Rich at any age: In your 40s + MORE Jul 4th

People like to complain about aging but one of the upsides—particularly in your 40s—is being able to build wealth. For many, the 40s is a great decade—your paycheques are climbing while debt’s heading in the opposite direction. Finally, you can breathe. Heck, you can even afford an occasional night on the town without dreading the credit card bill. Just don’t start easing up on all the progress you’ve been making. Sure, you’ve already put aside a nice chunk of change for the kids’ college fund and the mortgage is finally creeping down—so let that financial momentum inspire you to achieve even more. Remember, at the end of your 40s retirement won’t seem that far away.
Master your debt
“By this decade you’re hopefully getting toward the end of your mortgage,” says Dan Hallett, director of asset management for HighView Financial Group. “More of the payments are now going to the principal, and you’re less sensitive to those payments.” So if you’re on track with a reasonable plan, don’t feel pressured to divert cash flow away from money you’ve been setting aside for your nest egg…

For prospective first-time buyers, entering Canada’s housing market isn’t cheap — especially in urban centres like Vancouver and Toronto. Detached homes in those cities typically cost owners at least $5,000 in mortgage payments each month. In May, the average sale price of resale detached home in Toronto was $1.15 million — an increase of 18.2 per cent from May 2014.
And today’s record-low mortgage rates, while aiding in first-time home buyer affordability, aren’t much of a help for those looking to upsize – move-up buyers can expect to pay a difference of $3,000 in mortgage payments between condo and house ownership.
It’s no wonder that 83 per cent of respondents feel it’s less affordable to buy a home today compared to past generations, according to RateSupermarket.ca’s Not Your Mother’s Mortgage poll.
In Search of Bigger Pastures
So what do you do when you find yourself priced out of your dream home? For some, moving away is the solution. According to a recent RSM social poll, 37 per cent of respondents stated they would move to a new region if it meant affording a bigger home…

Empowering independent mortgage brokers. That’s been the battle cry for two recent upstart broker networks. The newest is Broker Financial Group (we’ll call it BFG) which officially launches next week. BFG is a new broker organization offering a: 95/5 split to independent brokerage firms, or a Flat-fee model (similar concept to VERICO, RMA, and others). The point man behind the company is principal broker Jason Singh. Singh and his co-founders are launching the company to aggregate volume, build better technology and develop ancillary product offerings. “I figured, if I’m going to do it for my brokerage, I might as well READ MORE

(Getty Images/Arda Guldogan)
If you’re considering buying your first home, or cottage, or other type of property then you’re probably in the market for a mortgage. But to do that you’ll need to learn mortgage basics.
A mortgage is a loan you obtain from a bank or other lender that helps you finance your real estate purchase. Any quick Google search of mortgage calculators will bring up thousands of hits that can help you determine what you can afford—but mortgages are more than just math. Mortgages reflect the values we hold, the hopes and fears of the future, as well as our tolerance for risk and uncertainty.
To pick the best mortgage, then, you’ll need to understand your options.
Typically, a mortgage will consist of two parts: the principal sum (the amount borrowed) and interest (the cost of borrowing that money). In general, the best plan is to minimize the amount of interest you pay. However the decision on what mortgage to select has become more complicated over the last decade—interest rates have dropped to historical lows, and mortgage lenders have created and offered a variety of variations to the once-standard types of mortgages…