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sameer666

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sameer666 last won the day on January 18 2011

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  1. Consumer reports segment on Global TV covering some of the risks of using the BC Home Partnership Loan. Great resource. I may also know the mortgage broker featured
  2. CMHC Premium hikes! http://www.financialpost.com/m/wp/personal-finance/mortgages-real-estate/blog.html?b=business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/mortgages-real-estate/mortgage-insurance-premiums-on-the-rise-at-cmhc-now-as-high-as-4-5-of-value
  3. Maybe Clark will do something.....once the supreme court rules against her first option and an election is about to happen!
  4. And if you have any questions on mortgages, you may tag me =)
  5. Glad to hear of your good fortune in the market. Frankly, I think you decided to do your final cash in at a really good time. It's all speculation, but I think the next couple years are going to be a rough ride for the market. Interests rates are also on the rise, so you got in at a time where they are low. I would take advantage of the low interest rate you got for your current mortgage term, and pay down as much principal you can over it. Congrats on the detached house! For many young people in the lower mainland, you're basically living the dream.
  6. Hey everyone. Finally got around to finishing up the blog I put together that goes over the BC Home Partnership Loan program. See below. What should consumers be looking for in the fine print, and other things to consider. This program is only applicable to consumers acquiring an insured mortgages(less than 20% down). For example, if one has a 15% down payment saved up, they cannot use this program to get to a 20% down payment, as that mortgage will no longer be considered an insured mortgage. The consumer must put less than 20% down for this program to work. If one could put 20% down, but wants to take advantage of this program to create liquidity, they should also keep in mind the mortgage insurance premium would be avoided when putting 20% down. At 15% down, this premium would be 1.8% on the entire mortgage amount, or $1,800 on every $100,000 of mortgage acquired. The down payment assistance will be legally registered as a 2nd mortgage on a home, giving an interest in the home to BC Housing. As with any mortgage, this mortgage charge cannot be removed until the loan is paid off. There are legal costs involved with both registering a mortgage charge on the title of a property, and eventually removing the mortgage charge when the loan is paid off. The cost for both of these has yet to be revealed in detail by BC Housing, but it will be at the consumer’s expense. Typically, legal costs to register an additional mortgage is approximately an extra $100-$200 when purchasing a home. An additional cost of approximately $200-$300 would be applicable to remove the mortgage off title once the loan has been paid off. The down payment is considered a “non-traditional down payment” as defined by CMHC. This means if one puts less than 10% as a down payment, they would be paying an additional 0.25% on a CMHC mortgage insurance premium. An easy way to think of this is an extra $250 per every $100,000 of mortgage acquired. This cost will not be paid upfront, but added to the total mortgage amount, and amortized over the life of the mortgage. For example, when insuring a $400,000 loan amount, the insurance premium would be $15,400 for using a non-traditional source of down payment, as opposed to a $14,400 if the entire down payment came from your own funds, a difference of $1000. Further to the previous point, only a minority of lenders currently have programs where they accept “non-traditional down payment” sources. Fewer options, means less competition for the business. This could potentially lead to acquiring a mortgage with a marginally higher interest rate, or mortgage terms which are less flexible. If there are any changes to the properties title, the loan will become immediately due. This means even if one wanted to add a family member on title, or a spouse down the line, they would be responsible for immediately paying off the loan in full. This could also apply if someone was to be removed off title. The most common example of this is in the case of a divorce. If one changes the purpose of their home in the first 5 years of the loan, they would be responsible for immediately paying off the loan in full. The most common example of this is switching the properties purpose to an investment property. We still need to see how mortgage lenders respond to this new initiative. It is very common for lenders to have a mortgage term on their contracts where they prohibit any form of secondary financing. Due to this, there is a possibility some lenders will not participate in the program. If that occurs, that means there will be fewer options for financing for consumers interested in using this initiative. Even though there is to be no interest or payments over the first 5 years, lenders will still want to qualify the liability of having a loan to pay back. Thus, just because one would qualify at 5% down with the down payment coming from their own means, it does not mean they would also qualify for the same mortgage using this program. How is this program intended to be used? As of right now, subject to a consumer’s income and credit, one is able to purchase a home with as low as 5% down. Since qualified consumers who have saved up 5% can technically enter the market already, it is clear this program is targeted towards consumers who have saved less