Sale of broker book marks industry maturity

By Vernon Clement Jones The transfer of an established portfolio from one broker to another is offering encouragement to industry veterans convinced their years of service to the client have a significant and very tangible value. “We bought the database,” said Mindy Small, one of two partners at Summerside Mortgages – The Mortgage Centre, in […]

The mortgage game With rates predicted to rise, should you lock in, or take a risk and how much should first timers spend?

With anticipated interest rate increases on the horizon, many homeowners are wondering whether to lock debt such as mortgages and secured lines of credit into a fixed-rate mortgage or stay variable. Even some who are mortgage free are concerned with how rate increases will impact secured lines of credit, the financing of vacation homes and […]

Need motivation for cutting debt? Look stateside

The debt problems of the global financial system are your problems. So pay down your credit card, credit line and mortgage. Making your household balance sheet tidier has the fortunate spillover effect of saving our economy. From what? Just look at what’s happening in the United States: The housing market is a disaster, weak consumer […]

Our Parents’ First Mortgage

81% of Ontarians say it’s more difficult to own a home now than it was for their parents. That comes from this Ipsos Reid/Ontario Real Estate Association survey. That’s interesting because our parents had to put down 25% to purchase a home. Young buyers nowadays can get their foot in the door with just 5% down. […]

Why Canadian mortgage rates are on a roller coaster

If there’s one question being kicked around the barbecue more than any other this summer, it’s probably this: should I lock in my variable rate mortgage? But with interest rates bouncing around, to the point where they make a mortgage-rate chart look more like the diagram of a rollercoaster, homeowners can be forgiven if they […]

Tweaked ARM addresses broker concerns over alternative lending

With tweaks to its variable-rate mortgage, Equitable Trust is acknowledging what many brokers fear: one or two years on the alternative side can improve a client’s credit, but often isn’t enough to get them into the A sphere. “Every borrower who goes to the Alt-A/B sphere aims to be there only for one or two […]

Ontario broker lobbies for tighter ‘mortgage suitability’ regs

By Vernon Clement Jones The head of a large Ontario brokerage – and VP of the province’s mortgage broker association, IMBA – is lobbying for “better-defined” guidelines around “mortgage suitability” in the governing act, arguing it would help fend off competition from the banks. “It’s something that’s much talked about among brokers, many of who […]

Who says it takes two? Many first time homebuyers fly solo on the house-hunt

Who says it takes two? Many first time homebuyers fly solo on the house-hunt – 2011 TD Canada Trust First Time Homebuyers Report finds majority of men and a third of women purchase their first home on their own – TO VIEW AN HTML SOCIAL MEDIA VERSION OF THIS RELEASE PLEASE VISIT http://www.smrmediaroom.ca/TDFirstTimeBuyer TORONTO, June 15, […]

Gold-buying broker raises concerns

Gold-buying broker raises concerns By Vernon Clement Jones Some brokers fear it may tarnish the industry’s reputation. But a business advertising broker services – at the same it hawks “cash for gold” – is nonetheless focused on customer service, said the jeweler/mortgage professional behind it. “I am a licensed mortgage agent,” Harold Gerstel, otherwise known […]

The best and worst ways to raise cash quickly

Despite even the most careful planning, people can find themselves needing to raise cash on short notice. These situations are often emergencies and the pressures and worry that go with them often lead people to take the fastest or easiest routes to raising cash, but not necessarily the best. To the extent that someone can […]

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