I wanted to talk about the good and the bad sides to lease to own homes. Lease to own is also called LTO, RTO, rent to own, lease to own. But essentially what you’re doing is you are leasing to own a home much like you lease to own a car. The good sides of lease to own I’ve gone through in a lot of my other videos.

The great side to it is, if you can’t buy today for any reason, such as bad credit, you don’t have enough down payment, you have too much debt compared to your income ratio. Maybe you just started your own business, things of that nature where you simply need to, what I like to call, buy yourself time, then lease to own is a fantastic situation.

Now, why not just rent? Why lease to own? Well, a couple of reasons. If you’re going to lease to own it sets you on a program. It holds you accountable. Where a lot of people will rent for 10 years before actually taking the time to save up the down payment, or actively wanting to fix their credit, with lease to own you’re on a schedule. You need to fix things in order to buy your home at the end of the lease. It creates great accountability, as well as, depending on the investor that you’re working with, a great system in place to help you save down payment or pay down debt or what have you. That’s definitely a great side.

The other side is, when you rent you always have that temporary feeling as well as that, “I have to ask mom or dad if I can hang a picture in my room” feeling. When you lease to own your own home, if you want to do renovations, if you want to get rid of the carpet and put in laminate floors, if you want to put in a new vanity in the bathroom, if you want to knock down a wall, you can do that because it’s your house and you don’t have to ask anybody about it. If you want to hang a picture in your house, put as many nails in the walls as you want.

It’s your security. It’s your property. If you hurt the value of the home, that’s to your own detriment. Obviously, you want to do things to preserve it, take care of it. It’s your house. It gives you that sense of ownership. Lease to own, there’s a lot of great reasons on why you want to do that.

Now, why are some negative reasons on why you don’t want to do it? Well actually, that’s not the right way of putting it. Some ugly sides to the lease to own world, that is, simply you not doing your due diligence or teaming up with somebody who is very much out for themselves. Lease to own in concept is fantastic, and if you do it with the right person, that’s a great situation.

I make sure I very carefully screen people that I refer you to to make sure that they are above board, and that they’re on the level, and that they’re really doing this because they want a good, safe investment, while at the same time they’re helping out you and helping you to achieve your goals.

Now, what are some negative things that can be done, and what can you do about it to prevent these things from happening to you? Well, the number one thing that happens is that you’ll get into a home that’s, let’s say, $600,000, but you never actually got pre qualified for $600,000. When the two year lease is up, guess what? You only qualify for a $400,000 place. What do you do? Nothing. You honestly can’t do anything.

You now cannot fulfill the lease contract, which means you lose your initial down payment that you gave the investor. The investor gets to keep it. You lose all of your rent credits that you’ve accumulated throughout the two year or three year lease. They get to keep the house. You basically walk away with nothing, where, for the last two or three years you’ve just been paying inflated rent. That’s it. You obviously don’t want that to happen to you.

Now, what can you do to prevent that situation? Get pre approved. Don’t get pre approved by somebody who’s never even heard of or done anything with lease to own. You need to work with somebody who has worked with lease to own, understands the fundamentals of it, the different options that can be added to a contract, and most importantly, how long you’re going to need, realistically, to fix your situation so that you can be able to afford the place that you get into at the end of your lease term.

Obviously, if you’re working with a crooked investor, then they really don’t want you to qualify. They’ll put you into a $1 million home. You’ll think they’re the greatest things ever until your lease comes up and you can’t afford it. Because now they keep the house, they keep your rent credits and they keep your down payment. That seems like a really good situation for them. If you’re working with someone who’s on the level, there’ll be numerous things they’re going to make you do. For one, get pre approved, and get pre approved by someone that they trust. They’re going to mandate that. If you’re working with someone and they don’t mandate that you get pre approved, that’s not a good thing.

Another thing that’s optional and not always offered, but I would definitely ask for it, is an option to extend or an option to purchase early in your contract.

For example, if you’re really, really good, you manage to fix whatever was negative in a shorter amount of time than what your original lease term was. It would be great for you to be able to buy early, because that means you get to buy it at a lower price. An option to purchase early would be great to have in your contract. Likewise, though, if maybe something doesn’t get fixed in time or you just, for whatever reason, want to keep doing the lease for one more year, an option to extend would also be a great part to leave into the lease as well.

Those are some things you can ask to see if they’re on the level. Other questions you need to ask the investor is, “Have you done this before?” [chuckles] You won’t believe how many people have never, ever done this before, but they can talk a real big game. Now, just because it’s someone’s first time doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them. What you need to do is ask, “Who is your mentor?” And, “Can I meet them?”

Because a lot of people are looking to do this. It is a great investment option. It’s safer, for the most part, other than just doing a buy and hold, meaning a rental property and all other kinds of things. It might be their first time. It doesn’t mean that they’re not a good person to deal with, but you want to know who is their mentor and who’s going to be handling these contracts. Make sure you ask those questions.

