Did OSFI kill the Smith Manoeuvre? Tens of thousands of Canadians employ leveraged investing strategies like the Smith Manoeuvre. They rely on these techniques to magnify their investment gains and pay down their mortgages faster. The Smith Manoeuvre entails: re-borrowing your regular mortgage principal payments investing that money in the market writing off the investment […]

The new Apple iPhone 5 tells us a lot about why you can’t get your financial act together. The iPhone is a brilliant device – a deluxe cellphone that has become a cultural icon. So important is the iPhone 5 that the announcement of its features and release date – it’s Sept. 21 – were […]

The Toronto and Vancouver housing markets have cooled rapidly in the wake of Ottawa’s latest bid to stop a bubble, with many first-time buyers knocked out of the running. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty put the July 9 changes into effect to curb growing mortgage debt levels and take some steam out of house prices. Among […]

  A large bubble of people in their prime home-buying years, coupled with an influx of immigrants, is poised to support Canada’s housing market for the next decade, a major bank economist said Thursday.   Benjamin Tal of CIBC put out a report on Thursday in which he argued that Canada’s population demographics are working […]

Bank of Nova Scotia agreed to buy ING Bank of Canada for <QL>$3.1-billion in a deal that marries one of the country’s largest financial institutions with an aggressive upstart that built its name on being different than the big banks. The deal, the largest sale of Canadian banking assets in more than a decade, will […]

August brought some good news for Steve Brouwer and DLC Drake Entrust Mortgage. Canadian Mortgage Professional (CMP) magazine ranked me (Steve) as one of Canada’s top mortgage professionals on the CMP Top 75 Broker’s List, I placed 29th when compared to all other Canadian mortgage professionals. I also placed fifth in all of Canada for […]

Canadian banks will come under increased pressure as revenues from key businesses such as consumer lending and capital markets start to decline over coming quarters, Fitch Ratings warned on Monday. The rating agency said it expects high consumer debt levels, primarily from mortgage borrowing combined with broad-based margin pressure, to weigh heavily on big banks’ […]

The Canadian real estate industry is in a tight spot these days. With home-ownership rates headed for record levels and the federal government tightening lending rules to cool the market, the question now is whether we have reached the saturation point. Bank of Nova Scotia economist Adrienne Warren says that when the latest census figures […]

If you asked 100 recent home buyers if they were satisfied with the size of their down payment, as many as 60 of them would say no. That’s what TD Canada Trust found in a recent survey of first time home buyers. This finding is hardly surprising: A bigger down payment means less interest paid, […]

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. revised its forecasts on Tuesday, saying Canadians should watch for the housing market to “moderate” as both home sales and new construction start to slow. But while many industry watchers agree that a softening is on the way, they are divided about how supple the housing market will get, and […]