This is an article by Benjamin Tal, one of CIBC’s top economists who answers this question. I found it to be a great write up that expresses the differences between the US and Canadian housing economies.
“House prices in Canada will probably fall in the coming year or two, but any comparison of the American market of 2006 reflects a deep misunderstanding of the credit landscapes of the pre-crash environment in the US and today’s Canadian market.
The Canadian housing market has more distinguishing attributes that separate it from the pre-crash US market. Yes, the debt-to-income ratio in Canada just broke the American record set in 2006, but comparing the three years heading into the US crash to the past three years in Canada reveals that the debt-to-income ratio in Canada has been rising at half the speed seen in the pre-crash US market. Even more important than the amount of debt is its quality. The distribution of the credit score in Canada has not changed dramatically in the past four years. That is very different than the experience seen in the US in the four years heading into the recession.
In the US an astonishing one-third of mortgages taken out in 2005 and 2006 were in negative equity position, and more than half had less than 5% equity. In Canada, the negative equity position is nil, and only 15-20% of new originations have an equity position of less than 15%.
In a final analysis, not all is well in the Canadian housing market. Home prices are overshooting their fundamentals, mainly in large cities such as Toronto and Vancouver. The recent slowing in sales activity will probably be followed by price adjustments in many cities across the country. But the Canada of today is very different than a pre-recession US. Therefore, when it comes to jitters regarding a US-type meltdown here at home, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Hi, everybody. Rowan Smith from the Mortgage Center. I want to talk today about self-employed people and what the banks want to see from you in terms of the income documentation.
Like everybody else, they want to see notices of assessment to prove that you’re filing your income-tax, as in you have no arrears, and they want to see how much your filing on there.
But what about somebody who’s been a plumber for 25 years and finally decides to go out on their own. They go out on their own and they’re making way more money, but they’ve only been doing it for a year and a half.
Here’s the thing, that’s a tricky situation for a bank. The bank wants to see that you’ve got a two-year track record of income. But if you were employed back then and now you’re self-employed, how do they make the connection?
Now, not all banks, but several of them have a much more open idea here. What they’ll do is they’ll look at your historical earnings as a plumber, or whatever your job was. As long as you transitioned into self-employment in the same industry doing the same thing they’ll use an average of income over those years, including your start-up years, but also including your years as a salaried employee.
This is particularly important for a guy who’s been self-employed for only one year but has been doing something for 25 years. Often times they move to self-employment not because they were foolish but because they saw there was a lot more money to be made if they were the boss rather than just collecting a salary.
So, if you know somebody in this circumstance, someone who’s been told, “You haven’t been in business long enough,” but they’ve been doing the same job for a very long time, have them contact me. It’s Rowan Smith from the Mortgage Center.
Hi, everybody, it’s Rowan Smith with the Mortgage Center. I’m here to talk about biweekly payments and why they pay your mortgage down faster.
Now, I want to use a nice simple example to show you why this works, because it’s no magic and it has nothing to do with just making more frequent payments. You are, in fact, paying extra money when you pay a biweekly accelerated and you’re paying it down quickly.
So, here’s how it works. Let’s use a nice round number of 1,000 dollars. If that was your monthly mortgage payment, you would pay 12 times a year, you’d pay 12,000 dollars throughout the year. But if you were paying biweekly accelerated, they chop that payment in half.
So, 500 dollars times, times how many? Well, there’s 26 biweekly payments in the year. So, there’s not 24. People often confuse that, because they assume 12 months, 24 payments. There’s not. There’s 26 biweekly payments throughout the year.
It’s like when, if you’ve ever had a paycheck that comes in every 2 weeks, and then, twice a year, you’ll receive a paycheck, but you won’t have the corresponding obligations. It’s almost like found money. But it’s not. It’s just because the biweekly payments are 26 times throughout the year.
So, 26 times 500 is 13,000. So, like I said, on monthly, with 12,000. On biweekly, you’re at 13,000. So, you’re actually paying 1,000 dollars or one full extra payment per year. That has an effect of shaving several years off your mortgage. Depending on 25 or 30 years, it’s anywhere between 4 and 5 years that it knocks off right off the top.
