Can't stand your dark, drab basement? Have the purple-and-olive tiles and porcelain in your bathroom seen better days? Maybe you've had enough of your old vinyl floor and tacky fittings in your cramped kitchen. But what do you tackle first?

Making the transition from renter to homeowner is likely one of the biggest decisions you’ll make throughout your lifetime. It can also be a stressful experience if you don’t plan ahead by building a budget and saving prior to embarking upon homeownership.

There has been a lot of chatter surrounding ultra-low rates that were introduced by many banks early this year. But, it’s important to look beyond mere rates into the bigger picture surrounding what’s significant when it comes to your specific mortgage needs.

The Home Buyers’ Plan (HBP) is a program for first-time homebuyers that allows you to withdraw funds from your RRSPs to buy or build a home.

Is the Best Mortgage Rate Important?

Mortgage clients have often said "I need the best mortgage rate, what rate do you offer?"

While the client is always right, and I always want to provide the best rate and terms, you need to look at the "extras" when selecting the "best" mortgage

Activity in the Greater Vancouver housing market continued to strengthen in March with both the number of homes sold and added to the region’s Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) reaching near record levels.

All variable rate mortgages and lines of credit are affected by changes in monetary policy as dictated by the BoC. Generally, when the BoC decides to adjust (or leave unchanged) its “overnight lending rate”, chartered banks and other financial institutions react by moving their prime rate accordingly.

What Happened?

The Bank of Canada (BoC) wanted to find out how consumers can get the very best mortgage rate, which led to the undertaking of an extensive study on mortgage discounting. 

According to their research, Canadians who get the best mortgage rates are those who:

Will Dunning is one of the most respected housing market analysts in Canada. Recently, he stated that while housing demand is well below its pre-recession peak and is still showing the after-effects of the recession, recent job creation will start to positively affect housing activity later this year and into the next.