As well, if this is someone who has done it before, I want you to ask, “How many have you done before?” And, “How many have you done in the past that have come to full fruition, who have actually purchased out the lease and bought their home at the end?” And, “Of those who have not purchased, why was it and was anything done to try and help this happen?” Ask those kinds of questions. Get pre approved. Look out for yourself, and look into lease to own. It is a great option, but only if you do it with the right person, all right.

If you have any questions about this, I’m Leah Coss. I am with The Mortgage Centre. I’m a Canadian mortgage broker. I cannot help you people in the US. I’m sorry.

If you have any questions, leave a comment down below, email me, call me. Don’t forget to subscribe to my videos. Give a thumbs up if you like this post. Other than that, I will talk to you later.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

We’re at 2011 right now and it wasn’t that long ago that you were able to get a 40 year amortization. Then it got cut down to 35 years. From there it’s now being cut down to 30 years, but I still get the question all the time, “Can I get higher than a 30 year amortization? I heard a rumour that I can.” The quick answer to this is yes, it is possible to get a higher than 30 year amortization for a mortgage, but the other part to that is it is not available at every lender. There is some government law that you need to understand first before you start asking for exceptions like that.

Now the first thing to lay out is that the government has set a mandate that if you put less than 20 percent down on the purchase of your property, or if you have less than 20 percent down in your home if you’re refinancing, you must have a cap of 30 years for an amortization. You cannot go any higher than that. That’s simply to safeguard you so that we don’t have any kind of economic collapses again, like we just experienced. Because of that 30 years is your maximum. No ifs, ands or butts. You can’t pay anyone off. You can’t talk to a friend and get a good deal. 30 years is your max because it’s a government set law. OK?

Now, that said, if you are putting more than 20 percent down, and if you go to one of the very few lenders out there who are still offering this, you can still get 35 years. In fact there’s still maybe one or two lenders that will still let you do 40 year amortization. Depending on the size of the property that you’re getting or trying to afford, you may need that extra amortization. But, if you’re going to buy something, not much, you must put at least 20 percent down payment.

So, that’s it. If you’re looking to buy a house at less than 20 percent down, which most of you are, don’t even ask about amortization; you are capped at 30 years. OK? But if you’re putting more than 20 percent down exceptions can be made, but chances are your bank won’t be able to do it for you. There are just, truly, one to two lenders out there we’ll say three or four lenders that will let you go to 35 years, and then one or two that will let you do 40 years. To try and fish them out yourself is going to be really difficult, so I do recommend going to a broker or coming to me.

If you have any questions about amortization let me know. Leah Cross with the Mortgage Centre. Don’t forget to subscribe that way you won’t miss any videos. As well, leave a comment down below. Email or call me if you have any questions. Other than that give a thumbs up if you like the video and it was helpful to you. I guess that’s it for now. Good luck with the amortization and I will talk to you later.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

Hi every one, it’s Leah Coss with the Mortgage Centre and I want to talk about Property Transfer Tax, because there are lot of people who are confused about what it is, why they have to pay, when they don’t have to pay it, how much to pay and things on that nature. I’m just going to quickly run through on the generalities of Property Transfer Tax here in British Columbia, Canada.

Property Transfer Tax, how much do you have to pay? Well, it’s one percent of the first 200,000, so two grand, and two percent of every hundred thousand after that. If you’re buying a $400,000 place, that’s $6,000 if you do the math, OK? So, a bit of a chunk of cash for some of you. When do you not have to pay it? Never. You always have to pay it unless you’re a first time homebuyer.

There are some very specific conditions to that, even first time home buyers have to pay Property Transfer Tax sometimes. Here are the situations where they have to. At this point in time, if you buy a house over $425,000 as a first time homebuyer, you will have to pay all of, or at minimum, a portion of Property Transfer Tax. Basically, it’s anything above 425,000, you have to pay Property Transfer Tax, but its sliding scale between 425 and 450.

If you buy a house over 450, you’re paying full amount of Property Transfer Tax. If you buy it between 425 and 450, it’s like a sliding scale amount and it’s all confusing, so don’t anymore worry about that. If you purchase a house under 425 and you’re a first time homebuyer, and you never had your name on the title of a home here in Canada, then you will not have to pay Property Transfer Tax that one time. OK?

But… [handclap] If you’re a first time home buyer, and you’re buying a rental property, because you maybe still live at home with Mom, or you’re still renting because it’s a good situation, you have to pay Property Transfer Tax on that rental property, but when you go to buy you’re first owner occupied property, now your first time homebuyer kicks in.

Those are the main situations where you’re going have to pay it, how much you’re going to have to pay. The reason for Property Transfer Tax is simply the [laughs] taking your name off title and putting it on to a new title. That’s the general speaking of what Property Transfer Tax pays for, I’m sure they do a lot more behind the scenes, a little pricey, in my opinion.