So, if you want to pay it down a little bit quicker, accelerated, or biweekly accelerated, is the way to go. If you’d like that, and you know somebody else would like to pay down their mortgage faster, have them contact me.
Hi everyone. Rowan Smith at the Mortgage Center. Going to talk today about my favorite topic and probably my most popular one on all of my blogs, former marijuana grow ops. I want to talk about a specific program that’s come out for these because in most of my prior posts I’ve described what’s required when you’re financing a grow op. I’m going to do so today and cover the new program.
First and foremost, if you’re looking at a property that’s a former grow op it must be fixed. It must already be fixed. It’s not something that you’re going to be fixed, it has to be repaired and what we call remediated. If it’s not remediated your really only choice is to either purchase the property in cash or to purchase the property through a private lender. Usually the rates are much higher in those circumstances.
Let’s assume that the home is fixed. How do you prove that? First off, if you walk into your average bank, Scotia Bank or TD or something, you’re probably going to get declined right off the get-go if you announce that it’s a former grow op, even if it was a former grow op 10 years ago. If it shows up on the property condition disclosure statement or in any of the documentation it was a former grow op, and the seller’s under an obligation to report that, then it will probably be declined in most circumstances.
There are some lenders that I work with that offer the same rates as all the other financial institutions who have a much more open mind about former grow ops. They just want to make sure that they’re fixed and that there’s no potential problems in the future. Here’s what they want to see. First off, environmental air quality testing. Cost between $1,500 and $2,000 depending on where you get it done. There’s a couple of firms that I’d highly recommend over the rest because they’re more widely accepted amongst the financial institutions. If you need that information contact me.
You need the air quality testing. What they’re looking for is they want to see if there’s mold in the air and spores and whatnot. That will ensure that it’s a livable property. Depending on the city you’re in you may also need to get a re-occupancy permit. The city may have pulled the occupancy permit if it was a busted former grow op. Not all places are on-board with this system, though, so please speak to me if you think that may be an issue.
If the occupancy program is not in place then you’re also going to require, third, is going to be a letter from the city that confirms that your property confirms to all municipal bylaws. That’s essentially the same thing as the occupancy permit but a lot of times, in some cities, they don’t pull the permit. They’re not going to issue a letter that says the permit was never pulled. What they’re going to do is give you a comfort letter instead that says the property does not infringe on any bylaws.
Certain municipalities will also want some sort of letter from the electrical company saying things have been set back up and hooked back up to code. Again, you need to speak with me depending on the municipality you’re in. The bottom line here is that I don’t recommend trying to get these properties financed on your own. Chances are you’re going to walk in there and they’re going to either laugh you out of the property, out of the building, or they’re just not going to treat you with due respect, they’re not going to take it seriously.
Several former grow ops do have great value. They’re perfectly fine homes, especially when the grow op was out in the back garage, but to the banks if it’s in the garage or in the house or five years ago or last week, fixed or not, it’s a former grow op until you bulldoze it. That’s just the current state of the law right now.
The new program I’m talking about, effectively, if a property has been a former grow op more than five years ago and we can document that it’s been fixed and has been lived in for that period of time I have one financial institution which will waive a lot of those additional requirements I looked at. They may still want a full appraisal on the property and they’re still going to make sure you qualify under all normal guidelines. They’re still going to charge you full discounted rates but they’re not going to ask for that expensive air quality testing which often is the deal killer for many people.
Again, property must be fixed, environmental air quality, occupancy permit if it got pulled, if it did not get pulled comfort letter from the city, any other municipal bodies such as the hydro company that explains what’s been done, and chances are you’re going to need a full appraisal in all circumstances regardless. If it’s been over five years, we can chop that list down by a big amount, make it much more simple.
If you or someone you know is looking into a former grow op don’t go walking into your bank alone. Please call me. I can at least offer you solutions and suggestions on how to get this approved. There is no fee for my service so please call me. I’ll help you out. It’s Rowan Smith at the Mortgage Center.
