When you purchase your home, there are 5 additional costs to account for. They include:
• Home Fire Insurance
• Title Insurance
• Legal Fees
• Adjustments
• Land Transfer Tax
Here’s an overview of what you can expect.

Home and Fire Insurance. Mortgage lenders will require a certificate of fire insurance to be in place by the time you take possession of your home. The amount required is generally at least the amount of the mortgage or the replacement cost of the home. This cost can vary on the property size and extras being insured, as well as the insurance company and the municipality. Home insurance can vary anywhere from $400 per year for condos to $2,000 for large homes.

Title Insurance. This is a one-time fee of about $150 and it protects you against any issues, defects or fraud on your title. Your lawyer or notary helps you purchase this.

Legal Fees. Thirdly, you are required to pay legal fees. Your lawyer or notary will charge you anywhere from $700 to $1,000 to help with your purchase. There are also fees to register your title with the municipalities. All told, you’re looking at around $1,000 to 1,300, after tax.

Adjustments. An adjustment is a cost to you to pay the seller back for prepaying any property tax or condo fees on your behalf. Simply put, if you take possession in the middle of a month, the seller has already paid for the whole month and you must pay the seller back for what they’re not using.

Land transfer tax. Land transfer tax, or property transfer tax (PTT) as it’s known as in British Columbia, is a fee that is charged to you by the province. First-time home buyers are exempt from this fee if they are purchasing a property under $500,000. All home buyers are exempt if they are purchasing a new property under $750,000.

Have you been approved for a mortgage and waiting for the completion date to come? Well, it is not smooth sailing until AFTER the solicitor has registered the new mortgage. Be sure to avoid these 10 things below or your approval status can risk being reversed!

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Sometimes in life, things don’t always go as planned. This could not be truer than in the world of Real Estate. For instance, let’s say that you have just sold your home and purchased a new home. The thought was to use the proceeds of the sale of your house as the down payment for the new purchase. However, your new purchase closes on June 30th and the sale of your existing house doesn’t close until July 15th—Uh-Oh! This is where Bridge Financing can be used to ‘bridge the gap’.
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Mortgages are a funny thing. On the one hand they allow you to become a home owner without saving up enough money to purchase the home outright, which is a really good thing. On the other hand, even at today’s really low interest rates, as they are amortized over a really long time (most of the time 25 years), they can cost you a lot more money in the long run. With the government tightening mortgage qualification, chances are securing your most recent mortgage wasn’t a painless process.
So now that you finally have a mortgage, and you’re a home owner, the first thing you should do is figure out how to get rid of your mortgage! Here are 4 ways you can do that!
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Every entrepreneur and business owner will make a few financial mistakes during their journey. Those who aren’t savvy in accounting often overlook the need to brush up on their financial IQ. Truth is, these little financial errors can lead to some serious cash flow problems if you aren’t careful. Here are four financial mistakes you can easily avoid so you can protect your bottom line.
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Bankruptcy is always the last resort-and it’s never easy or comfortable. However, sometimes it is the only option to turn to when life throws you something unexpected. The lasting impression it can have on one’s financial profile though can be overwhelming.
If you have bankruptcy in your past, don’t fear-we have 6 steps to take to help get you back on track and qualifying for your mortgage!