I think the 425 threshold for first time homebuyers needs to be upped, because in Vancouver, that hardly buys you a condo anymore. If you have questions about Property Transfer Tax, or any other closing cost, definitely check out my other videos first, I’ve got lots of closing cost videos out there for you. If you have more questions, feel welcome to give me a call.

If you have a situation where maybe it’s you and a friend, or you and your spouse, who are buying, and one of you is a first time homebuyer and the other one isn’t. You want to figure a way not have to pay as much Property Transfer Tax, I can tell you some more specifics on those options for you, so definitely give me a call. I’m Leah Coss with the Mortgage Centre, a Canadian mortgage broker, I cannot help you people in the US, I am very sorry. Check out a mortgage broker in your area.

If you any questions, leave a comment, send an email, give me a call, don’t forget to subscribe. Those are my dogs freaking out in the background, it’s not someone ripping someone’s throat apart. [laughs] Quiet guys. Anyway, don’t forget to subscribe, so you don’t miss this videos, and hopefully I can help you out. Leah Coss from the Mortgage Centre, I’ll talk to you soon.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

Hi, everyone, it’s Leah Coss with the Mortgage Center. And I wanted to talk really quickly about buying out a province here in Canada. Maybe you’re looking to buy a second home in a different province, maybe you’re looking to get a rental property somewhere else. If you’re going to do that, I just need to let you know, so that you’ve got some expectations set. Chances are, you’re going to need two lawyers, which means two lawyer bills, when you’re closing that deal.

The reason being is that if you’re buying, say you live in BC and you’re buying in Ontario, you’ll need a lawyer there in Ontario to do all the title stuff, the title swapping, all the land transfer stuff, and whatever the notaries and lawyers do with their notary and lawyer duties, they need to do that over there concerning the property.

But the notary has a huge responsibility to make sure that you are who you say you are. They’re going to need ID, they’re going to need signatures, they’re going to need you to fully understand all the paperwork that you’re signing. So, therefore, you need to be in person somewhere. You can’t just sign this and scan it and FedEx it over to them.

That means that you’re going to need a local lawyer wherever you live as well. And they’re going to be the ones who are going to go through your paperwork with you, confirm that you are who you say you are, have you sign and understand everything. Then they’ve got to ship those documents over, they have to have originals. So, you have to leave extra time as well. You can’t just fax these. You need to FedEx them over to the other lawyer, over in Ontario or wherever the other province is, so that they can put all that paperwork together. OK?

So, the things you need to note is, you need extra time for closing, make sure nothing’s too much of a crunch, because you need to get original documents somewhere. And you’re going to need two lawyers, OK? There’s not really any way around that unless you want to fly to that province, or maybe you happen to be visiting there at the time of closing, then you can sign the paperwork in person with the same lawyer. But other than that, you’re probably going to need two.

So, if you have any questions about this, or buying out of province or any other mortgage questions, for that matter, feel welcome to give me a call. Leah Coss, with the Mortgage Center, I’m a Canadian mortgage broker, and hopefully I’ll be talking to you soon.

I want to talk about unauthorized basement suites. I had a call from a client he found me online and they were asking, “Hey, the city has called me” or written a letter or however they communicated with him, “and said, we’re coming by. We’re coming by on this date and we’re going to be inspecting your home.” Now, he was like, “I’m not really sure why they’re coming by,” but he had a sneaky suspicion it’s probably because he has an unauthorized suite in his home.

Now, what is an unauthorized suite? Simply that. The suite is not registered with the city. You’re not paying additional taxes. It isn’t meeting the requirements of the city for having separate living dwelling. Therefore, if the city comes by and inspects it and finds it, they will make you rip it out.

His question was exactly that. What are the repercussions? He depends on that income, so what can he do to keep the suite? Is he going to be handed a big bill for a penalty or a fine? Are they going to let him keep it, things of that nature.

Well, the first thing you need to do if you have an unauthorized suite or are looking to purchase a place with an unauthorized suite is go to the city and just find out, what are the requirements that you need to have a separate suite. Now, in a lot of cities you don’t need anything.

The only difference between having an authorized and an unauthorized suite is simply that you’re paying higher property taxes. Now, a lot of you are going, ” I’m not going to pay higher property taxes.” Well, you know what? You need to because, as taxpayers, if you don’t pay for them, the rest of us are.

Why the city wants you to pay higher taxes is because you have two separate dwellings, which means two separate families producing twice the amount of garbage. Now the garbage service is having to work twice as hard, and you’re not paying for that. The same with water, things of that nature, that you pay to the city part of your taxes. But, by having two separate dwellings, you need to be paying more. Hopefully, that makes sense to you. In a lot of cases, if the city’s going to come by and do a checkup on your suite, and you don’t want that suite getting ripped out, then, guess what? You’re going to have to pay those higher property taxes.