Hi, everybody. It’s Rowan Smith from the Mortgage Center. I want to talk today specifically about lines of credit. More importantly I want to talk about lines of credit that you want to keep but you maybe want to renegotiate maybe the mortgage in front of it. This is something that comes up from time to time. Continue reading →
Hi, everyone. Rowan Smith from the Mortgage Center. I got a call today about a client who wanted to do some renovations on the home when they bought it. And they said to me, “But I don’t have the money for doing the renovations I’d like it built into mortgage. Is that possible?” Yes, there’s a few different ways to do it. One of the most common programs is “Purchase plus Improvements”. And under that program, the way it works is, you borrow money. Continue reading →
Everybody, Rowan Smith from the Mortgage Centre. I’m here today to talk again abut a topic that seems very popular among my blogheads, which is former marijuana grow ops. Can you finance them, or how to finance them? The answer is, “Yes, you can,” and the way to do it is this. There’s typically going to be extra underwriting that’s going to be required. Not all banks are going to be willing to do that… Continue reading →
Hi, everybody. I want to address a very common myth, and that’s that people think their variable rate mortgage, because it is open to fluctuations, is in fact an open mortgage. That’s not the case. There’s a lot of confusion as to what is an open mortgage versus a variable mortgage versus a closed mortgage or a fixed mortgage.
So, a fixed mortgage, well, obviously, your rate is fixed. You don’t have to worry about fluctuations in prime rate. For whatever the length of your term, whether it’s one or five years, your rate is fixed. Now, all fixed rates that we get here are closed. Meaning, to break that term — if you sell the home or you try to refinance during the term — you’re going to owe.
Typically, the penalty is the interest rate differential, the greater of the interest rate differential or three months of interest. Now, if rates have fallen substantially, you can expect the penalty to be quite large because it will be the interest rate differential.
If you do a search, some of the other blogs that I’ve done on penalties, you’ll see that there’s — I’ve explained the method of interest rate differential penalty calculation at a little more length. But in any case, if you have fixed — closed in almost every single case.
If it’s not a fixed or closed, then you’re going to be looking at a variable rate. Now, there is two types of variables — variable open and variable closed. The only difference between the two, other than rate, is that variable open can be paid off at any time with no pre-payment penalty whatsoever. The variable closed typically has a three-month interest penalty.
So you say, “Well, why would anybody take variable closed when they can take a variable open?” The difference is rate. Variable opens typically right now run you anywhere from prime plus 0.8 to prime plus 1.0. Prime rate is 3%, so that means your rate would be 3.8% to 4%.
Compare that to a variable closed mortgage will be at prime minus 0.75 or prime minus 0.8. So you’re looking at almost a point and a half to two-point spread between the two. So you can be paying 2.25% or you can be paying 3.75%. Clearly, the variable closed is a better deal if you’re going to hold the property for any length of time.
So people often come to me and say, “Well, I intend to sell it maybe in the next year or something.” Well, even in those cases, oftentimes the savings over a year-long period of time of getting the lower variable closed rate is better than paying no penalty, but paying a much higher rate as you go along.
So the important distinction here is that your open mortgage, you want to figure out how long are you going to hold that property? Open and avoiding a penalty may sound nice in principle, but if you actually end up spending thousands of dollars more over the life of the mortgage, why bother avoiding the penalty just to pay more monthly? For the Mortgage Center, I’m Rowan Smith.
Hi everybody, it’s Rowan Smith with The Mortgage Center. We’re going to try something a little different this week, and we’re going to cover something that’s very commonly requested of me, which is details on debt servicing, what is it, and how to calculate it.
So there’s two main ratios that the lenders use when they’re calculating debt servicing. The first is GDS for gross debt service, and the second is TDS for total debt service. Gross debt service or GDS, which is the first ratio we look at includes your principal, interest, taxes and heat, and what we’re trying to do is a find a percentage of your gross income that this equals.
So principal and interest is effectively your payment, so whatever your payment is plus taxes and heat. A good rule of thumb is that GDS should not exceed 35%. I mean, yes, there’s exceptions to this, but that’s a good base-line if you’re trying to figure a rough equivalent of what you can afford.
Total debt service on the other hand includes not only principal interest, taxes and heat, but also any other debt payments or obligations. Now not everything is included in there, and we’ll get to that later, but all debt payments. A good rule of thumb is that TDS should not exceed 42%.
Exceptions up to 44% and beyond are available, depending on someone’s credit score and the particular program that we’re using and applying for. Of course the amount of down payment you have also plays into this, so it’s important to know exactly what rule you’re working at before you go in and apply for something.