than 5% of a down payment to purchase a home. This definitely creates a home ownership opportunity for a market that was not able to attain it before, but it also encourages larger household debt, and puts consumers in a situation where realistically, they begin with negative equity in their home. Take the example of buying a home for $300,000. In this case, a consumer would save up $7500 for their portion of the down payment, and the government matches them $7,500 by ways of this initiative. With this specific example of an insured mortgage, a mortgage insurance premium(in this case of $10,972.50) would be added to the original mortgage amount($285,000), meaning the first mortgage would be registered for $295,972.50. In addition to this first mortgage, the consumer would have a second mortgage registered for $7,500 to BC Housing. Adding the first and second mortgage together, one would find they have acquired $303,472.50 in mortgage debt to purchase a home for $300,000. In this scenario, the consumer essentially has negative equity in their home. This means the size of their mortgage exceeds the value of their property, and is also known as being “underwater”. If the consumer for whatever reason had to sell this home, right from the start they would lose more than they originally invested into the home. This is not even factoring the possibility of depreciation, the costs to hire a realtor to sell the property, potentially paying a penalty to break the mortgage, and legal costs. For this reason, a consumer should heavily weigh the importance of home ownership against the size of the liability they would be willing to acquire when deciding if using this program is worthwhile for their personal circumstance. They should also be confident and firm in the long term commitment they are making to live in this home. These are the key questions to be asked in regards to using this program with its intended purpose. How can one use this program to their benefit, as opposed to their detriment? Although the program is designed for consumers who have not saved up the necessary 5% down payment, anyone who is putting less than 20% down(including the interest free loan portion) can also use this program. If these consumers can carefully navigate through the fine print with discipline, they may find a few scenarios where this program can save them money, or allow them flexibility they did not have before. Here are a few examples of these scenarios: Already saved up 5% down? One way to take advantage of this program is using it to put 10% down. When one is able to put 10% down as opposed to 5% down, the mortgage insurance premium drops from 3.6% to 2.4%. Assuming one is able to pay off the government loan before interest starts accruing, this would quantify itself as approximately a reduction of $1200 in the mortgage insurance premium on every $100,000 of mortgage acquired. This could potentially save a consumer a fairly large amount in regards to insurance premiums. For example, when purchasing a $700,000 property, using this initiative to put 10% down instead of 5% would lead to a reduction of $8,820 in mortgage insurance premiums. Likewise, If one used this program to increase their down payment from 10% to 15%, the mortgage insurance premium would then decrease from 2.4% to 1.8%. This would quantify itself as a reduction of $600 in the mortgage insurance premium on every $100,000 of mortgage. It should be noted that in most cases mortgage insurance premiums are not paid upfront, but instead added to the amount to be mortgaged, and amortized over the life of the mortgage. Let us look at a scenario where a consumer has already saved up $30,000 as a 10% down payment on a $300,000 purchase, but also has $15,000 in student loan debt with a current interest rate of 6%. On a payment plan to pay it off in the next 5 years, the consumer is subjected to approximately $2,400 of interest in the course of paying off their student loan. One way to take advantage of this program is for the consumer to pay off the $15,000 in student loan debt, and then have their 5% down payment matched. This way the consumer is still putting 10% down, and as long as they pay back the government loan before interest begins to accrue, they are able to forego paying $2,400 of interest for their student loan. Another innovative use, would be for one who has already saved 10% or 15% of the down payment required, but wanted to put an offer on a home which needed a bit of work done. Assuming they are to pay it off before interest accrues and the payments begin, they could use the matching government funds to create liquidity to give themselves a no interest renovation loan for 5 years. If one needed to retain liquidity for other reasons as well, this could also apply with this use. In conclusion, there is definitely fine print to be wary of when considering using this initiative, and the intended use of the program promotes higher than normal levels of household debt, and in some cases, even to the point of negative equity. Even though the loan is considered “interest free”, there will be legal costs to both register and remove the loan on one’s property, and this would be at the cost of the consumer. One could also be subject to a larger CMHC insurance premium if they are to use the loan to put less than 10% down, opposed to putting less than 10% down all from their own funds. Unable to make any changes to the title of one’s property without the loan becoming fully due could also prove to be a troublesome term of this initiative to many consumers. Nonetheless, if carefully planned and executed, some consumers could potentially find ways to use this plan to their advantage.