But for some cities, for example Vancouver, there are somewhat a few more hoops that you’re going to need to jump through. For example, if you’re going to have a separate living dwelling in the basement or as a duplex or something like that, you’re going to need a certain amount of sprinklers in certain places. You’re going to need windows. You’re going to need a separate entrance and different requirements like that. Definitely go to your city and see what other requirements there are there.

But if the city does find out that you have an unauthorized suite, then they can make it so that you have to rip it out. What are they going to do to make you rip it out? The kitchen. [chuckles] Without a kitchen in there, a basement suite is going to be hard to rent out.

To avoid this altogether, or to at least take the steps of finding out what you need to do to make it authorized, just go to your city. Find out what needs to happen. Are there sprinkler requirements, window requirements? How much more of property taxes would you have to pay? Because if they do inspect, you’re going to have to rip it out anyway. If you rely on that income, that could put you into big, big trouble. As well, it’s important to know that not all lenders, such as Scotiabank and such, will lend on homes with unauthorized suites. They don’t want anything to do with them if you’re relying on that money in the basement suite.

If you have any questions about getting funding on basement suite properties, or if the city is coming through and you just want some advice, feel welcome to give me a call.

Give me a thumbs up on this video if it was helpful to you. Don’t forget to subscribe, and if you have any questions or comments, please leave them down below.

Otherwise, this is Leah Coss. I am a Canadian mortgage broker. I cannot help you people in the US, I’m sorry. But if you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll talk to you soon.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

Hi, everyone. It’s Leah Coss with the Mortgage Center. I want to talk about income verification, most specifically, your job letter. I will even get into a little bit on pay stubs. Now, for those of you who are standardly employed meaning that you are de salary, or full time hourly. Something where in your situation, lenders most likely just going to ask for a pay or your most last two most recent pay stubs and a job letter. I want to make sure that you are in fact getting the right type of paperwork with all of the information on it that you need, especially for those of you who are in like mom and pop type companies where it’s just you and some other person. Or they don’t have a payroll company doing the payroll for you. Here’s what the lender is going to want to see on a job letter.

It’s very important that all of this information is included on it. The first thing: it has to be on company letterhead. Now, even if your company doesn’t have a letterhead. You are going to have to make some. Put your logo in there and whatever you need to do but we are going to need some sort of company letterhead that the letter is written on.

The second thing, obviously, it cannot be a hand written note. We are going to need this typed up professionally and the information that you are going to want is a date. A date is going to be good because you want to make sure that you actually work there today, that this isn’t a letter that you grab from like two years ago and since then, you’ve been fired or laid off or something. So that’s the first thing, a date.

The next thing is what is your job position? This is especially important for those of you who have been at your job for less than two years because in those the lenders are going to want to know who your previous employers is and what your position was there. They like to see that you have at least two years in your industry. Show stability for you on your application. Your job position they are going to want to know how long you’ve been working there for and what your start date was.

The reason for this is again that two year to three year history that lenders like to see. The other thing is if you’ve only been there for a couple of months, the lender is going to want to know are you on some sort of three month probation. Because if you are, that’s not exactly your position. You may have to wait to buy a home after your probation is up. How long have you been there is going to have to be there.

The other thing is your income obviously. Now, if your salary, that’s going to be pretty easy. Mary Jane makes 50,000 dollars a year and cut and dried. But if you’re hourly, the lender is going to need to have some sort of guarantee on there of how many hours you work a week. For example, some of you are full time but you only work 35 hours a week. Others are 40. Some are guaranteed 35 but you get even overtime or bonuses or commissions after that.

So, in those situations, we are going to need to know what your base is. OK? So, if you work 35 hours a week guaranteed, and you make 25.70 an hour then that’s what the lender needs to see. If you make fluctuating income on top of that, unfortunately, that cannot be on the letter because that is not a guaranteed income. Fluctuating income being vacation paid bonuses, sick leave, anything else of that nature, OK?

We need to know the guaranteed income where no matter what happens, this is how much you are going to make even if you don’t sell anything. OK? Then lastly, who it’s written by. This cannot be written by a fellow employee or someone on another department who is kind of doing you a favor. This has to be written by someone who has the authority to fire your or an HR department. OK?

The reason for this is that the lender is 90% of the time, if not a 100% of the time, going to actually call your employer. For those of you watching this video going, “OK, what do I need to fake and make a fake job letter to get this mortgage?” We are not going to be able to do that. The lender is actually going to get this job letter and then they are going to call that exact person on the letter.

They are going to be asking for certain things like how long has this person worked? Are they in probation? How much money do they make? Are those guaranteed hours? They will be asking who are you and why are you writing this job letter. Are you of authority to do so in this company? It’s very important that your job letter has all of those components in it.

