Changes Announced Today On Down Payments

General Angela Calla 11 Dec

New down payment rules will go into effective February 15, 2016.

The minimum down payment for new insured mortgages will increase from 5% to 10% for the portion of the house price above $500,000, the finance ministry wrote. For example: A $750,000 home will now require $50,000 down — 5% for the first $500,000 and 10% down for the remaining $250,000. 

Properties up to $500,000 will continue to require a minumum of 5% down. Properties in excess of $1 million will still require 20% down.  The changes are meant to reduce taxpayer exposure while supporting long-term stability of the housing market, according to the ministry.

The ministry commented that they believe this will only impact 1% of home purchasers.

A links of note regarding todays press release: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/housing/liberals-raise-minimum-down-payments-for-houses-above-500000/article27711582/

Please contact The Angela Calla Mortgage Team directly with any questions on how we can help you or those you care most about at 604-802-3983 or callateam@dominionlending.ca

 

 

An example of non refundable Mortgage Mistakes

General Angela Calla 8 Dec

Mortgage Penalties… How They Should Be Calculated

Let me say this first, before we get to the whole rip-off thing…

Mortgage penalties are necessary. The bank has to protect their investment if you were to end up breaking off the mortgage early.

I mean, this makes sense. It’s the nature of a loan.

What doesn’t make sense is when a bank uses a RIDICULOUSLY ONE-SIDED penalty equation to essentially rob you of money.

We’re going to use the example of one our members, who, as I mentioned before, was over-penalized by $15,000.

There’s a little math in this post, but I’ll do my best to explain it simply.

If you don’t slow down and figure out this stuff, I guarantee it will come back to bite you on your own mortgage.

The Penalty… Calculated Fairly

One of our members was putting their home up for sale earlier this year because they needed to move for work.

Their original 5 year mortgage was taken out in August of 2013, directly with their bank, with a rate that I’m sure at the time was a deeply discounted 2.89%.

Here’s how their penalty should’ve been calculated, if the bank was honest about calculating their penalty.

MATH TIME.

Here’s the equation:

[(your rate) – (the current market rate for however many years you have left)] X (number of years left in term) X (Mortgage amount)[2.89% – 2.34%] X 3 X $446,770.84 = $7,371.72

For people who freak out when they see equations: let me break this down.

Honest lenders start by taking the difference between your rate and the current market rate for however long you have left on your mortgage (for example a good lender today would give a 2.34% for a 3 year mortgage).

So, your current rate= (2.89%) MINUS (Market rate for a 3 year term: 2.34%)

We call the difference between (2.89% – 2.34%) the “multiplier”. The bigger the multiplier, the bigger the penalty.

(The banks call this the Interest Rate Differential, or IRD. We’ll call it “multiplier,” because that’s easier.)

And, if fairly calculated for this mortgage, it’s 0.55%. Or .0055 (we moved the decimal over twice – remember that from high school?)

Next you take this .0055 multiplier and…multiply it….by the number of years left in the term and the actual mortgage balance you have remaining.

Basically, what they’re trying to do is have you make up the interest they’re losing from you getting out of the mortgage early.

Which, like I said, is totally something they should do. If they didn’t, they would go out of business fast.

The problem for our member, and the reason they reached out to us, was that they didn’t pay the $7,371.72 penalty.

They paid over $22,000.

And it’s all because of the way that most big banks manipulate and skew the numbers in their favor.

Customer mortgage statement

THE RIPOFF:

Above you can see the statement our members sent us…

First, take a look at the column on the left, at “Interest Rate Discount Received.”

In their case according to their form, when they first got their mortgage they received a 2.10% rate discount…except….that’s incredibly deceptive.

Here’s why.

In order to believe they received a 2.10% discount at the time, this means that Scotiabank in fact was charging people 4.99% for a five year mortgage in 2013!

4.99%?

That’s a ridiculous rate. It would have NEVER happened in the marketplace because it’s so far from competitive. If you look at the graph on this page you can see that the average discounted, competitive rate during that year was 2.84% for a 5 year mortgage.

Therefore the 4.99% rate is an arbitrary, made up, Easter Bunny, Santa Clause number. It doesn’t exist.

ALL MAJOR BANKS DO THIS AND WE’LL SHOW YOU WHY

If you take a quick look at all the major banks, they all have a “posted rate” of 2+% higher then the actual rates they compete on in the marketplace.

