Own Your Life

As you are probably aware, the market right now stinks. Sellers think their home is worth significantly more than it realistically is and buyers this it's worth way less. Essentially nothing is moving and it's causing property values to plummet. The new set of mortgage rules certainly didn't help that wiped out a huge portion of buyers who no longer qualify to purchase anywhere near Vancouver. We do our best to keep our clients and database in the loop when there are any changes that could affect them good or bad.

Today is a good day if you hold a mortgage because I have information that you will appreciate. Mortgage lenders are finally being held accountable with regards to providing you with easy to access IRD (interest rate differential) calculations. You have likely heard horror stories from a friend, family member or colleague who wanted to break his mortgage or sell his home but couldn't because the penalty was ridiculously high. Certainly lenders have borderline fraudulent undisclosed way of calculating penalties.

If the changes from July didn’t cripple the market enough, wait, there’s more! This week more Federal changes took effect but some lenders are taking it even further.

I have spoken with a number of realtor friends in the industry recently and not even one has said they have seen it this bad before, ever. This Summer’s changes literally placed a huge wall in front of the road of home sales required to keep the market from crashing. Don’t get me wrong, Vancouver is way too over-priced and prices do need to come down but this seems a bit much.

Many of us often look at the micro-level cost of raising a child, focusing on the big expenditures: how much will daycare cost me this year?  Or how much will those new braces cost?  We deal with these on an as-they-come basis.  But have you ever considered how much it would cost to raise a kid from birth to the age of 19?  And even more importantly, have you thought about how they’d afford all of this if you weren’t around to pay it for them?