As of the current situation right now....people are losing out hard (if you're flipping) on pre-sale... if you live in it sure... but what my realtor told me is... "why would you want to pay a mortgage that's eg// 800k on the pre-sale you are about to move in in the next 60 days, when you can walk across the street on something the same yr, similar specs for 730k instead."

Made a lot of sense. My bff bought presale for 1 reason, they don't plan on moving in 3 yrs later and don't want to specifically buy now....

really depends on your situation.

My MIL is looking at this new development

Home - Element1

I just took a quick peek and there isn't much information on the site. Curious if one of you guys know anything about it. Also if there are any better alternatives if looking at a 2 level townhome.

MIL has a bad habit of buying things on impulse. Things as in homes. And cars. Don't get me started on this stuff............................................. ...

I've driven by this multiple times and it looks okay from the outside.

What really sketched me out one day was during construction, one of the signal/traffic control women was straight up a meth user.

Although the neighbourhood has significantly diversified over the years, the idea that there are no gates/walls is a bit concerning for theft.

I live at the apartment right beside this development and walk by it daily when I walk my dog

I don't think it's 100% complete yet but it's strange that there are no fences on the ground floor

Last time I walked by in the morning, I could see what the tenant was doing and what was inside their home, granted it's not 100% complete yet and I'm sure they will install fences on the ground floor units

Neighbor is alright, I haven't seen any weird things go on at night while walking the dog but it is by the skytrain station so expect some weird people at night on occasion

Hey

anyone ever use this company's services and are they reputable?

https://realmortgage.net/

I need a new mortgage broker because the guy I used a while back no longer does it.

So it's not complete, yet ppl are living inside? Don't they need a permit before moving in?

Also is there a show home or anything I can go see?

Couldn't tell if it's completed or not, just doesn't looked like to me last time I walked by it.

I'm not sure where their show rooms are but there should be one where potential owners can see, best to contact someone there and see what they say

BoC cutting their rates. My variable 2.5% is down to 2%. Thank you coronavirus.

I'm coming up for renewal in may, perfect timing for the rate drop

Damn. That's crazy.

No one is living in them AFAIK. They were still prepping the show room/townhouse so I'm sure they were just workers.

I might look into renewing early to take advantage of these rates. Is that a good or bad idea? (Currently at 3.39%, did my mortage in 2018).

do the math and see if the penalty is great than or less than how much you would save on interest.

just so happen to get some mail from MCAP yesterday and they're offering 2.59%

my broker is giving me the following as options:

- Scotia bank 5 year @ 2.69%
- Scotia bank 5 year @ 2.85% but that includes adding in my truck ($22K remaining at 3.49%) plus being able to do a HELOC (thinking of buying a rental property)

thoughts?

my real question is whether or not i lump my truck into the mortgage...my gut tells me no but i would like to see the numbers. my plan would be take the money i'm putting on the truck $600/month and just add that to my mortgage. would that make sense and save me money, no regardless right?

2.85% sounds high at this point. Why would they charge you more for borrowing more. Rates should go down the more you borrow

Tangerine is showing 2.39% for a 5 year fixed mortgage.
Even at 2.69% seems high.

Use a broker and shop around. They can usually answer questions like that pretty easily. I'm thinking you can get something less than 2.69

Was in the process of legalizing my 2 suite in a single family home, backyard looking into the parking lot at trout lake.
Was thinking of having it ready to list by summer but if the reports are true I should just unload now.
Shitty part would be to legalize it and have a developer buy it and tear it down lol.

For whatever reason our broker was always able to get the lowest rate out of Scotia. She used to work there but even going over her and getting quotes from other places Scotia was always the lowest rate

I really don’t like Scotia though and have had nothing but bad experiences with them. As well, we have very little transparency with our mortgage or HELOC with them because we don’t do our banking with them. Even though we’ve got hundreds of thousands tied up with them they want you to use them for banking to be able to access all your loans on demand...

They also fucked up big time initially when we went with them, the dumb agent told us we could get some sort of high interest term deposit if we had 10k in a chequing account with them, we did this but after we did we contacted them and what we were told wasn’t reality so we went in to pull out the 10k

We were able to withdraw 10k in cash by showing an account number on a phone.. we never once showed ID or verified anything...

I'm using a broker....he's pushing the scotia 2.89 rate with the HELOC and lumping my truck in

That rate was good like 2 years ago. Get a new broker

My broker got me 2.53 fixed back in December which I was happy with.

Brokers may not be the best channel nowadays as monoline lenders are increasingly doing direct sales to clients, rather than through the broker channel.

The consensus these days for no-frills mortgages is Motusbank, which is a subsidiary of Meridian Credit Union. They're a consistently recommended lender on RedFlagDeals and Reddit personal finance.

Just saw the signs for the showroom today. Looks like it's on site.

Wife was interested so we took a look at this place. It's still under construction; there are three showrooms to preview (which will eventually be sold).

While the layout is subjective, the build quality was not impressive. Tiles visibly not aligned, wall angled out on one end..