Why do you suppose they do that?

Because it allows them, legally, to take thousands of dollars from your pocket.

Remember our original equation?

[2.89% – 2.34%] X 3 X $446,770.84 = $7,371.72

Remember, in our equation, that multiplier (the number in the brackets) came in at .55%. Or .0055.

At some point, the banks decided that using that multiplier wasn’t good enough. The bigger the multiplier, the bigger the penalty. So here’s what the bank’s equation looks like:

The bank's mortgage penalty calculation

In other words: [Your rate – (current posted rate for a comparable three year term – discount received initially)] x (number of years remaining) x 445,770.84 =

Let’s break this down:

“Your rate” still equals 2.89%. That stays the same.

The second part is where things get sketchy. Their “current posted rate for a three year term” came in, for this case at 3.39%. It’s a high rate, but not outrageously so. But watch this abra-cadabra magic the bank is about to pull.

That second number? Discount received initially?

It’s the return of the 4.99% rate. They’re using the same “discount” from their arbitrary posted rate AGAIN.

This looks like:

2.89% – (3.39% – 2.1%)

2.89% – 1.29% = 1.6% …………… Compared to the 0.55% multiplier we used in the fair calculation.

LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, BOYS AND GIRLS, STEP RIGHT UP TO SEE A MULTIPLIER TRIPLE IN SIZE…

AND, AS A RESULT, TRIPLE THE PENALTY.

The difference here is obvious. Plug in all those numbers (we didn’t even get into them using the 3.42 instead of 3 years for the number of years), and you come up with a grand total penalty of $24,447.30.

But wait, there’s more!

In this specific case, Scotia Bank allows leniency in calculating their penalties, so they actually end up discounting our member roughly $2,000.

How nice of them.

The Bank’s Answer:

Obviously, this is an unfair system.

It gets worse…in this article from the Financial Post Laura Parsons, Calgary area manager for Bank Of Montreal actually said this….“You really have to understand what penalties (sic.) are,” said Ms. Parsons, who agrees that many people do not. “There is a responsibility of clients to read their documents but also for the lawyers to explain all the terms and conditions.”

In theory, I guess one could argue that she’s correct. But I believe, and I think most Canadians would as well, that when we are talking about such a potentially expensive feature of a mortgage, that maybe the bank people, like Laura and her employees, ought to show people this when they are shopping.

Of course, this idea is laughable. “Knowing” the bank does this is in no way addressing the issue, and for Ms. Parsons to claim that it’s the customers responsibility to avoid being screwed is a poor line of logic.

“So What Should We Do?!”

Take a deep breath. Put down the pitchforks.

First of all, there are many lenders that don’t charge penalties like this. Many of them (not the big 5 banks), still calculate penalties the old-fashioned, FAIR way. In fact, check out the image below. It’s a penalty comparison for one of our members that highlights the difference between all of the big 5 banks and the lender that we placed them with:

comparison of mortgage penalties

 

Second of all, EVERY single Canadian reading this blog post must ASK their bank employee to walk them through the penalty calculation that will happen if they were to pay the mortgage off early. Then, compare that to the other lenders they are shopping with, and factor that in when choosing their lender… not just the Interest rate they are charging.

Remember, a good rate could save you a maximum of 1k in 5 years, but it’s not worth it if the penalty is 15k more.

The Angela Calla Mortgage Team is here to help youensure you have the best possible mortgage call us today to avoid these expensive mistakes 604-802-3983 callateam@dominionlending.ca


Mortgage Fraud by Former Bank Employee

General Angela Calla 8 Dec

Courtesy of the Globe & Mail

In early 2013, Kelly Vandenham and her boyfriend were preparing to put an offer on a charming Craftsman-style house in West Kelowna, B.C. They had been preapproved for a mortgage with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, but the couple’s realtor suggested they could get a lower interest rate at Toronto-Dominion Bank, where their realtor’s boyfriend, Kulwinder Dhaliwal, worked as a mobile mortgage specialist. What happened next is a problem that continues to plague the financial industry despite steady changes to mortgage lending rules, a dilemma that some warn threatens to undermine faith in the country’s robust housing market. Shortly before the deal was set to close, according to court and regulatory tribunal documents, Mr. Dhaliwal e-mailed to say there was a problem with their application. Ms. Vandenham’s job letter from Interior Health Authority was missing some information, prompting the bank to take a closer look and potentially putting the deal at risk. In a statement she filed with a B.C. court later that year, Ms. Vandenham wrote that she offered to get a new letter the next day. Mr. Dhaliwhal responded that he “would figure something out.”

