Richards Mortgage Group Articles

The job market and economy isn’t what it used to be. Mike had worked for many years in Canada’s well-paying resource sector but like many others lost his job as international employers abandoned Canada in favour of other parts of the world with less political interference and more investment certainty. With a wife and young children to support, Mike did what he had to do and searched for work overseas. Finally, he got an offer and took up employment with a large Dutch multi-national engineering firm operating in Saudi Arabia, and paying in Euros.

In this blog, we are going to talk about how a client of mine was able to rearrange her finances such that she and her partner could mortgage qualify for a $400K target house in their neighborhood.

A prepayment is a lump-sum payment that you make, in addition to your regular mortgage payments, before the end of your mortgage term. The prepayment reduces your outstanding balance and allows you to pay off your mortgage faster.

When you receive a loan offer or mortgage commitment letter from a lender, it will outline a number of key terms including the Total Loan Amount.

Choosing the correct mortgage term can help reduce the lifetime cost of your mortgage financing. The wrong term could cost you!

Amortization refers to the length of time over which a debt is repaid. Your maximum amortization period on a mortgage is capped, but you can shorten it if you want to save on interest expense. The amortization period on a mortgage is the total length of time it will take you to pay off your mortgage. If your down payment is less than 20 percent of the purchase price of your home, the longest amortization period allowed is 25 years. Longer amortization periods are allowed for non-insured mortgages of 30 to 35 years, and - with some specialty loan products - interest-only payments are available.