  7. Thanks Harvey! Let me know if there's anything you think I should expand on, or add! I won't be publishing a final version on my website until early next week.
  8. Hey all, As you know, I am a mortgage broker, and I am currently in the process of putting a blog together for my website where I dig a bit deeper into the fine print of the initiative the BC Liberals have just put forth to assist first time home buyers. Quite frankly, I am not at all a fan of it at all. I try to cover any red flags I feel there are in the fine print which people may miss, but also I crafted a few example scenarios of how savvy and financially responsible people can almost "hack" it to their benefit. I hope you all enjoy, and if you have any questions please let me know. This is the first draft that I just finished composing, so excuse any errors with grammar/spelling etc.
  9. Hey Harvey, could you link me in PM the developer doing that? I want to show my friend for a bit of a laugh. Thanks!
  10. Oh man I remember that chat! Good times! There's actually a discord chat now. I joined it, but there's no one super interesting on it, nor is it really active. You should hop on it and maybe we can get it going!
  11. Thanks Bizarre! I remember you! Which group chat was that again? I think it was actually much longer ago, as I've been a licensed broker now for almost 4 years. =)
  12. You can't reach out to First National directly. They are only accessible through independent mortgage brokers. Credit unions have the same fixed rate penalty calculations as banks. True North has its place in the market. They are technically mortgage brokers, and what they do is focus on doing as much volume as possible while buying down interests rates with their commissions. Don't expect any level of service or education from a mortgage broker there, but for someone who knows exactly what they want, they definitely fill a niche in the market. Again, this may make me biased, but if you're a first time home buyer who doesn't know the ins and outs of mortgages, I would focus on finding an independent mortgage broker who can really walk you through the process and wants to take the time to educate you. People get too hung up on .05% or even 0.1% of an interest rate, and often miss out on valuable advice that would save them a lot of money in the long run, or get put in a mortgage with an unfavorable term, and end up losing $ in the long term cause of it. Like I said from the start and a few times over now, if you are getting a fixed mortgage, my best advice is finding an independent mortgage broker to put you in a mortgage with a monoline lender. Tell them upfront the best rate you got with CIBC, and I'll sure they'll find a way to get you that interest rate.
  13. Monolines aren't private lenders. Private lending is equity based lending at premiumed interest rates. Monolines are just companies that unlike banks, strictly focus on mortgage lending. Since they don't have branches, you access them through mortgage brokers. More often than not, the money used to lend come from the same pool of investors who fund mortgages at the bank. I personally do a lot of business with First National and MCAP. This is based off my experience of them having great mortgage terms which are very straightforward, and a high level of service. But there are tonnes of other ones mortgage brokers have access to, and all of them won't charge a premium on fixed mortgage penalties as long as you specifically request that from your mortgage broker. Some other monolines you may come across with your mortgage broker: RMG, Street, Merix/Lendwise, CMLS. If you're getting a fixed mortgage, any of these lenders would be great, and I'm sure at least one of them will be able to match the best interest rate offer you received at a bank. If you decide to get a variable, the penalty calculation is the same across the board, so it doesn't matter if you deal with a bank or a monoline. I'm just dead set on avoiding banks for specifically fixed mortgages as a broker.
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