Read more here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/housing/mortgage-fraud-on-the-rise-among-brokers-trying-to-help-clients-qualify/article27051297/

Interest Rates & Payments- The Actual Math

General Angela Calla 6 Oct

 

  

 

Interest Rates & Payment Increases: The Actual Math

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For several years headlines have warned of ‘inevitable’ interest-rate hikes. But reality has seen interest rates drop steadily over the past several years, to new record lows. It is the opinion of most Brokers – the frontline workers – that any increases in interest rates will be small and they will be gradual.

A key component often lacking from stories about potential interest rate increases is the actual math or impact of said increases. So I offer for you a cheat sheet outlining what eventual increases would mean to you personally.

Are you in a variable rate mortgage?

If yes, the Bank of Canada meets eight times per year (with the next meeting scheduled on October 21st) in order to make a decision that will influence the prime interest rate on which variable rate mortgages are based. Very rarely does Prime move by more than 0.25%.

What 0.25% means to a variable rate mortgage:

Per $100,000 of mortgage money borrowed, a 0.25% interest rate increase for the typical mortgage holder would translate into a monthly payment increase of $13.00.

$13.00 per $100,000 of mortgage money.

Eventual increases are likely to come in 0.25% increments, gradually.

Tip of the day: Variable rate mortgage holders can utilize prepayment privileges to increase their payment by at least $13.00 per $100,000 owed each year. Every penny of the immediate increase will be going straight to principal owed and will in turn reduce the amount of interest on every future payment. More importantly, you’re getting out ahead of any future rate increases and your payment will already be increased.

Being one, two or three steps ahead makes sense, call your Broker about making a small increase today, to cushion you tomorrow.

Are you in a fixed rate mortgage?

On the upside, any immediate changes to interest rates

 

will have no effect on your monthly payments or interest expense until your actual renewal date. Also on the upside, this gives you time to prepare for the potential of higher interest rates.

What 0.25% means to you will ultimately be much the same as the mathematics above. The risk is that instead of a slow, gradual rise, you may be in for a full 1% interest rate increase by the time your renewal rolls around. But that is OK, you have time on your side and your rate is fixed for now.

Key point; the mortgage balance you are renewing will be (in most cases significantly) lower than your original balance and thus the impact of an interest rate hike is that much less dramatic.

For example, a $300,000 mortgage on a 30 year amortization, taken at 2.59% today will have an ending balance five years from now of $264,613.00. (Increase your payments each year and it will be lower still)

Renewing $264,613 at an interest rate 1% higher would increase the payment from $1,197.27 to $1,333.74.

Increasing your payment by 0.25% ($39.00 per month) each year would have you ahead of that curve.

In any event, this is an 11.5% increase in your payment. Five years from now, odds are your household income will have risen by at least $136.47.

This is not to say an increase of 1% is not meaningful, but with five years to prepare, it need not be.

In the event that interest rates continue to defy journalists’ and various analysts’ expectations, as they have done for the past six years, and remain low – while you increase your payment incrementally each year, then come renewal, you will truly be sitting in a plum position. Your mortgage payment amplified the point that your effective amortization will have reduced by several years and your mortgage balance will be decreasing at a more rapid pace than any mortgage balance has in the past 50 years.

Call  The Angela Calla Mortgage Team to talk about ways to take advantage of 50 year record low interest rates. 604-802-3983 or callateam@dominionlending.ca 

 

Testimonial from Langley

General Angela Calla 22 Aug

Hear Stu’s story, a Doctor from Langley who got helped by #callateam to redo his #mortgage. Stu is a repeat client and we are glad we were able to save him thousands. Click HERE to listen to the full testimonial

 

CMHC announces new rules to make it easier for homeowners to rent out property

General Angela Calla 28 Jul

Great news from the Financial Post announcing that Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. is going to make it easier for homeowners renting out apartments in their principal residences to borrow money, a move that could further heat up markets in Toronto and Vancouver. Read the full article HERE 

 

The Angela Calla Mortgage Team gives you clarity on the best mortgage by being transparent, unbiased free mortgage advise with choice. We are here to help you personally with your mortgage at 604-802-3983 or callateam@dominionlending.ca

 

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