It looks like it's a beautiful day outside!
I spent the weekend with a lot of enthusiastic Toastmasters, and was inspired by many speakers and learned lots as well, attending the District 42 Toastmaster Spring conference in Calgary. Congratulations to Darlene who won the International Speech Competition and will be competing in Florida against competitors from the rest of the world. I hope I can achieve that level of excellence someday....
The real estate market continues to be hot, and there are also many changes happening in the mortgage market.
It was annouced that Tuesday was the LAST DAY for the 40 year amortization mortgage! It was a good tool to be able to use a 40 year mortgage if you were buying a rental property, because of the reduced payment that would allow for positive cash flow. From here on, the maximum is 35 years.
I have also found this interesting article that I thought you might enjoy. I agree with almost all of this article, except the amortization part. I strongly believe in obtaining the longer amortizatoin and increasing your payment. This way, should you ever want to decrease your payment due to unforseen financial challenges, you can always to do so. Call me and I can help you with the best strategy to make your mortgage work for you.
http://www.moneyville.ca/article/1167756--5-costly-mortgage-mistakes
It's been almost a year now that I noticed mortgage insurers, especially CMHC, are very careful with a 5% downpayment application. Perhaps this is the reason....
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/04/27/cmhc-could-be-pulled-out-of-mortgage-insurance-business-flaherty-says/
Happy Mother's Day! and enjoy the weekend!
