Mortgage brokers DO NOT work for one financial institution, we are independent. More lenders are available and competing for your business introducing more features and options. We find out what service is right for you.

Allows us to offer you more choices with competitive rates.

We save you time. We can shop dozens of lenders in the time it takes you to book an appointment at the bank. We also do house calls so you don’t have to take time off to visit a bank.

Our advice is impartial. We look after your best interest. We work for you. Unbiased professionals, we offer different options that will give you the freedom to choose .

We offer fast, efficient service. Our experience serves your needs and expectation. We are not hired by any of the lenders. We only get paid upon completion of your mortgage by the financial institution you chose. We are motivated in working efficiently to get your mortgage properly completed.

Today, more and more people chose mortgage brokers over banks because of the service and rates, mostly because we are specialists in mortgages and will not try to sell you other products like some banks do. Mortgage brokers specialise in serving all types of different clients: commercial, residential, good or impaired credit alike.

OTTAWA — New regulations came into effect Wednesday that the federal government says will protect credit-card holders from unexpected costs and help them make better financial decisions.

“Our government has taken action to make financial products more transparent for consumers,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said in a statement.

The rules mandate a minimum 21-day interest-free grace period on all new credit card purchases when a customer pays the outstanding balance in full.

As well, any customer payments made in excess of the required minimum must either be allocated to the balance with the higher interest rate first or distributed proportionally to each type of balance, such as cash advances or purchases.

Another changes is that credit-card issuers must inform consumers on their monthly statement how long it would take to fully repay the balance if only the minimum payment is made every month. For example, a $1,000 balance with an 18 per cent interest rate would take more than 10 years to pay off.

The new rules also require the disclosure of interest-rate increases prior to their taking effect, even if the information had been included in the contract.

Bruce Cran, president of the Consumer Association of Canada, said he agrees with everything in the regulation.

“There is a lot of benefit to the consumer. (The rules) are all things that we have been asking for,” he said.

The only concern he has, he said, is that many Canadians aren’t aware of the rules because the government hasn’t publicized them aggressively enough. He said his organization has been fielding more calls than it can handle from consumers asking about the new changes.

He also warned that any regulation can have unintended consequences and the association is adopting a “wait-and-see” attitude.

The new regulation comes after Mr. Flaherty created a voluntary code of conduct in November for credit-card companies in an attempt to help shield merchants from escalating costs. At the time, Mr. Flaherty said that if credit-card issuers didn’t comply, the voluntary code would become mandatory. The voluntary code includes the right for merchants to cancel their contracts with a payment processor without penalty.

The finance minister’s code-of-conduct proposal won immediate praise from merchant groups, which said greater transparency, enhanced competition and merchant choice will keep a check on processing fees and consumer prices.
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Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/news/credit+card+rules+take+effect/3469502/story.html#ixzz0yK9Zza00

Committed to excellence in every endeavour, Yvonne will work hard for you, using the highest ethical standards, with honesty, integrity, and sincerity.

Yvonne Savary, Mortgage Agent – Licence# M10000582
CENTUM Mortgage Express Ltd.
262 Front Street N., Belleville ON K8N 2Z2
Direct Line: 613.965.6276
Fax: 613.967.4688
Email: yvonne_savary@centum.ca

When it comes to insurance, there are three almost universal truths: Canadians hate thinking about it, begrudge paying for it and the majority of us don’t have anywhere near enough of it.

The first two attitudes are easy to understand. Insurance is a downer. Besides that whole “death or dismemberment thing,” you are betting against the future health of yourself and your loved ones. And then you have to pay for it, when that cash flow could be put to “better” use paying down the mortgage, starting an education fund for the kids or replacing the rattling family beater.

“Nobody likes insurance. Generally when you mention insurance, people want to grab the waste paper basket and throw up into it,” said Brian Poncelet, who is an insurance specialist and independent certified financial planner based in Mississauga.

Like others in the field, Mr. Poncelet starts with the assumption that young families are seriously underinsured when it comes to covering the earnings of the breadwinners, even if they had group insurance through their employers. He also takes the approach that most twenty and thirtysomething families have limited ability – or desire – to buy additional insurance.

Because of that reality, he finds ways to pay for additional coverage within the family budget. One surprising source: existing insurance policies. A good example is raising the deductible on home insurance, as Mr. Poncelet did on his own policy, bumping it from $500 to $5,000 and freeing up $500 annually which can be put towards insurance against the loss of income. “Same thing with auto insurance,” he said, noting people generally carry a pricey low deductible on an aging vehicle that in many cases would not be worth committing to expensive repairs.

When sitting down with a “typical” young family with two kids and a house, insurance adviser Andy Hall of Mitchell Sandham looks first at the home. “First and foremost is protection of their biggest investment, which is their home.” Besides contents and property insurance, he is a big believer in mortgage insurance (more on that later).

Mr. Hall, like other experts, finds most people he sees do not carry enough life insurance to cover the loss of income of a family breadwinner. Group insurance, “usually one-and-a-half to two-times salary” is generally not enough to cover current and future liabilities. First of all, let’s look at the group policy covering someone with a $50,000 annual salary. “Everyone thinks it’s two-times $50,000, it isn’t,” he said. “It is two-times your actual [take home] pay. The other thing is that benefits paid through a work policy are taxable, benefits paid through a life insurance policy are not.” As well, that group insurance can quickly disappear with job loss.