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BOC Will Raise Rates Only Cautiously
The Bank of Canada held overnight interest rates at 1.0% following two consecutive rate hikes at the July and September meetings. It was widely expected that the Bank would take a breather this round. The central bank also released its quarterly Monetary Policy Report (MPR) today, in which it forecast that growth would be 3.1% this year, 2.1% in 2018 and 1.5% in 2019. The rapid pace of economic growth over the past four quarters surprised the Bank on the high side. Going forward, the Bank forecasts GDP to moderate to a more sustainable pace.
Exports and business investment are expected to contribute to growth over the forecast horizon. In contrast, “housing and consumption are forecast to slow in light of policy changes affecting housing markets and higher interest rates.” The Bank went on to say that “because of high debt levels, household spending is likely more sensitive to interest rates than in the past.” I would go one step further and suggest that higher sensitivity to interest rates is all the more so because of the OSFI stress testing of borrowers at 200 basis points above current contract mortgage rates.
The central bank continues to expect global growth to average roughly 3.5% over the 2017- 2019 period, noting that uncertainty remains high regarding geopolitical developments and fiscal and trade policies. Notably, the renegotiation of NAFTA will have a meaningful impact on the economies of North America, but given the uncertainty, the Bank economists have left this factor out of the base case projection.
Measures of core inflation have edged up as expected, but the Bank now forecasts that inflation will rise to 2% in the second half of 2018, which is a bit later than anticipated in the July MPR reflecting the recent strength in the Canadian dollar.
Business investment contributes to increases in capacity and productivity; hence the Bank of Canada now assumes that annual growth of potential output is 1.5% over 2018-19, which is slightly above the assumption since April 2017. How fast the economy can grow without triggering inflation is a big issue these days. The central bank will publish a full reassessment of this critical point in April 2018. The higher the level of potential growth, the lower the estimated level of the “neutral” nominal policy rate–the level of the overnight rate that is consistent with the Bank’s target of 2% inflation. The Governing Council of the Bank of Canada now estimates the neutral rate to be between 2.5% and 3.5%. The Bank’s economic projection is based on the midpoint of this range– 3.0%. In other words, the Governing Council of the Bank of Canada estimates that it will ultimately raise the policy rate from the current level of 1.0% by 200 basis points to 3.0% once the economy is at full employment. That is a substantial proportional jump in rates, which would undoubtedly slow interest-sensitive spending, and nothing is more interest-sensitive than housing. Which makes you wonder why the financial institutions’ regulator (OSFI) has been so intent on further tightening mortgage credit conditions.
The tone of today’s policy statement was decidedly more dovish–cautious about future rate hikes–than in July and September. Why is that? Firstly, the Bank came under a good deal of criticism for hiking rates more rapidly than expected, reversing the two rate cuts implemented (unexpectedly) in 2016. Secondly, the Bank sees significant risks to the outlook. These risks are delineated in the MPR as follows:
• A shift toward greater protectionist trade policies in the U.S. that weaken Canadian exports
• A more substantial impact of structural factors (Internet, digitization, robots) and prolonged excess supply on inflation (higher potential growth)
• Stronger real GDP growth in the U.S. (owing to prospective deregulation and tax cuts)
• Stronger consumption and rising household debt in Canada
• A pronounced drop in house prices in overheated markets
The Bank of Canada sees the risks to the inflation outlook as balanced–in other words, it is just as likely for inflation to move above forecasted levels as below them. Hence, the Bank will be cautious in raising interest rates in the future and their actions will be data dependent. In their words, “while less monetary policy stimulus will likely be required over time, Governing Council will be cautious in making future adjustments to the policy rate. In particular, the Bank will be guided by incoming data to assess the sensitivity of the economy to interest rates, the evolution of economic capacity, and the dynamics of both wage growth and inflation.”
Dr. Sherry Cooper
Chief Economist, Dominion Lending Centres

A mortgage in its simplest form is a contract. It has terms, conditions, rights and obligations for you and the lender. When you sign on the dotted line, you are agreeing to those terms for the length of time laid out in the contract. However, sometimes life throws us an unexpected event that brings around the need to make key decisions and changes. One of these changes, for whichever reason, might be needing/wanting to break your mortgage contract before the end of the term. Can you do that? What are the penalties? Let’s take a look!
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The market is constantly changing these days, so if you asked me about affordability just a few weeks ago, I would have had a different answer, as the seller’s market has quickly shifted to a buyer’s market – for now, anyway.
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Ever wonder how your mortgage rate is determined? What factors make it jump from percentage to percentage? We are getting down to the nitty gritty today and giving you the facts on what impacts mortgage rates.
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