Turbodan

unless things have changed most mortgages allow 15% early prepayment each year and ability to change to biweekly and I think you also can double your payments at any time (this from memory)
fyi; I also paid off my mortgage years ago then bought a more expensive house so now I owe some.
btw if you take mortgage to fund your investments you can write off the interest using the smith manoeuvre

Turbodan

answer is 5 year fixed 2.8-2.9 % in my opinion is a good rate today. if new mortgage get them to cover appraisal and legal (not sure if they will do this today)

btw Hoffa answered in the very first reply to this thread

BT ZR1

[QUOTE=911 Rod;10581338]Normally important questions like this go to my hockey buddies. lol

I'm looking at a 5 year closed variable mortgage and have been offered 2.6%

Any thoughts?

Thanks
Rod[/QUO


Closed variable? your trapped when rates start to rise. Depends where you are in life and risk tolerance. Rates are going up , no secret there, so your variable will increase over time. if you are tight now you will be worse later. if you are doing just fine , why not opt for a fixed rate and have piece of mind. Or if you have enough dough in your rrsp give yourself a mortgage.

911 Rod

Sounds like my 2.79% 5 year fixed is pretty good.

Yes Hoffa did answer in the first reply. My apologies.

[QUOTE=BT ZR1;10584510]I'm not tight now or will be if the rates go up, but a piece of mind is good and I spend sooo much money on tires I shouldn't be wasteful

Turbodan

with a variable you are not trapped, you can lock the rate any time.

911 Rod

That is correct, but I don't think the negotiation on a rate will be in your favour at that time as it is now.

petee_c

Here's how we did it,...

1. Sell your investments high (in on Nortel at $2, out at $110), then pay off your house.

2. Borrow against your house (secured LOC / HELOC) at prime, and then buy some safe investments - cdn banks etc)

3. Write off 40% of the cost of the loan, cause its now an investment loan.

4. Get out

Imo000

Step one is pretty much legalized gambling, you got lucky and that's fine but next time or the next person trying this might not be so lucky.

BT ZR1

Sure you can but with zero leverage. You pay the posted rate. Like I said, trapped when rates start to rise.

wc11

In the end, the question "What is a good mortgage rate" is moot.

Unless you can get 0% from a family member, the lowest possible at the time of application/or renewal obviously from any institution.

Luiz

I guess, now the best mortgage rate can be said as 1.99%, but it looks like history is repeating. There was a similar situation around 7 to 8 years back when the rates were lowered just to attract more people to take up mortgage loans. Following the same many private financial solution services like Safebridge Financial Group, Ontario GTA, have decreased their mortgage rates to a much lower scale. But the question is whether it will remain the same for a longer period or not.

BeachBoy

Be careful with that 1.99 as you are bound to this lender as long as you own the home, meaning unless you sell it you can't ge tout of it...

And since it's a variable, their prime -1.01% might be prime +2% later, who knows!

theiceman

Had a customer a year from retirement ... a nice indian fellow with a large family living in a large home ..
He Mortgaged it to the hilt to buy Nortel stocks as he wanted to retire early ... things hit the fan and he lost it all excpet a few thousand dollars ... he felt soo bad he bought his whole family tickets to go back to India for a nice vacation .. the next day Canada 3,000 went **** up ...

he asked what i thought of all that .. i thought about it for a bit and replied ..
"take one rather large step back away from me please " ..

sad but true...

myw

cannot agree more with iceman + imo000.

re nortel (or the market in general), it's a combination of a blind luck/seasoned discipline/futures insight (or insider info)... not to mention housing is in a different cost stratosphere since nortel was 110$. hats off to the gentleman that did it but i don't know many others that did.

myw

1.99% crazy. i guess that's the real reason for Toronto all time high housing costs.