While mortgage insurance is a valuable component of a family’s financial plan, where to buy it from is at least as important as the terms of the policies, says Mr. Poncelet. “A lot of people buy mortgage insurance through a bank which is a big No No.” While it may be convenient to obtain mortgage insurance from the same place that you obtain your mortgage, families can inadvertently cancel their insurance when they move their mortgages to a different lender. As well, the bank-offered policies are a bad deal because the payments stay the same even through the principal being insured falls shrinks over time. “If the person is healthy, it will be cheaper and they can get more coverage” with a non-bank insurer, Mr. Poncelet concluded.

When it comes to life insurance, Mr. Poncelet advises that not all policy types are created equal. He believes people should only buy Term policies which offer the option to convert to Permanent policies and that people should look to convert Term policies to Permanent insurance whenever possible because the incidence of chronic or serious conditions will make it harder to obtain insurance in a more-infirm future. “They may not be able to get any more insurance anywhere.”

While people may approach insurance as a commodity, prices vary widely so buyers are encouraged to either shop around themselves or use a broker who can quote rates from a number of insurers. “When it comes to life insurance, critical illness, long-term disability and long-term care insurance, there are more providers than most people know,” said Frank Wiginton, a certified financial planner with TriDelta Financial Partners. “If you are not dealing with an independent financial broker you may not be given the option or you may not be shown the other companies’ options.”

As a financial planner first and foremost, he believes insurance needs have to be looked at as part of an overall family financial plan that includes retirement goals, investments and education needs for children.

How much is enough?

While insurance professionals say most of us are under-insured, the reality of tight budgets and resistance to insurance makes it tough to convince families to buy more.

Mr. Poncelet gives the example of a married couple in their mid-30s with two young children as a representative example. The couple approached him about mortgage insurance for their $200,000 mortgage. Both the husband and wife, with a combined income of about $140,000, have two-times salary insurance through their employers but he convinced them to both take out 20-year Term policies with a death payout of $500,000 each. “It is still not enough,” he said, estimating that both should have taken out million-dollar policies each to maintain their current standard of living for a 15-year period if one of the main breadwinners were to die, effectively doubling their premiums to $100 monthly per person.

“For a lousy $50, if something happened [they] would have another half million dollars,” Mr. Poncelet said.

Special to The Globe and Mail

Under the terms of the initiative set to be halted on 1 February 2010, homeowners can spend up to $10,000 on qualifying items or work to earn the maximum renovation credit.

Qualifying expenditures include repairs, alterations and preventative maintenance for a home or apartment suite owned by the applicant. labour, materials and equipment rental costs are all covered under the tax credit system.

Ottawa homeowners are being urged to take advantage of the tax credit ahead of the expected increase in labour and home repair costs due in July 2010 when Ontario adopts the harmonised sales tax.

Source: http://www.mortgagebrokernews.ca/news/ottawa-renovation-tax-credit-window-set-to-close/38492
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Robert Carry

Housing starts in October were up to 157,300 units from 149,300 in September, according to the data, indicating that things could be headed towards a buyer’s market.

“The improvement in housing starts in October is attributable to improvement in the multiple starts segment,” said CMHC chief economist, Bob Dugan. “Despite a small decline in single home starts in October, the level of single home starts remains at its second highest level since October 2008.”

Urban starts were also up 5.2 percent to 139,900, and CMHC forecasts new home constructions for 2010 will also go up from 150,300 to 164,900.

Source: http://www.mortgagebrokernews.ca/news/a-recovery-in-the-making-cmhc/38556
Thursday, 12 November 2009

“Fixed rates were advantageous during only two recent periods – through the late 1970s and briefly in the late 1980s; in both cases, ahead of a period of rising interest rates, as is the case now,” the report by BMO economists Douglas Porter and Benjamin Reitzes said.

Variable rate products have proven the better option 82 per cent of the time since 1975, Porter and Reitzes wrote, and forecast that variables will continue to remain cheaper than fixed rate mortgages. This is in part due to the rising Canadian dollar, which has reduced the Bank of Canada’s short-term need to raise the key interest rate.

On the other side, the report argued the economic recovery – and the expected rise in interest rates next year – has potentially caused “one of those rare periods when a fixed rate turns out to be the superior choice.” It also pointed out that negotiated rates (as opposed to posted rates) make fixed and variable products closer to call.

Source: http://www.mortgagebrokernews.ca/news/38117/details.aspx
Monday, 26 October 2009

I have worked for the past 25+ years in office Administration for Century 21 in Trenton.

I decided to venture into a new field and figured the transition to the mortgage/financial arena was a natural choice.

If you are looking for someone to handle your mortgaging needs, don’t hesitate to give me a call and for your convenience….. I WILL COME TO YOU.
CHERYL BURNS, MORTGAGE AGENT (Lic #M09000430)
CENTUM Mortgage Express Ltd.
DIRECT 613-847-6410
E-Mail:  cheryl_burns@centum.ca
441 Front St., Trenton, On K8V 6C1
(613) 392-2511

Tel: (613) 354-1197
Fax: (613) 354-1162
Email: david_rorabeck@centum.ca

Tel: (613) 922-3263
Cell: (613) 967-8024
Fax: (613) 967-4688
Email: marjorie_stewart@centum.ca