As for the pay stubs, we are going to want to know who is issuing them. We are going to want to see your year to date in terms of earnings. Is there any kind of breakdown between regular salary or commissions or things like that? We are going to want to see that on the pay stub. It’s going to have to be professional. This can’t be a handwritten check, OK?

If you are working for a very small company, just getting handwritten checks and not see the extent of your pay stubs, then the lender may require that along with those pay stubs and job letter, that they are going to want to see a three month history of deposits in your bank account of money going in from the employer. OK? The lender is very sticky about income. If the income can’t be verified, then how does the lender know that you have the capacity to pay them back for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they are going to be lending you.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

I’m going to talk about appraisals because I always get so much pushback when I tell somebody that they’re going to need an appraisal. Now, usually if you tell me all the details of your situation before we even find the house that you’re going to make an offer on, I can tell you the likelihood of whether you’ll need an appraisal or not because there’s very specific situations to that.
But, let’s go through that so that you have those expectations and you will know if you’re going to have to get an appraisal ahead of time because knowing that information is going to save you money and make things a lot less stressful for you.

If you’re putting less than 20 percent down, chances are you are not going to not need an appraisal, but there are some situations where you will, like if the property is super unique or it’s in a very isolated area where lenders just don’t know what value to put on these homes; they don’t know if you’re paying too much, too little, they have no idea because it’s a unique property. In those situations, they may want an appraisal done. Less than 20 percent down, those are typically the only reasons that you’ll need an appraisal done.

The other times is if you’re buying a rental property, then you might not need an appraisal of the property, but you’re going to need what’s called a market rent letter, which is done by an appraiser. That’s simply a letter that’s going to tell the lender how much rent you can get for the suites of your rental property that you’re purchasing. But, if you’re buying a rental property, you actually can’t buy a house with less than 20 percent down these days, so it’d have to be a house with a basement suite, but that aside.

In situations other than that, though, if you’re putting 20 percent down, I’d say there’s like an 80 percent chance you’re going to need an appraisal. There’s really only two situations where you’re not going to need an appraisal, so if you’re very concerned about I don’t want to put out money without needing to and things like that, go to a mortgage broker.

They can tell you… Come to me. Don’t go to all the other mortgage brokers, come to me. I can tell you your options on you can either pay an appraisal and pay this interest rate or you don’t have to pay an appraisal and here’s this interest rate, and I can kind of lay it out for you.

Here’s where you won’t have to pay for an appraisal, every other situation you will. If you’re putting 20 percent down and you go with what’s called a bulk insurer, then you won’t typically have to get an appraisal. Well, what is a bulk insurer? A bulk insurer is someone where even if you put 99 percent down payment down on a home, it doesn’t matter; they insure every single deal. If you’re wondering what this insuring is, check out mortgage insurance in my other video blogs.

Because it’s insured, now they’re not quite so shaky about the deal and the value and stuff because it’s insured. If you default on the mortgage, their money is more secure now. Because of that, they don’t necessarily require an appraisal.

The second way is some lenders, and I stress some lenders, have an online appraisal system. Some call it GBS. There’s all different abbreviations and every bank has their own system. What this does is if your house is very standard, I mean very standard, like a typical regular old house, then you can request no appraisal. Typically, only a mortgage broker can do this though.

We can request no appraisal and they simply put it into their online appraisal system. If the numbers come out good and normal, then things are fine. If it’s a unique property once again or the numbers come out a little off whether it’d be too high or too low, then they’ll request an appraisal regardless. You can always try that first, and that can save you some money.

Appraisals range from $250 to $1,000, just depending on how quickly you need it done and how big the property is. Is there a lot of out buildings? Is it acreage or is it just 1,000 square foot condo? Chances are, the 1,000 square foot condo is going to cost you about $250 plus taxes, so you’re looking around $280, and it can save you that money up front

Here’s a situation where that might not be worthwhile for you. I had a client who wanted the very best variable rate he could get. The problem was the person or rather the lender who was offering the best variable rate that nobody else was really matching, they don’t offer the online appraisal services. So because of that, he has to get an appraisal or he can go with a bank that’s going to allow him to do the online appraisal system, which won’t cost much or it’ll cost maybe $50, and it’s super easy, hassle free, but they don’t have the best variable rate.

So now over the course of his five year term, he’s going to be paying more. What’s better? Well, obviously, the better rate would be a better situation, but some people just really hate upfront hassle and upfront costs. So it’s totally up to you, and I can lay out those options for you.

But there’s the situations where you may not need to get an appraisal if you’re putting at least 20 percent down, the situations where you will need to is every other situation, and most important, if it’s a private lending deal. Private lenders will mandate 100 percent of the time to get an appraisal.

Here’s the clincher, if you are in a situation where you have to get an appraisal, do not for the love of God order the appraisal on your own. The reason being is every lender has their own list of approved appraisers. If you go out and get an appraisal done and fork out the money and the time and the hassle to get an appraisal and give it your lender, the lender could very easily and quite possibly say, “I’m sorry, but we do not approve those appraisers. They’re not on our list. You need to get another one.” You don’t want to be in that situation.