So let’s go through GDS, we’ll actually look at how to calculate it. This is a scenario, the common scenario that you see. Someone has an e-mortgage payment that’ll work out to $2,500 a month, and that couple makes $120, 000 a year, combined, both of their jobs, so $10,000 a month. Property taxes are $3, 600 per year, that works out to $300 per month, and heat is $100 at most lenders.
There’s a few that’ll use $85, some of that will use less, that’s conned over. It’s not a big difference, $100 should be used for roundness. Strata fees on the townhouse they’re buying are $330 per month. Now currently, banks only use 50% of the strata fees to count towards GDS and TDS, you have to remember that when you’re working through it. If it is a strata property, meaning an apartment, townhouse, condo, something like that, and there are fees, then only 50% of those are used.
So here’s the calculation. You make $2,500 payment, plus $300 taxes, plus $100 heat and $165 strata fees equals $3,065. $3,065 divided by the $10,000 monthly income, as expressed as a percentage, is 30.65% gross debt service, or GDS, which is within my 35% guideline I gave you. So based on GDS, yes this would be approved.
TDS is a little bit different, similar but different. Same scenario, same payments and all that. The only difference is that last line there, since the client has a $300 per month car payment, and those $8,000 in credit card debt. So here’s the calculation, and I want to note here, for credit cards, most banks use 3% of the amount owing to determine what we’re payment will be. So in this case, $8,000, 3%, $240 will count towards TDS per month. You notice I like to convert everything to monthly numbers, because that tends to be how most people run their budgets, so it’s how I do that.
$2,500 mortgage payment, plus $300 taxes, $100 heat, $165 strata fees, plus the $300 car payment and $240 equals $3,605 per month counted towards their $10,000 income. $3,605 divided by $10, 000 equals 36.05% TDS, total debt service. Again, it’s within my range of 42% that I gave you. So the two ratios to keep in mind are GDS and TDS, 35, 42 respectively. There are exceptions, but for now those are important.
A couple of notes on TDS. People often say to me, “Well wait, if I’ve got monthly bills, what about my cable bill and my cell phone bill?” No. Cable bills, cell phone bills, telephone or Internet bill are not included. Other things not included in monthly RSP contributions, but the loans are; car insurance, house insurance, repairs and maintenance to property and income taxes.
Now you may say, “Well wait, a lot of those are really important expenses, things that I have to pay for” but that’s why we only use 42% or 44% of the TDS calculations. The other 56% to 58% are for those other expenses that everybody else pays. Some things that must be included in TDS and that often people wish were not: child support payments, alimony or spousal support payments, any other loan, credit card, line of credit or monthly debt obligation, car lease payments. If you’re making another year on account, then a year of payment may count towards TDS.
Now it’s a lot of numbers. If you have any questions, feel free to give me a call. I’m happy to run through your situation for free. Everybody’s is different, and it takes some experience to know what numbers actually have to be included, what are not included. So again, for The Mortgage Center, I’m Rowan Smith.
It’s Rowan Smith from the Mortgage Centre. I want to address a very common myth that I hear about, that clients will come to me and say, “Well, I’m a first-time home-buyer, so don’t I get a better rate on my mortgage?”
The answer is absolutely not. Everybody is going to get the same rate based on their credit score and their income and whatnot. Where you get the benefits as a first-time home-buyer is being A, being able to take money out of your RRSP, tax-free, up to $25,000 per person on your first purchase of your home.
And you’re allowed to avoid the Property Transfer Tax, up to a purchase price of 425. Anything over 425 but up to 450, there’s a sliding scale. If you’re buying something over $450,000, it doesn’t matter if you’re a first-time home-buyer or not, you’re going to pay the full Transfer Tax.
The government, I guess, looks at it and says if you can afford a home that that’s expensive, that you shouldn’t be getting the tax break to being with.
So again, just as a recap, RRSPs can be used tax-free for your down payment, and Property Transfer Tax. Those are the only benefits, the only things you get to avoid as part of being a first-time home-buyer. There is no special incentive on rate, I’m sorry. For the Mortgage Centre, I’m Rowan Smith.
