a bit of catch up on the part of mortgage rates.

It is the bond market that is the bigger driver of longer-term fixed mortgage rates, not the Bank of Canada’s overnight rate, which directly affects variable mortgage rates and other floating loan rates.

With stock markets shaky and volatility reigning in the currency and commodity markets, nervous investors have been stuffing money into safe Canadian bonds – driving up prices and driving down yields.

The other reason cited by the experts is competition. “The first few months of the year are typically slower for the mortgage market,” says Mark Kocaurek, the chief lending officer at ING Direct Canada.

In a commentary earlier this week, he wrote that he expected lenders would lower fixed rates “over the short term in order to win more business.” A couple of days later, they did just that.

Time to break your mortgage?

So if you belong to one of the estimated three million Canadian households that currently have a fixed-rate mortgage, you’re probably wondering whether it’s worth trying to get in on this super-low mortgage-rate action.

The bottom line from the experts: it depends.

For one thing, there’s the penalty you pay if you do want to make a change.

The cheapest fixed-rate mortgages are closed mortgages – meaning that you can’t escape the interest rate you agreed to pay for five years unless you pay the lender compensation for the interest it would lose by letting you switch from a higher interest rate mortgage to a lower one.

There are two main variables that determine the prepayment penalty to get out of a fixed-rate mortgage early:

• The difference between your higher-rate mortgage and the current mortgage rate, known as the interest rate differential penalty; and
• The amount of time remaining in your mortgage’s term. The longer the time, the bigger the penalty.

It’s a complicated calculation – made all the more so because financial institutions have different ways of calculating penalties.

Some base their calculation of interest rate differentials on the posted rate (the current posted rate for a fixed five-year mortgage, for example, is 5.29 per cent – far above the actual per cent lenders are now charging.) Some lenders, though, use their discounted rates to do the calculation.

If you want to switch, the only way to know for sure whether you’d be further ahead is to ask your current lender how much it would charge to release you early from your mortgage.

Once you have that figure, it’s a relatively easy matter to figure out whether it’s worth your while to make the switch. Will the added costs of the prepayment penalty, and other costs that might be involved, be covered by the much lower payments over the next five years?

By the way, those penalties can be huge.

Our new i-Care program is set up specifically for this.

The video below gives you some insight in to the BEST way to go.

Go ahead and call me to discuss

Mark Fidgett, Your Vancouver Mortgage Broker For Life

www.notapennydown.com

604-273-2002

P.S. Who’s the next person you know who wants to save thousands off their mortgage?
Be sure to give me a call so we can help them!

Have you ever heard of a consumer proposal?

My client called me two weeks ago and she was ecstatic.

She was so grateful that we’d referred her to Sands & Associates.

In fact, after she told me her story, I was excited.

I was also amazed with the results of the debt settlement.

Instead of paying the minimum payment each month, which would have taken her 21.4 years to pay off. She basically took $20,000 in high interest rate credit card debt, and had it settled for ONLY 36 payments of $150.

Go ahead and watch the video below, AMAZING results.

Call me today, I’d love to help.

Mark Fidgett, Your Vancouver Mortgage Broker For Life

www.notapennydown.com

604-273-2002

P.S. Who’s the next person you know who wants to save thousands off their mortgage?
Be sure to give me a call so we can help them!

If I could show you a mortgage strategy that could potentially pay off your mortgage faster and save you thousands of dollars in interest, would you want to know?

You may be surprised to know that this one mortgage strategy ALONE, is rarely used.

We asked clients why they hadn’t used this mortgage strategy in the past and many said, they simply weren’t made aware of it.

The sooner you implement this mortgage strategy, the sooner you start enjoying the freedom and savings.

Go ahead and watch the mortgage video below, you’ll be glad you did.

If you currently have a monthly mortgage payment, you need to switch to Accelerated Bi-weekly mortgage payments as soon as possible.

Some people confuse bi-weekly mortgage payments with accelerated bi-weekly payments.

Here’s the simplest description of an accelerated bi-weekly payment, split your monthly mortgage payment in half and pay that amount every 2 weeks.

The benefit comes because Instead of making 12 payments, you make 26 lesser bi-weekly mortgage payments.

The advantage is that it’s like paying an extra mortgage payment directly to the principal every year.

One of the things you’re really going to love about our new i-Care Program is that it AUTOMATICALLY impliments not just this one mortgage strategy, but we impliment three mortgage saving strategies.

Imagine the savings of THREE mortgage saving strategies all done for you automatically and for free.

Mark Fidgett, Your Vancouver Mortgage Broker For Life

www.notapennydown.com

604-273-2002

P.S. Who’s the next person you know who wants to save thousands off their mortgage?
Be sure to give me a call so we can help them!

January is traditionally the time of year when we tend to step back, regroup and take a good look at situation. That usually includes new goals for the coming year. For most, the popular type of goals tend to be exercise, lose weight, improve one’s financial situation, maintain strong relationships between family and friends, attain new positions in employment and so on. As for finances, in 2004 Consumer Reports showed Canadians charged almost $170 billion on credit cards. Well guess what? In 2005 it was up another $20 billion to over $190 billion and predictions for 2011 are even higher. With this being the case, many Canadians would love to start their 2012 financial year in a much stronger position.

The good news is, that if you own property in the Vancouver area, you have the power to pull equity from your home to make your financial situation stronger. If you own a home you should never, absolutely never, be paying more than one or two percent above bank prime on any money you borrow. As of December bank prime is three percent. For instance, owing money on a mortgage at 4 percent interest is much wiser than owing thousands on credit card debt at 18 – 30 percent interest. A very easy way to evaluate your situation is:

1. If you have any high interest credit card debt that you carry month to month – pay it off.
2. If you took advantage of any of those teaser no interest or no payment items from department stores and they’re coming due, it is wise to pay them off before they come active and charge additional administration fees. If you realistically can’t pay things off before getting dinged it is definitely time to look at refinancing.

The refinancing process on a property can be done very quickly and easily – typically within 10 business days. The proceeds of your refinancing pays out all your high interest debts first, and the remaining amount of funds will go straight into a bank account of your choice. This strategy not only gives you a stronger hold on your finances, it also saves your credit rating. Remember, high debt utilization on your credit cards from month to month will negatively effect your credit score. This in turn will effect your power to get the lowest interest rate on loans in the future until that credit rating has healed.

This is your chance to dramatically improve your credit.

Don’t wait any longer...

Apply now by clicking below & “Our Service is Free”

www.notapennydown.com

Happy Holiday Season!!

I Wish You The Very Best for the coming year.

May you be blessed with many gifts that money cannot buy.

Mark Fidgett, Your Vancouver Mortgage Broker For Life

www.notapennydown.com

604-273-2002

P.S. Who’s the next person you know who wants to save thousands off their mortgage?
Be sure to give me a call so we can help them!

Being in the business, I wasn’t surprised that the offer was anything but their best.

Brokers have known about this dirty bank secret for years, but I couldn’t help but laugh when I read the following comments from RBC head Gord Nixon.

“We have never been more aggressive,” he said Wednesday, as part of a panel discussion in Washington.

Granted, they’re aggressive in the attraction phase, but what business can survive by not rewarding their loyal clients.

Apparently the BIG banks can AND they’re loving it.

Offer you a teaser to get you in the door, then ROB you at renewal.

Mark Fidgett, Your Vancouver Mortgage Broker For Life

www.notapennydown.com

604-273-2002

P.S. Who’s the next person you know who wants to save thousands off their mortgage?
Be sure to give me a call so we can help them!