Another great reason to use a mortgage broker is we can tell you what appraisers are on what list and we can even order it for you to alleviate some hassle for you.

If you have any questions about appraisals, whether you need one, whether you don’t, how much it’s going to cost, all that kind of jazz, let me know, Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I am a Canadian mortgage broker. I cannot help you people in the US. I’m sorry! But if you have any questions about this or any other mortgage topics, please let me know. Leave a comment down below. Don’t forget to subscribe to my videos, and call or email me with any other questions.
That’s all for now. I’ll talk to you soon.

Hi, everyone. It’s Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center and I wanted to talk about CMHC fees also known as Genworth fees, AIG fees, Canadian Guarantee fees. Kind of list all the companies that are out there that do insurance but it’s also called mortgage insurance. Now in this blog, I’m not getting into exactly what mortgage insurance is. I can give you kind of the quote notes which is this is mortgage insurance set. It is mandate by the government that you pay if you put less than 20% down on a purchase of a home or refinance. This is insurance that actually doesn’t protect you. This protects the lender and it is a very good thing that it’s there. This is why our economy didn’t take a total tailspin much like our fellow people down south in the US. It is a very important thing. Check out my other blogs if you want to know exactly what this mortgage insurance is, especially if you want a contrast between the mortgage insurance that you would get to protect yourself.

That said, the common questions that I get about CMHC or mortgage insurance fees is how can I avoid them? How can I reduce them? Is there some sort of private sector out there? Is there a way of just not paying it, not telling anyone? What is the slap on the wrist? Well, unfortunately, there is absolutely no way of avoiding this. It is automatically worked into your mortgage and it is a government mandate. You can’t get around it. The notary knows it has to happen. The lender knows it has to happen and automatically, when you apply for a mortgage putting less that 20% down, you are going to have to pay it, OK?

Again, it is a very good thing for our economy that it is in place. That said, if you’re looking to avoid it altogether, the only way of doing this is saving up at least 20%, or if you are going to refinance, leaving at least 20% in your home. Then you don’t have to pay it. However, there are still some instances and typically more for self employed people with rentals where you have to pay it. But those are somewhat rare occasions and it’s typically for much higher risk files.

For the most of you, you are not going to have to worry about it if you have 20% skin in the game. That said, if you’re looking to reduce the amount, the longer the amortization that you take, the higher the fees that you’ll have to pay. The other thing is that the more down payment that you put in, the less you are going to have to pay.

Someone putting 5% down is going to pay higher fees, percentage wise, than someone putting 15% down. If you get a 25 year amortization, you’ll pay the less than if you have a 30 year amortization. Basically, just the higher the risk or the longer it’s going to take to pay back, the more you are going to have to pay. [dog barking] There’s my dog. Shush! What are you barking at? [laughs]
So, that’s kind of how that works. If you have any questions about the exact percentages, I’m not going to go over that in this blog but maybe I’ll do one down the road. Feel welcome to email me if you have questions about it specifically. But otherwise, that’s how it works. It’s in place for a reason. It’s a very good thing that we did have it in place and still do. But that’s it.

If this video was helpful, please do give it a thumbs up. Don’t forget to subscribe so that you don’t miss the rest of my videos that are going to help you out with understanding your mortgage. I guess that’s about it. Leave a comment down below or email me, contact me. I can give you a preview right over the phone. But that’s all for now. I’m Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I’m a Canadian mortgage broker, not able to help you guys in the US. I’m sorry but hopefully, I will be talking to you soon.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

Hi everyone, it’s Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I wanted to talk about the differences potentially between one mortgage broker and another because this is somewhat a question, especially people who have been jaded in the past because they’ve used a mortgage broker and they weren’t happy with it or something like that. Well, obviously, yes, there is going to be differences between mortgage brokers, and the obvious one is some of them you are going to like and some of them you’re not, much like there’s a difference between two realtors, there’s a difference between two plumbers, there’s a difference between two car wash stations. Even though they’re franchised, you go to two different McDonald’s and you may like one over the other simply because of the personalities that are within that job or company. So, yes, there is that obvious one.

But some of the more technical things are how important is it for you that they are tech savvy. There’s some people that I know and who are clients of mine who need someone who is all about the tech. They want to be able to text me information. They want to be able to email me everything, fax and so forth. They don’t want to have to meet me in person. They don’t want to have to take time out of their schedule to have a conversation face to face. They want to be able to do it on the phone. They love that I’ve got videos simply because now they can learn on their own time about questions that they have.

So, that is definitely something that is worth taking into consideration as well if you aren’t tech savvy and everything must be by picking up in person because you don’t own a fax machine. Maybe, you’re in a small town, and there isn’t even a Staples close by or somewhere that you can fax from. Then, you are going to need someone who is able to meet with you. So, those are things to consider.

