Wednesday
February 22, 2012
1 Year Closed : 2.75 %
3 Year Closed : 2.79 %
5 Year Closed : 3.19 %
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Consumer Tip #8 Watch Your Mail for These Two Documents.
Hello and welcome to another consumer tip, courtesy of your friends here at TMG The Mortgage Group. If you are a home owner there are two important pieces of mail you should be keeping an eye open for. The first is your property tax assessment. This comes to you from the provincial government. It tells you what they feel your home is valued at as of July 1st. The value they place on your home may not necessarily represent the amount you could sell it for on the open market but it is an amount that is used to determine your annual property taxes.
When you receive this notice, there are a couple of quick things you should do. First go to the provincial web site that sent you the assessment, you will be provided an opportunity to compare your assessment to homes in your neighbourhood. If your assessment is low, don't worry as asking the government to increase the assessment will only raise your taxes. If you feel you have been assessed on the high side there is an appeal process. Next thing to do is file this away in case you need it. I suggest keeping the last two assessments at a minimum.
The other important piece of paper you receive at this time of year is your annual mortgage statement. This should be check especially if your lender pays your property taxes, make sure they are collecting enough to cover your annual tax bill. If they are taking too much, they won't likely give it back unless you ask, and if they are not taking enough you might want to have an adjustment made so that you don't get an unplanned for bill from your local municipality.
Both of these little tasks will take you less than 10 minutes and could prove to save you time and money down the road. I'm John Charbonneau here at TMG The Mortgage Group, reminding you that we are never to busy to let you or any of your friends know what your mortgage options are.
Consumer Tip #7 The Smart Equity Mortgage Reduction Plan
Hello and welcome to another consumer tip, courtesy of your friends here at TMG The Mortgage Group. Ever since I became a mortgage broker I have been fascinated with how interest on a mortgage is calculated. I love Albert Einsteins comment that compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world and how those that understand it, earn it and those that don't pay it.
After years of studying compound interest and cash management I have found a system that has proven it is possible to pay your mortgage off years ahead of the schedule you originally agreed to with your bank. In many cases, this new system can be implemented without affecting your monthly cash-flow so you can do all the things you are currently doing with your money but pay off your mortgage years faster.
At first I thought this sounds too good to be true and I can tell you right now it won't help everyone but there is a good chance it could help you and I would encourage you to get in touch with me so we can run a no cost, no obligation analysis and see if we can reach your mortgage freedom date a lot sooner. I can pretty much guarantee that this is something your lender won't show you as it simply isn't in their best interest to see you pay off your mortgage. Give me a call or send me an email and let's run the numbers. Until next time, I'm John Charbonneau here at TMG The Mortgage Group, reminding you that we are never to busy to let you or any of your friends know what your mortgage options are.
Consumer Tip #6 What you need to know about Gift Cards.
Hello and welcome to another consumer tip, courtesy of your friends here at TMG The Mortgage Group. Chances are that during the recent holiday season you either gave or were the recipient of one of these convenient and very common gift cards. I have some important news relating to the expiry dates for these cards. Prior to November 2008 many gift cards purchased in BC were allowed to have an expiry dates. Fortunately this rule changed and with a few exceptions gift cards are not allowed to have an expiry date.
Here is a list of those exceptions. Gift cards purchased from a shopping mall that can be used in the stores in a specific mall are allowed to have an expiry date, If you purchase a gift card that is good for a specific purpose such as car detailing or carpet cleaning they can have an expiry date and if you buy a prepaid telephone card they too are allowed to have an expiry date. Gift cards purchased from your typical big box stores like The Bay, Canadian Tire and Home Depot are not allowed to have expiry dates and they are also not allowed to charge a fee so if you buy a $50 gift card the recipient should receive $50 of purchasing power and it should only cost you the face value of the card.
Until next time, I'm John Charbonneau here at TMG The Mortgage Group, reminding you that we are never to busy to let you or any of your friends know what your mortgage options are.
Consumer Tip #5 Finding Lost Money
Hello and welcome to another consumer tip, courtesy of your friends here at Canadian Mortgage Finders and TMG The Mortgage Group. One of life's small joys is finding lost money or money that you forgot you had. The other day I took out my winter coat and found $25 that was sitting there for the better part of 6 months.
Imagine this, the Canadian Federal Government has close to hall a billion dollars in their bank that belongs to thousands of Canadians that forgot they had this money. This forgotten money arrives at the bank of canada from many sources, the most common is that someone had a little bit of money in an account, moved and forgot to keep track of it. After about 10 years of inactivity the bank has to send the money to the Federal Government who hold onto it until someone claims it. Some might think that the process of finding out whether there is money in your name might be time consuming and complicated. I'm here today to let you know it is actually quite easy.
There is a web site operated by the federal government. All you have to do is type in your name and it tells you if there is any money in an unclaimed account. I checked myself and for now I am going to have stick with the $25 I found in my winter coast but if you would like to send me an email I will give you the web site address and you can check your name and as many of your relatives as you want.
Who knows, maybe aunt Betty or Uncle Fred passed on with some money that did not get caught up in their will. It's worth a couple of minutes to see if you can grab onto some of that 1/2 billion dollars sitting in Ottawa not paying you any interest.Until next time, I'm John Charbonneau here TMG The Mortgage Group, reminding you that we are never to busy to let you or any of your friends know what your mortgage options are.
