Do you have a green mortgage and a green home?

Hey everyone, hope Father's Day is off to a good start on this sunny day in Montreal. Today, I got inspired to write about having a green home. Often we all talk about being green by participating in our city's recycling and composting programs. I think we are all pretty green minded but post-recycling and car pooling we're not sure what next.

Personally, I don't think we do enough for the environment nor are living in a sustainable manner. As home owners or future home owners there are three ways you can help your pocket and help the environment, by: either buying an energy efficient home, making energy efficient renovations to your new home or renovate your existing home.

When buying an energy efficient home (or making energy efficient saving renovations), should you meet certain criteria both CMHC and Genworth will refund 10% of your insurance premium. On a mortgage of $200,000 you would save approximately $500 on your premium. According to the Quebec Government, by making these changes you'd save approximately 20% on your energy costs. Furthermore, through the Quebec Government's Novoclimat 2.0 Program you'd receive an additional $1000 in financial assistance. Is saving $1500 upfront and 20% on your energy bills enough? Let's take this discussion a bit further...

As many of your know I like Mike Holmes and the innovative ideas he shares. If you read his website you will see lots of green home ideas, which includes: roofing, heating and cooling, alternative lighting, power, and improving the building envelope. The aspect I find most interesting is water use. Mike talks about greywater, which is "used water that comes from sinks and drains, as well as reclaimed rainwater collected from a home’s roofs." The greywater is then held, filtered and sent back into the house for re-use. The water cannot be used for drinking, showering or bathing but definitely useful for watering the lawn, laundry, washing your car, and flushing toilets.

Mike states there are no Federal or Provincial building guidelines for greywater systems. In addition "Each individual municipality accepts or rejects proposed greywater systems that homeowners might want to install."

I am glad that Mike and people like him are sharing these ideas. I just wish our governments were a bit more ahead of the times by adopting more green building codes and help bring these topics into mainstream discussion.

Reviewing article: "The bank said no - now what?"

Good afternoon Montreal Real Estate world. Today, I am reviewing an article that caught my eye in the National Post entitled "The bank said no - now what?" Susan Smith does a great job painting the current mortgage landscape and impact of the post-2008 Federal Government rule changes. However, I'd add a couple things. Susan Smith discusses how the rules changes have impacted certain consumers, I shall solely focus on the self-employed.

The Self Employed: Okay, here is the unplugged truth for anyone self employed. Is it really harder for self employed people to qualify for a mortgage? I'd say it depends on your specific circumstances (declaring income and credit quality are the usual suspects). According to Susan, "The government...tightened requirements for the self-employed, requiring independent validation of income statements." In other words, the Federal Government is forcing the self employed to declare more income on their income taxes. It is much harder to get a mortgage with an "A-lender" under the self employed program without declaring anything reasonable. For example, the most common insured self-employed program would be Genworth's Alt-A program. They require strong credit history, a +680 score, incomes taxes to be filed and up-to-date for 2 years, and no income tax arrears owed. Generally, when applying for a mortgage your income declared on line 150 of your notice of assessment can be multiplied by 2-2.5 of the stated income. Usually, this type of financing referred as "common sense financing." In other words, say you are a plumber or electrician declaring $45,000 personally hence we may be able to an auto-declared income under this program at $90,000 in order to qualify for your mortgage. In such cases your mortgage would incur an extra mortgage insurance premium.

As the article points out, there are alternative lender options like Home Trust or Equitable Bank that exist. Using an alternative bank the interest rate can be between approximately between 3.89-6.99% depending on the term. Rates here as understandably based on risk. The "country’s 2.75 million self-employed workers – a group that, according to Statistics Canada, has a higher median net worth than paid employees." Self employed individuals are made out to sound more risky compared than salaried individuals. The self employed must declare more income whether we like it or not. Sometimes it makes sense to work with an alternative lender for 1-3 years but with a mortgage plan you can switch to an "A -lender" thereafter depending on your circumstances. 

The article mentions private lender, I shall write a separate blog entry on that subject.  

Genworth and CMHC Mortgage Assistance Coordinates

Hey everyone, I had a quite a bit of feedback and calls in response to my blog post related to Home Owner Assistance Programs. Thanks for the feedback and glad to hear that the information was useful. I got a couple calls requesting Genworth's and CMHC's mortgage assistance coordinates. I thought I'd post them in case others might need them too. If you don't remember if you are insured with the CMHC or Genworth then simply call your bank and ask. They will know.

Genworth Financial Canada
1-800-511-8888
http://www.homeownerassistance.ca

Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)
1-866-358-9999 and ask for a default agent or "agent gestion défaut"

Homeowner Assistance Programs

Hope everyone’s had a good week. In this week’s blog, I’dlike to talk a little about mortgage assistance programs. Mortgage assistanceprograms are aimed to help Canadian homeowners who are having temporary trouble making their mortgage payments. Common situations like job loss,reduced income, marital separation, or unexpected illness and disabilityclearly contribute to one’s ability to their mortgage. In order to qualify forsuch programs you first need to have had bought or refinanced your home witheither the Canadian Mortgage and HousingCorporation (CMHC) or GenworthFinancial which are the two major mortgage insurers in Canada. In otherwords, you needed to have picked up some mortgage or aka default insurance inthe past.  

If you find yourself having trouble paying your mortgage dueto one of the reasons listed above then its best you speak to your bank aboutyour options. I suggest this be done before you becomes late on payments and itbecomes a problem. Together your bank and your insurer will discuss yoursituation and if possible create a plan that helps you out. The mortgage insurershave specialists that deal with such matters. Some options permit you toincrease your amortization, defer payments or even create a shared paymentplan.

I don’t think enough homeowners are aware that such programsexist.  If you feel you need assistancewith your mortgage I would be more than happy to guide you to the best of myabilities regardless if you become a client or not. I am more interested inhelping you get back on track. After all there are bigger things to worry aboutin life.

If you have any specific questions or good and badexperiences you’d like to share please feel free to contact me. I welcometopics for next week’s blog.

Self-employed and thinking of buying?

Hard to believe but another amazing week has flown by andnow we’re already into the month of October. A topic that I get askedfrequently about is first time buyers that are self-employed. Inother words, individuals that own their own registered company or professionssuch as independent copy-writers or truck drivers that are looking to buy ahome.  If it sounds like you fit in one of these categories then here area couple suggestions to help you get closer to qualifying for a mortgage.

First, whether you have your own registered company or notplease file both Federal and Provincial income taxes (personal and business) ontime. I know it sounds very basic but I’ve seen many mortgages both residentialand commercial either delayed or cancelled because the client has not filed. Ifyou are thinking of buying in the near future and your 2010 Notice ofAssessments show that you owe balance to either Government please pay offthe balance and keep proof of payment. More and more banks are asking to seethis documented.

Next, figuring out your buying capacity as a self-employedperson is the next order of business. In Canada, we can pin-point your incomebased on an average of 2 years notice of assessment and/or having a look atyour financial statements (specifically gross annual sales) for your company.The general rule of thumb is that figuring out your income needs to make sense.Banks typically balance between personal and business assessments to figure outone’s overall personal income. As a self-employed individual, we generateincome but we tend to expense as much as possible, hence why our Notice ofAssessments can show low declared income. Some of those expenses can bemade with a registered company.

Finally, if your income is solely based on an average ofyour Notice of Assessments then you can put a minimum of 5% down. Ifhowever, your income is qualified on your Notice of Assessments andbusiness’ financial statements or “self-declared sales” then you will berequired to put 10% down. This rule applies to all banks in Canada.

If you have any specific questions you’d like to discuss innext week’s article please feel free to email me.