Buchan6

We had a flexible mortgage with the savings pot facility in the UK which allowed you to over pay or take breaks in payment without any financial penalty.

Is this product offered in Canada. ?

Bleech

In England we had a NatWest One mortgage which is sort of like a big overdraft, so you can take money out, pay money in etc. Got the same over here and it's called A Line of Credit.
Our mortgage is for $250,000 and we're paying about $1200 a month, but that's interest only. Just accepted an offer on our UK house though, so hopefully that'll be quite a bit smaller soon

Buchan6

Yeah, thats the type of product i was referring to, many thanks.

Whats the mortgage duration given your payments ?
Was hoping not to have a mortgage here, but thats just not gonna happen, At present, basing future payments on the fact they'll be less than what were currently paying to lease.

Bleech

We intended not to have one as well, but just didnt work out that way. Rising house prices and crappy exchange rate kicked us where it hurts.
We couldn't get a mortgage either unless we put 35% down as a deposit which was a bit of a shock, bad planning on our behalf
Our line of credit is over 25 years and we pay into it once a month. But we'll put money into it when we sell the UK house and we can overpay when we feel like it, so it's nice and flexible with no penalty for paying it off early.

Buchan6

Any advice on who to use / not to use. Was initially looking at using our bank HSBC who from our experiences have been excellent to date.

glenlivet

Can you let us know who you used and how much the intrest rate is for the line of credit? I've been told by a mortgage broker that the interest rate for lines of credit are not fixed and are normally always higher than the mortgage rates.

Cheers,

Roy

Bleech

Yeah sure. Trying to find out now, but the OH deals with all that stuff. I just do the work

Bleech

We basically use TD Canada trust for everything. No particular reason, but they sorted out mortgage out and were really helpfull. That's one thing we've noticed since been here is that you do actually get a more personal service, the bank clerks get to know you and there's no glass screens or silly speakers to chat to them through. Oh and they give you chocolate brownies as well

Mans

I'm with TD to......had great service too...no chocolate brownies though
Its a line of credit with a 3 year fixed term at 4.25% (though a line of credit...can only pay 15% off each year)

I've decided to stretch myself in Canada :scared: .

Though I can cover my mortgage.....its currently over $2250pm plus property tax (25 year term)....I decided to keep an investment flat in London which is paying itself plus a bit on top (has grown by £90,000 in 2 years ) and also bought a state of the art Condo in Mississauga which completes next Spring...which I intend on renting out too.

I feel with interest rates relatively low...would prefer to borrow and speculate.

If sh.t hits the fan...can always sell these to pay off my mortgage...riskier stratergy...but decide to leverage myself to accumualte more in the long run

Rgds
Mans

Bleech

Pretty sure our line of credit must be the same thing then, but we did stipulate that we were intending on putting a chunk of cash in when we sell our UK house, and py it off earlier so we havent got the 15% clause.
No brownies?? You need to have a word with your manager

Piff Poff

Our property tax on a lovely 4 bed 3 bath house in a mature neighbourhood is just under $2000 per year.

Mans

Can't beleive I did not get any Brownies....i'll get them to offset this against my next purchase of a cheque book (now thats a rip - off)

Rgds
Mans

Bleech

Brownies and suckers (lolipops) for the kids. They actually ask to go to the bank, cunning plan by the bank managers.

Hit&Run

Are u joking? Do you have to pay for a cheque book ? That is a rip off

In terms of mortgage my view, working in the Treasury department of a large multinational, is that one should borrow ( gear up ) as much as they can when they are younger. The reason being that a mortgage is normally regarded as good debt i.e no one will lend you a sum of say $300k plus at a rate of 5%.

I mean in the corporate world the likes of Unilever (the co I work for) always borrow money to finance their operations. Multinationals all round the world try and gear up as

But again it all comes down to individual preference, how much are you comfortable paying, are you risk taker or risk cautious etc. I am willing to
take a chance and stretch myself.

Cheers

Mans

Thats exactly the view I took.

But don't get too carried away....its easy to borrow......what if we have a property crash, nightmare of a tennant or void rental periods (if you decide to rent a property)....just make sure you do the sums and can take the risk.
If it works out...which in the long run, I think is a pretty good bet...things will work out great...just make sure you can handle/afford the shorter term problems of servicing the debt.

Rgds
Mans