Then, obviously, the knowledge, like with any industry, right. It depends on not just how long they’ve been in the industry. This is really important. You are going to have mortgage brokers who only understand a business and lastly you are salaried or hourly, full time. Unless your down payment is conventional, they don’t know anything outside of that box. They only do a business.
But if you’re someone who’s got bad credit or you are looking to buy a unique property, there’s mortgage brokers out there who I could say, “Hey, there’s a guy with a mobile home who wants to refinance it or wants to purchase it” or a previous escrow operation or a home with rental suites or even people who don’t even know how to do rentals or if you’re self employed or you’re a new immigrant.

There’s a lot of different niches within our industry, and if you don’t know about them, then obviously you’re not going to be able to provide the best service to your client. So, if you have any questions about my expertise in any of those niches that I just listed, you can definitely check out my video blogs on them, and hopefully that will give you some information.

Then, obviously, you’ve got things that are very, very technical that you definitely won’t ever see, but it is a difference. The office that a mortgage broker is with is very important. Now, that’s not to say the umbrella, such as The Mortgage Center which is what I’m with or Mortgage Alliance or Invis or Dominion.

It’s not to say that the brand is important. The actual office is very important, and the volume of business that they do is definitely important. So, the higher the volume that an office has, the more they can spread it out amongst many lenders, and the higher your volumes are with lenders, the better underwriters that you get, the more designation you get.

So, you get fast response, but most importantly, the better discounts that you are getting on rates. So, if a mortgage broker is a one man show or if he isn’t with an umbrella or if there’s only three people in their office, unless that person is an absolute rock star, chances are they’re only going to have a designation at two different lenders which means if you need to go anywhere other than those two lenders, you’re not going to be getting the best rates.

Those are pretty much the main things. I’m just looking at my list here. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. I kind of covered it all, so if you have any questions about previous mortgage brokers that you’ve been with, if you want to ask me point blank, “Why should I use me?” Then feel welcome to give me a call, send me an email, question away.

I am hopeful my videos and my blogs are helping to show the information and knowledge that I do have on the industry, but if there’s something that I’ve left out, then please feel welcome to ask me. And I’ll do my best to answer your questions, and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll either find it out for you or I can refer you to someone else who can help you.

For example, commercial. I won’t touch commercial; however, I have a great commercial guy that I would refer you to who has actually got video blogs himself. His name is Rowan Smith, so you can Google or YouTube him, and you can find out all about him as well.

But Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I’m a Canadian mortgage broker. I cannot help out you people in the U.S. but good luck to you. If you have any other questions, feel welcome to let me know. Don’t forget to subscribe, and I will talk to you soon.

Hi everyone, it’s Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I wanted to talk about inheritance and whether you can use that money that you’re getting from inheritance to obtain a mortgage.

Now there’s two ways that people will get an inheritance. One is in a lump sum, where they’re going to get a lump sum and they’re going to use all of that for their down payment.

Yes, you can use that for your down payment. Obviously, the money is yours. The only thing is, is keep your paper work. We want to see a notarized document that’s saying you are in fact getting this inheritance and where that money’s coming from. If you just come to the bank with 30 grand in your pocket, you’re going to have to prove where it comes from. Check out my other videos that I’ve done on down payment and that will explain that to you.

The other way is that people sometimes get inheritance in sort of a trust fund where every month, or every year, whatever the case is, they’re getting a certain amount of money. If it is in fact steady and for all intents and purposes, we’ll call it unlimited, then yes, you can use that money to help you qualify. But you’re definitely going to have to jump through a couple of hoops.

Once again, we’re going to need that notarized document that’s saying that you are in fact getting the money. The second thing is we’re going to need to know how much overall is in this bank account. If there’s enough in that bank account to last 30 years, which is essentially the term of your mortgage, then yes, you’ll probably be fine.

However, if you’re only getting this inheritance for the next couple of years, then probably not. Because now, it’s not going to be there a few years from now when you’re still having these mandatory debt payments for your mortgage. So use your logic there. If you’re getting a lump sum, yes. If you’re getting it monthly, yes and no. It’s going to depend on how long you’re going to get it for.

So if you have any questions about inheritance or any other ways that you’re acquiring income or down payment, let me know. I’m Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I am a Canadian mortgage broker. I unfortunately can’t help you guy’s out in the U.S., but if you have any questions about your mortgage, let me know because I’m here to help.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

Hi everyone, it’s Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I’m standing here behind this car because it kind of rolls into what I wanted to explain to you today because I get this question somewhat often. For example, say someone’s house is worth 200 grand and they have a car that’s maybe worth 20 grand. They’ll come to me and ask, “Hey, can I pull out more than 200,000 for a mortgage if I use my car as collateral so that I can take advantage of these low interest rates based on mortgages? Because getting a line of credit or a credit card, those can have much higher interest rates compared to a secured loan like a mortgage.”

