Get the Most from Your Financing with a Mortgage Check Up

Have you thought about your mortgage lately? Your financial picture can change significantly over time, and having the right mortgage strategy is an important part of making sure your financial needs and goals are met.

A personalized mortgage check up is an easy, no-obligation way to:

• ensure that your repayment approach suits you, for example with payments structured to maximize mortgage principal reduction,
• ensure any consumer debt you may have (such as credit card balances) is transferred to a lower interest rate,
• ensure you have access to the lowest-cost funds for renovations, education or other major expenditures.

Common reasons for a mortgage check up:

• You are planning to have children
• You want to explore your investment options
• You or your spouse have had a change in employment
• You are looking to start or buy a business
• You would like to renovate your home
• You would like the assurance of fixing your mortgage payments
• You are trying hard to manage your payments
• You can’t remember the last time you assessed your home financing strategy

Thank you to our good friends at Invis for this really great checklist.  Please give us a call and we will provide expert, unbiased advice to first time homebuyers as well as those looking to renew or refinance their mortgage, purchase investment properties, or consolidate debts.   604-736-1855

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On July 13, TD Economics issued a report predicting a 10.2% decrease in the housing market over the next two years.

The economists specifically focused on Vancouver and Toronto saying that they will experience an even larger decrease …with a whopping drop of 14.8 % for Vancouver.

Among the twelve major markets profiled in this report, Vancouver and Toronto look poised for larger-than-average declines over the next few years, reflecting in part their exposure to the condominium segment, which appears particularly ripe for a correction.

The rationale for this prediction is …

A combination of more subdued job and household income growth, rising interest rates, the recent tightening in borrowing rules for insured mortgages and fewer first time home buyers are expected to be the chief culprits behind the slowdown. With most of these drivers expected to remain supportive to housing demand in the very near term, we anticipate that the brunt of this adjustment will take place in 2012 and into 2013.

A section of the report focused specifically on Vancouver with the title reading:

VANCOUVER – THE HOUSING MARKET THAT HAS ALL EYES WATCHING

With Vancouver consistently making all the Top 10 best city lists, it is little wonder that our housing prices are amongst the highest in Canada.

The TD predictions focus on the higher than average housing prices, condos and foreign investment factors that have driven the prices up.

Vancouver has been the poster child for those individuals worried about a real estate bubble here in Canada. We expect that Vancouver will post modest economic growth accompanied by subdued job and income gains. Interest rate hikes will be felt in Vancouver likely more than other places due to the fact that household debt levels are the highest across the country.

With this economic climate, we foresee a 25.4% peak to- trough decline in sales and 14.8% in prices over 2012-13, by far the worst fate of any urban centre. Still, the path to correction will likely transpire over seven to eight quarters. What’s more, just as some of the recent increase has reflected a shift in the composition in sales towards higher priced homes, normalization in the sales mix going forward will disproportionately weigh on average prices. At the expected trough in 2013, the average resale price is expected to sit at $675,000 – nearly double the national number and that of most other urban centres.

Another interesting tidbit about Vancouver?

Apparently our debt levels are the highest in the country.

… household debt levels in Vancouver are gauged to be the worst in the country. While the number of mortgages more than ninety days in arrears was 0.5% in May, the share has been consistently trending up since early 2008.

If you want to know how the current forecasts affect YOUR mortgage or mortgage choices, give us a call: 604-736-1855.

We are just thrilled to announce that Justin has made the Top 50 Canadian Mortgage Brokers List.  He is right in the middle at number 28.

The Top 50 Brokers List was created by a partnership of Canadian Mortgage Professionals (CMP) and FirstLine Mortgages.  This is the fourth year that the list has been published.

The rules for submitting were straightforward: you must be employed as a mortgage professional able to write loans and the deals must have been personally originated by you (back-office support in processing the loans is acceptable, but no other parties have been paid commissions on the deals).

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The figures submitted by brokers are confirmed by brokerage head offices and lender underwriters.

Here’s what Canadian BrokerNews says differentiates the Top 50 brokers:

A high volume and a large number of deals can indicate that you are doing something right to stand out from the crowd, be it launching a clever marketing campaign, tapping into new referral sources, building a list of “niche” clients or simply providing top-notch customer service. It also, in many cases, speaks to a mortgage professional’s hard work over his or her years in the industry.

Good Work Buddy!  We are proud of you!!

Mike

We were pretty certain we’d be mentioned in the magazine because they interviewed us rather extensively … but we were thrilled to see that we got a three page spread.

The reason we were chosen for the article was because we were first place winners of the Merix Financial Customer Service Award … for two years in a row.  This is a pretty good accomplishment because we are the only company to win the award two times and the only company to win a back-to-back award.

The article is fairly comprehensive and tells the story of how we (Michael and Justin) partnered up to create an unstoppable mortgage brokerage company.  If any of you were ever curious as to how two such different guys got together … now is the time to find out!

The article also digs into our philosophy of customer service. One of the reasons we won the award is because of our
underlying belief  that customers are individuals and need to be treated as such. It is not a numbers game … it is treating everyone with the respect they deserve by listening to what they are saying and understanding their needs.  In the article we talk about the results we get because we go over the moon for our customers.

We’d love for you to read the article and get to know us a bit better.  We’d love for you to find out why Justin not only dot’s all the I’s  and crosses all the T’s, but makes sure you — our clients know what all the I’s and T’s mean and why they are necessary!

Read the article here (it is a PDF file that should automatically launch) … and let us know what you think!

Mike and Justin

PS.  Here’s a photo from the article:

(Left to Right): Justin Blacklock and Mike Averbach receiving their 2010 Canadian Mortgage Award from Boris Bozic of Merix Financial.

PPSS   If you are purchasing a home in the next few months, be sure to give us a call and find out what customer service is all about.   Justin will pre-qualify you for a mortgage and will make the process as simple as possible! 604-736-1855

Carney has been warning Canadians about the lure of low interest rates and heavy debt loads for over two years. Once again he underlined the same message:

“It is important that it’s emphasized, because it can be forgotten, that we are living in extraordinary times with interest rates that are unusually low, that the outlook for the Canadian economy, the strength of the Canadian economy, the expectations both in the medium term and sooner than the medium term, is that rates are not going to stay at these unusually low levels.”

“And so Canadians in taking on debt, or Vancouverites, more specifically, in taking on debt, need to…ensure that they can continue to service those debts comfortably in a higher-rate environment.”

Even though many economists are now saying that the Bank of Canada rate will remain stable in 2011, Carney still warned …

“Rates will not remain at their current levels forever, the impact of eventual increases is likely to be greater than in previous cycles.”

Many people are worried and predict a dire economic future … but not Joseph P. Quinlan, the chief market strategist at U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management.  Quinlan stands out in the crowd by holding a very contrarian point of view.

In a nutshell … here are Quinlan’s 10 reasons not to panic:

1. Corporations are flush with cash
2. Unemployment numbers are misleading
3. U.S. exports are going strong
4. State finances are improving
5. The Fed isn’t changing its stance
6. China will engineer a soft landing
7. Economic weakness provides relief for food and energy prices
8. The euro crisis will be contained
9. The U.S. debt ceiling will be raised
10. Everyone is not broke

You can read the full Financial Post article here.

What do YOU think? Is Quinlan crazy or does he make some valid point?