Old, but good, news...

Friday's Globe and Mail had a string of interesting, even useful, real estate articles.
"Well, of course they did", you say, "Friday is the day they publish their real estate section."
Except these better articles were all in the Report on Business section. It was so full of juicy items it took me a few days to get around to writing this up.
With the wee summaries and links below, I quickly maxed out the character limit for Facebook and Twitter ... so you get a blog post.  To wit (not to Tweet)...

"Rule changes make mortgages a moving target".  Opens with a statement that all the new rule tweaks make "it harder for many Canadians to get a mortgage".  Followed by a bunch of reasons why the new changes and restrictions are a bad idea.  Towards the end of the article we get stuff more along our thinking: that the new rules help ensure that "the goal and dream of owning a home is balanced with the ability to repay..."  A broker suggests the changes affect decisions for 10-15% of buyers.  If he is right, I suggest that the new changes probably influenced 90% of those people to make better decisions.  In other words, there are very very few people out there who have really good reasons for a 95% mortgage amortized over 35-40 years.

"How to play the low interest-rate game". Pretty solid advice on how to take advantage of the current low interest rates without losing your mind and taking inappropriate risk. My favourite quote (though I admit there are exceptions) "If you can afford to put down only 5 per cent, you can't afford the house".

"The $600,000 question".  What do you get for $600k in various parts of the country.  If you are just one happy puppy on some acreage in the boonies you can get a lot of house.  If you want to step outside and stroll to every imagineable cultural, recreational, and commercial attraction, think smaller.

"The long, slow flip". Cindy Wennerstrom's business is "flipping" homes but she takes an interesting middle ground between the fast buy-reno-flip and the long term investment property approaches.  She argues that her approach has risk and tax advantages.

If any of those sound interesting beyond my precis, follow the links and enjoy.  Comments also most welcome.  Please.  Somebody.  Comment. On something   :-)

New app for us iPhonies (and Webbies, too)

Anybody done mortgage rate comparisons at RateSupermarket.ca?  What did you think?

We haven't been serious viewers/users of the site but it reads as a fairly neutral place to get an idea of current comparable real mortgage rates.  I quite like how straight forward they are about their independence and how they make money (see the "About Us" tab on their site).

How do they make money? Advertising and referrals.  The advertising is clearly identified as such.  And the referrals come only if you ask.

I looked at them a little more closely today because they announced an iPhone app connected to their service.  It seems pretty straight forward.  You could be looking at a home and start to feel that "what if I bought this" tingle.  Out comes the app and tells you who wants what rate today for whatever type and term you ask about.  It also has a mortgage calculator to check the actual payments.  Could be handy.  You don't have to actually talk to anybody or give out your information to anybody to get a solid idea of what would be involved mortgage-wise. 

All that said, if you know you are house-hunting you should get pre-approved.  Find a good mortgage broker (we know several) and go through the process.  You will know what you can afford, you can lock in a rate, and you will be stronger at the negotiation table.  It's all good.

If you're interested in real-estate related apps, you might want to have a peek at a series of earlier posts on the subject: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3