Had lunch a couple of weeks ago with a wonderful Calgary couple in the middle of this non-stop snowstorm of 2018, which got us talking about vacation homes. The talk went from Palm Springs to Phoenix, then north to Kelowna, where these folks own a getaway retreat. Correction. They owned a getaway retreat. With a proposal to introduce a non-resident … Read More

In this day and age, social media is ubiquitous, especially for businesses trying to expand their reach. And while on the surface, platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram appear to have nothing to do with mortgages, they form the gateway to enlarged clienteles. According to Ryan Dennahower, the keys to successfully using social media as a mortgage broker are … Read More

Michael Feldman has radical idea: Revising the Interest Act. The partner at Torys LLP says that the current mortgage system in Canada protects neither borrowers nor lenders the way it should. Residential mortgages most often come with five-year terms and 25-year amortizations, and as a result balloon payments hang in the balance on the last day. Feldman proposes jettisoning balloon … Read More

Samantha Brookes has been warning Canadians to take a close look at the clauses in their mortgage contracts for years, but her refrain has become a bit more prevalent in recent months. Since the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions’ mortgage stress test was implemented in January, the founder of the Mortgages of Canada brokerage has seen “a huge … Read More

by Ephraim Vecina, mortgagebrokernews.ca A new report from independent research think-tank Real Estate Investment Network (REIN) ranked Ontario’s largest metropolitan areas in terms of real estate market performance and suitability for investment over the next 5 years. In terms of growth, diversity, and fundamental strength, Ottawa came out on top of the wide-ranging survey, which looked at multiple factors including economic … Read More