Canada’s mortgage party has come to an abrupt halt. The bonanza of dirt-cheap mortgages offered by some of the country’s biggest lenders in recent weeks has been shut down sooner than expected, as banks pull their offers in the face of higher funding costs and concerns over dwindling profit margins. On Wednesday, Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD-T78.99-0.10-0.13%) […]

 Ah, February, when our thoughts turn to the ones we love, and our need to put some money into our RRSPs. One of the best ways we can take care of our spouses and families is to take advantage of the long-term profit potential that can come from being invested in a solid real estate […]

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. is cutting back on mortgages it insures as the Crown corporation edges closer to a $600-billion cap imposed on it by the federal government, the Financial Post has learned. A CMHC spokesman confirmed that it had approached a number of lenders at the end of 2011 about reducing its “bulk […]

Financial institutions appear to be cracking down on rules for borrowers with self-declared income, a move that comes as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said he’s concerned about a lack standards in the sector. Responding to a question about whether the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions was looking into the practice of banks loosening […]

OTTAWA — Canadian house prices dropped in November for the first time in nearly a year, according to the monthly Teranet-National Bank house price index released Wednesday. The 0.2% drop followed two months of flat prices, and was the first decline in the index since a “brief correction during the three months ending November 2010,” […]

Real estate investment guru Don Campbell blames the media’s sensational reporting for a lot of the confusion that exists today around the real estate cycle.  The misinformation that results from this reporting gives rise, he says, to differing opinions as to whether real estate is a sound investment vehicle. The confusion comes from what he […]

While 2011 proved to be a rocky road in the economy, there is much to look forward to in 2012 in the housing market- according to Dave Liniger, Chairman and Co-Founder of RE/MAX. Speaking about the recovery of the US housing market, Liniger says that the key to activity lies in the continuation of low […]

According to CMHC, the seasonally adjusted rate of housing starts rose in December, mostly due to a spike in multiple urban starts, support the notion that condo development is surging in this country. There has also been a trending towards returning to urban centers- in particular with the Baby Boomers to be closer to amenities […]

Buying a home and experiencing feelings of remorse is about as common as death and taxes. It happens to us all, unless, of course, you have money to burn and you purchase homes like the rest of us do coffee.     Unfortunately, that’s not the case for most of us. We invariably suffer the doubts, […]

We’re a little late on the New Year’s musings, but we wanted to give you a week to recover from the post-Christmas hangover. No, not the boozy hangover you get from too much New Year’s revelry — the financial hangover many of us suffer when we realize we spent too much at Christmastime. Mid-January is […]