Blessed

For today’s short post I just wanted to share with you one of my Mom’s favourite expressions. This is a very unique real estate market that we are experiencing. Properties are receiving multiple offer’s and pushing sales prices well over asking prices and my lenders are backlogged. What was normally a 4 hour turn around time has now become 4-7 days depending on the lender. Day’s off have become a thing of the past, it’s full speed ahead and time to make hay while the sun shines.

Too blessed to be stressed.

I look forward to hearing from you in regard to your mortgage needs.

Cheers,

Patrick

p.s- You can click on this link to start the process whenever you are ready. Schedule your meeting with me here.

p.s.s- I should tell you that I am licensed in Nova Scotia, Ontario(M18001555) & in British Columbia(BCFSA #504098).

Game of Patience

Today’s hot real estate market is not for the faint of heart. Not for buyer, Realtor’s or us Brokers. If anything it requires a game of patience. It is now almost commonplace for listings to receive multiple offers and end up selling for much higher than the listing price.

People who are pre approved at 500K have to start house hunting around the 375K mark if they hope to be the successful bidder on the property. Also if the broker or mortgage specialist was smart that would mean that they are pre approved at the maximum amount so putting in an offer at 515K is not going to be approved.

Once becoming the successful bidder now the real work begins for us brokers. Yes we do underwrite up front and our clients all have pre approvals before starting shopping but the lenders are all overwhelmed and back logged. What was a 4 hour turn around time on our files is now turning into 4-5 days.

So let’s all take a deep breath, say Namaste and practice some patience and know that we will get there soon.

I look forward to hearing from you in regard to your mortgage needs.

Cheers,

Patrick

p.s- You can click on this link to start the process whenever you are ready. Schedule your meeting with me here.

p.s.s- I should tell you that I am licensed in Nova Scotia, Ontario(M18001555) & in British Columbia(BCFSA #504098).

Tech Support

Just a quick shout out to all the hero’s working in tech support. While most of us are now working at home, tech support has been a life saver from time to time. Just got off the line with my expert to fix my VOIP business line. Upgraded my soft phone which runs on my laptop last night and it decided it didn’t want to work. Since I spend the majority of my day on the phone with clients, banks and referral sources, having no office line would make for a very unproductive day.

Just like Trevor was there to help me with my tech issues today, if you feel like you need “tech support” for your mortgage then please give me a call as I would love to help you now that my phone is working.

I look forward to hearing from you in regard to your mortgage needs.

Cheers,

Patrick

p.s- You can click on this link to start the process whenever you are ready. Schedule your meeting with me here.

p.s.s- I should tell you that I am licensed in Nova Scotia, Ontario(M18001555) & in British Columbia(BCFSA #504098).

Hard at work

Financing your dream home or refinancing your current home is important work. Let me work hard for you.

I look forward to hearing from you in regard to your mortgage needs.

Cheers,

Patrick

p.s- You can click on this link to start the process whenever you are ready. Schedule your meeting with me here.

p.s.s- I should tell you that I am licensed in Nova Scotia, Ontario(M18001555) & in British Columbia(BCFSA #504098).

I am that guy

I don’t go out drinking with the boys, or play a round of golf a week, or take two hour lunches or even take two week vacations. 9 times out of 10 if you call you will get me unless I am talking on the other line. My job is to get your mortgage approved, sleep, eat, workout early but that’s it.

I look forward to hearing from you in regard to your mortgage needs.

Cheers,

Patrick

p.s- You can click on this link to start the process whenever you are ready. Schedule your meeting with me here.

p.s.s- I should tell you that I am licensed in Nova Scotia, Ontario(M18001555) & in British Columbia(BCFSA #504098).

We could all use a little more Kaizen in our lives

In case you are not familiar with the term, Kaizen stems from the Sino-Japanese word for Improvement or change for the better. This is a concept referring to activities that lead to constant and continuous improvement. This has been applied in many area’s from manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, psychotherapy , personal development coaching, government and banking.

This ironic thing is that American business consultants brought this concept to Japan after the second world war. The magic of this was instead of focusing on large scale changes to processes, it instead talked about implementing small improvements that could be done right away. Toyota adopted this as part of their manufacturing process and yielded large results in terms of their productivity and their quality of products. So much so that by the 90’s rolled around they had over taken GM, Ford and Chrysler in terms of volume and quality.

So what small change can you make today that will help you move your life and productivity in a new and better direction? Can you go for a walk instead of watching another tv show? Can you make a nutritious meal at home instead of having fast food? Can you make some cold calls to improve your sales? Can you put some money away to save for your down payment on your next home or your next big adventure when the world goes back to normal.

Just do something and build upon it and anything will become possible.