Consumer Tip #4 How to Make Sure You Don't Void Your House Insurance
Hello and welcome to another consumer tip, courtesy of your friends here at Canadian Mortgage Finders. The other day I was renewing my home owner insurance policy and the consultant made reference to a companion manual that covers some 36 different scenarios where I would not be covered for insurance but might have thought I was. Not ever having received this companion manual I requested a copy and upon reading the fine print decided there was at least one point worth sharing. It has to do with whether or not you are covered if you leave your home unattended . It's pretty common to leave your home for a week or more. Many of us let our neighbours know we are going to be away and kindly ask them to keep an eye on the home. Here's where the fine print gets interesting. Let's say that I 'm away for 4 or more days and a water pipe breaks causing damage. If I have not had someone checking the house inside on a daily basis I would not be covered for the damage. A couple of things come to mind, if you don't want or can't have someone come in on a daily basis, find your water shut off value and turn the water off while you are away, second check your own policy as the 4 day period I referred to may be longer or shorter in your case. Hope that helps keep you covered.
Thanks for watching and remember we're never too busy to help a friend in need, review their mortgage
Consumer Tip #3 How To Reduce The Risk Of Buying A Lemon When Buying A Used Car
Hello and welcome to another consumer tip, courtesy of your friends in the mortgage lending industry at Canadian Mortgage Finders. The other day I was listening to a speaker talk about the 4 biggest risks North Americans experience.The biggest risk is that of being born. The second biggest risk is getting married, go figure The third biggest risk is having children. And the fourth biggest risk is what I want to share with you on this consumer tip, the 4th biggest risk is buying a used car.
With the freedom of information available on the internet it is pretty easy to get a good idea of what a used car is worth simply by doing a little research.
Long gone are the days that finding the BLACK BOOK VALUE of a car was the exclusive domain of the sales professional. Now the biggest risk is buying a car that has mechanical problems not apparent to the untrained eye. I came across a relatively new service offered by BCAA that can help. Once you find the car that meets your needs and you feel you are in the ball park price wise you can hire a mechanic from BCAA to go and have a look at the car. You don't even need to be with them at the time.
For a fee of about $150 dollars they will go to the car where ever it is in the Lower Mainland, perform a 143 point visual, instrument and performance inspection and they can even email you a copy of their confidential report.
Now it's not a full proof system, but it is fair to say that it will substantially reduce the risk of buying a lemon for less than the cost of a couple of tanks of gas. Thanks for watching and remember we're never too busy to help a friend in need, review their mortgage financing options.
Consumer Tip #2 How to Check Your Credit Report Annually and For Free
Hello and welcome to another consumer tip, courtesy of your friends in the mortgage lending industry at Canadian Mortgage Finders. There are a number of things that we have gotten into the good habit of doing each year like an annual visit to your family doctor, you annual dental checkup and the once a year delight of visiting your income tax accountant. This week I am going to suggest you add another item to your annual list of things to do. May I respectfully suggest you check your credit report once a year. In a world filled with fraud artists it pays to be proactive and ensure that only you are using your credit. In the world of borrowing it pays to know that your credit report reflects your best repayment history and one of the best ways to do that is by annually requesting a copy of your report. Now there are two ways you can do this. The first via the internet, go to equifaxx dot ca and pay to have them allow you to download your credit report. Two little problems with this, one, you have to pay, and secondly they do give you an overall credit score however I recently learned that the score they give you is not the same score as the one I see as a lender so what's the point of getting a score that isn't truly accurate. Here's what I recommend, send me an email and I will send you a special form that you can fill out, attach a photocopy of some personal identification, then fax it to Equifax and they will mail you a copy of your report within 2 weeks for free. You can do like I do, fill out the form once, and use it year after year as long as your information hasn't changed. If you are like me, free is almost always better than having to pay.
Thanks for watching and remember we are never too busy to help a friend in need, review their mortgage financing options.
Consumer Tip #1 - How to Lower The Interest Rate on Your Credit Cards
Hello and welcome to another consumer tip, courtesy of your friends in the mortgage lending industry at Canadian Mortgage Finders. This week I want to talk about high interest rate credit cards. While mortgage rates remain at historic lows, many credit card companies continue to charge interest rates as high as 20%. Most of the credit cards with the highest interest rates are offered by retail stores so be careful when you use a store credit card to save 10 or 15% on your initial purchase. This could turn out to cost you big time if you don't pay off the balance right away.The majority of credit cards are in the 10 to 14% range. If you or someone you know is stuck with an ongoing balance here is a technique that may be used. It's called the balance transfer program. Find a credit card company you are currently not dealing with that wants your business and wants it so much that they are offering an initial low or no interest rate offer to transfer your business. These low or no interest rate periods are typically from 6 months to a year.Apply for the credit card, transfer the balance, work at reducing the balance with the extra money you save by substantially reducing your interest expense. Half way through the introductory period, start looking for another credit card that is also offering a low introductory period and be ready to transfer your balance to that credit card. If you would like a list of some of the credit card companies offering a low introductory rate, send me an email and I would be happy to share my research. Thanks for watching and remember we are never too busy to help a friend in need, review thier mortgage financing options.
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