Five years ago I acquired a variable rate mortgage from CIBC. It was the cheapest rate I could find at the time. I was quite pleased with the rate but that mortgage term expired a couple of months ago. So I shopped around to see if I can find another good deal. I expected my mortgage to become… Read More »
Stock Markets Reach Record Highs… Again Both the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 indexes have climbed to all time highs in late July. 🙂 But corporate earnings have been stagnant and economic growth remains weak. Restaurant sales have slowed. The U.S. economy only grew a disappointing 1.2% in the second quarter, well below expectations. 😕 So what’s… Read More »
Real Estate Incentives Financial advisors sometimes get a bad reputation for not having their client’s best interest in mind. Many continue to earn commissions even if their client’s portfolio is losing money. But what about real estate agents? Their compensation structure is also heavily based on commissions. They often earn a percentage from the final sale of a… Read More »
Real Estate Ad Terms Some folks might think using words like “charming,” or “spacious” in a properly listing is smart and would result in a higher sale price. But in reality the opposite is true. Here are 10 common real estate ad terms. Half of them have strong positive correlations with a higher sale price, and the other half is… Read More »
House it Going in the Real Estate Market? So this is the kind of house you can expect to buy in Vancouver today for about $1.19 million. To put this into context, the same $1.19 million could be used instead to create a dividend growth portfolio that would generate $40,000 each year of tax advantaged income for a lifetime. 🙂… Read More »
Mortgage Investment Corporations Returns in 2015 The Toronto Stock Exchange lost about 9% last year. But one group of investments that performed well in 2015 were mortgage investment corporations (MIC.) In the beginning of 2015 I held three different MICs. Since I didn’t add any new positions throughout the year it’s easy to calculate my total annual returns from them. Let’s take a… Read More »