I look forward to hearing from you in regard to your mortgage needs.

Cheers,

Patrick

p.s- You can click on this link to start the process whenever you are ready. Schedule your meeting with me here.

p.s.s- I should tell you that I am licensed in Nova Scotia, Ontario(M18001555) & in British Columbia(BCFSA #504098).

it’s all the little things

Sure we all have big gigantic goals that we want to accomplish, but it is not every day that we can knock those big goals off our to do lists. By taking care of the small stuff will help us move in the right direction to achieve the big goals.

Want to loose 50lbs, start by not missing a workout or continuing to eat right. The same goes for saving for a down payment, put 10% of your paycheque into an account that you can’t touch with your debit card, make your coffee at home and cut down on eating out and you will get there in no time at all.

Be consistent with the little things and the larger goals will happen faster than you could possibly imagine. Baring winning the lottery or the discovery of a magic pill, nothing happens overnight. Stay patient and consistent and you will get there much sooner that you would of thought.

I look forward to hearing from you in regard to your mortgage needs.

Cheers,

Patrick

p.s- You can click on this link to start the process whenever you are ready. Schedule your meeting with me here.

p.s.s- I should tell you that I am licensed in Nova Scotia, Ontario(M18001555) & in British Columbia(BCFSA #504098).

Stress Test Changes Ahead

Well not really surprisingly, yesterday the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) proposed changes to the mortgage stress test in an attempt to cool the hot housing market. While theses proposed changes would only effect those putting down 20% or more, they are totally the incorrect approach to dealing with the hot housing market. It is true that almost every market across Canada is experiencing high demand, this is not due to speculation this is because of a lack of supply that is driving up prices.

Think about it we have had several years prior to the pandemic of record levels of immigration. As well as the past year with people working remotely with nowhere to spend their money as they can’t travel nor eat out so they are sitting on record levels of savings. So what are people doing is that they are looking to purchase real estate or move up from their current home.

The challenge is the housing supply has not really changed. It is still taking developers extraordinarily long time to get their projects started, yet now we have more people in the market looking for a place to call home. So the knee jerk reaction is to the move the stress test from 4.79 to 5.25%. Yes they may slow things temporarily but it does noting to address the actual cause of the problem which is a lack of supply. As soon as that is addressed and that will take years, my advice to you is keep saving up and be patient.

I look forward to hearing from you in regard to your mortgage needs.

Cheers,

Patrick

p.s- You can click on this link to start the process whenever you are ready. Schedule your meeting with me here.

p.s.s- I should tell you that I am licensed in Nova Scotia, Ontario(M18001555) & in British Columbia(BCFSA #504098).

Not all Down Payments are created equal

So you are in the market to buy a new to you home. With the current real estate market being as hot ( due to limited supply) as it is make sure that you have the correct down payment in order before you put in your offer. High ratio mortgage insurance ( CMHC, Sagen and Canada Gurantee) is available for purchase prices less than 1,000,000. However to get into a home with the minimum required will depend on the purchase price of the property and of course your credit and income.

5% down payment is the minimum for purchase prices at 500,000 or less. If you are quick at math that is 25,000. However if the house that you really like you ended up getting an accepted offer at 760,000. You will put down 5% of the 1st 500,000 and 10% of the balance. So in this example you will put down 25,000 on the 1st 500K and 26,000 on the remaining 250,000 making it a total of 51,000 down payment. This is compared to putting down 20% which would cost you 152,000.

This 5% down payment should come from your own resources and you will need to provide 90 days history to show that you have not borrowed the funds. However you can receive the 5% down from a blood relative (Mother, Father, Sister or Brother) , this is considered a gift so you don’t have to debt service ( have it included with your debt payments).

I also need to tell you that if you are buying here in Nova Scotia and you have excellent income and credit but are short on the down payment, we have a local lender who will do 0% down to get you in the new home. Ask me for details.

I look forward to hearing from you in regard to your mortgage needs.

Cheers,

Patrick

p.s- You can click on this link to start the process whenever you are ready. Schedule your meeting with me here.

p.s.s- I should tell you that I am licensed in Nova Scotia, Ontario(M18001555) & in British Columbia(BCFSA #504098).

Referrals Please!

Like most service based businesses the lifeblood or our business is referrals. Whether that be from past clients or industry partners like Realtors or Financial Planners. We do not pay for referrals. We do however work to ensure that their financing transaction with us is smoothest and stress free as possible.

I look forward to hearing from you in regard to your mortgage needs.

Cheers,

Patrick

p.s- You can click on this link to start the process whenever you are ready. Schedule your meeting with me here.

p.s.s- I should tell you that I am licensed in Nova Scotia, Ontario(M18001555) & in British Columbia(BCFSA #504098).