Debt casts shadow on this family’s savings plan + MORE Oct 11th

(Andy Ryan/Getty Images)
In last issue’s editorial, I mentioned I recently plunged into Toronto’s deranged housing market. I quickly discovered that buying a house is expensive, bewildering and stressful. To make the process a little easier, I hired a trio of professionals to look out for me: a real estate agent, a mortgage broker and a lawyer. Or at least I thought I did. By the end of the process, I realized that some of the people I thought I hired to work for me were secretly working for someone else. Here are five lessons I wish I’d learned before buying.
Follow the money. The first lesson is that if you don’t understand how your real estate agent, your mortgage broker and your lawyer get paid, you won’t understand where their allegiances lie. As a buyer, I thought my agent was working solely for me, but it turns out she gets paid by the seller of the house, splitting a 5% commission with the seller’s agent. My mortgage broker wasn’t paid by me either, but by the financial institution that provided my mortgage…

Margins on commodities are paper thin. To get a better price you have to buy in quantity. Take sugar for example. Buy one bag and pay $2.50 a kilogram. Buy 25 kilograms and pay $1 per. It’s possible that we’ll someday see mortgage pricing commonly quoted “in bulk.” Just this week, ICICI Bank announced new […]

How we came up with the grades
Canada's 100 best dividend stocks
Retirement 100 all-stars
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We were pleased to see Power Financial (PWF) and the Bank of Montreal (BMO) get top grades again this year, as they did in 2013. Both offer dividend yields approaching 4% and trade at price-to-earnings ratios of just under 13, which is quite low compared to most Canadian stocks.
Three big banks earned solid ‘B’s this year—they are the Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), CIBC (CM), and TD Bank (TD). Of the bunch, TD offers the lowest yield (at 3.3%) but it has also grown its dividend the most over the last five years.
Insurance firms were popular B-listers too, with Industrial Alliance Insurance (IAG), and Genworth MI Canada (MIC) getting the nod. Genworth is the cheapest of the two on a price-to-book-value basis (at 1.1 times), which reflects the market’s unease with its mortgage insurance business.
Other B-graders include ATCO (ACO.X) and Emera (EMA), which are classified as utilities…

With a daunting mortgage and uncertain income levels, couple still hope to retire at 55

Company: Denova Group Location of position: Calgary, Alberta Advertise your mortgage job opening today! Click here to post. Or browse CMT’s Mortgage Jobs Database. Mortgage Underwriter Position Overview: Residential Underwriting, the Mortgage Underwriter is responsible for rendering credit decisions on incoming applications consistent with internal and insurer policies, underwriting mortgage commitments, and verifying supporting documentation […]