I would emphasize that while a 10% correction sounds scary, in actual fact, this would be a healthy outcome WHAT THE ECONOMISTS SAID Twenty forecasters were polled on Canada’s housing market. Here are the results CANADIAN HOUSE PRICES A rise of 0.1% in 2012 was the median from 14 forecastsA rise of 0.1% in 2013 […]

 Maybe this is telling us you shouldn’t buy the biggest house Just sit back and do nothing. It doesn’t sound like the most proactive advice when it comes to the housing market, but it might just be what everybody needs to hear. Panic is the worst thing that could happen because when that mentality sets […]

Survey results suggest most Canadians feel now is a great time to buy a home, but not for them personally. Photograph by: File , Reuters   Survey results suggest most Canadians feel now is a great time to buy a home, but not for them personally.   A poll done for Royal Bank of Canada […]

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’ […]