The quick answer for you, and this will be the answer for you for all time, is no. You cannot wrap in your car with your house and take out a loan based on that.

The mortgage is the one debt that is extremely and heavily monitored by the government. It’s quite government regulated, in fact.
As you saw in the U.S. and we felt it here in Canada as well, real estate is what really made the world go around and eventually made it stop in its tracks. It made things collapse around it simply because they were giving out too much debt based on the collateral they had in its pocket, which was the houses.

So the government in Canada has a very heavy and ironclad policy. You must have five percent down, based on the value of your home. The most you can get for a mortgage is 95 percent of the value of the home at the time of your loan. You cannot add a car on top of that, you can’t add your hockey card collection, and you can’t add your collection of tiaras from pageants when you were younger. You cannot add anything else to this collateral.

A mortgage is a mortgage, a loan is a loan. Two completely separate things and you’ll never be able to combine them together.
At most, you can combine two properties together, but never a car, or a collection, or any other asset other than a house. A mortgage is a mortgage.

The reason that the rates are so good is based on a series of things. But definitely, the collateral that is being held, which is the house, is a fairly good piece of collateral. Cars can get smashed up. Cars, they’re just such a different beast all together.
So if you need a car loan, unfortunately, you’re going to have to go with a regular line of credit type debt or rather rate, or a regular car loan rate. You’re not going to be able to get these three percent and two percent rates that you’re getting with a mortgage.
So I’m starting to babble now.

Hopefully, that’s clear. Give me a call if you need clarity on this, but no, you cannot do this.
I am Leah Coss. I am with The Mortgage Center. I am a Canadian mortgage broker; I cannot help you guys in the U.S. Hopefully, that’s helped you out. So I will talk to you soon.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

Hi everyone, it’s Leah Coss with the Mortgage Center. And I wanted to kind of describe a conversation that I had with a client the other day. He was a new referral to me through a realtor and he asked me, he said, “Well, I was going to go to Coast Capital, which is where I’ve gotten my mortgages before. Why should I use you? I’ve never used a mortgage broker before.”

And I told him that, “You know especially right now, Coast Capital has some really good rates.” And it could be a situation where he comes to me and I end up putting him with Coast Capital anyway. But that might not be the situation, as well.

And this kind of goes back to other videos that I’ve done before on how each bank is a little bit different, we just don’t know it, because it’s all behind the scenes. But it could be a situation where maybe you go to your bank, and maybe your bank is Scotia. And you walk into Scotiabank and you get pre approved. And maybe you’re a regular client, you’ve got regular credit, regular salaried or full time hourly job. Your down payment is just sitting in your savings account and everything’s normal.

But you want to buy a house with a basement suite. So, you go and you find a house, but the house has an unauthorized basement suite and you really need that basement suite income. Now, Scotia, unfortunately, wouldn’t be able to help you out. They have a policy that they don’t use unregistered basement suites, they don’t use that income. That’s just one situation.

It could be a situation where maybe you’re looking to buy a foreclosure, or you’re looking to buy a previous grow op, and you’re needing different attention to that file. Many lenders just don’t even want to touch those situations.

You could be self employed. Well, if you’re self employed, guess what? If you need to do a stated income program, you can’t go to Coast Capital, you can’t go to certain places, because they don’t have those programs. If you’re a new immigrant, they just don’t have great programs for you.

So, yes, you could go to your bank, and it could be a situation where you come to me, and I put you with your bank at the end of it all. But it could be a situation where I can’t use your bank, and so we go somewhere else. And all that [indecipherable 02:13] using a mortgage broker is for the average client is simply saving you hassle or panic or stress later on in case your bank can’t do it. Not to mention the fact that we can often give you a better rate than what you’re paying gives you as an offer on their first offer.
They will, of course, keep coming back, trying to match the offer that I’ve given you. But, again, it just saves you time, stress, haggling over rate. I’m going to give you the best rate no matter what, simply because I don’t really get paid different from one lender to another based on rate.

So, that’s about it. If you have any questions about using a mortgage broker, or other reasons, such as needing private financing, or if you end up having bad credit or something like that and you can’t go to your regular bank, using a mortgage broker is definitely going to be an option you’re going to need to use. So, if you have any questions about this or which lender I would potentially put you with based on your situation, feel welcome to give me a call or an email. I’d love to help you out.

So, I’m Leah Coss, I’m with the Mortgage Center. I’m a Canadian mortgage broker, and I’m helping you to understand your mortgage.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

Hi everyone, it’s Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I wanted to go over communicating with your broker and why it’s very vital that you’re not withholding information from them. They’re meant to help you, so it’s important that you help them so that they can get you the best mortgage option, based on your situation. Here’s a prime example. I have a mortgage friend who, with rates going up right now, there’s a lot of rate holds going on. If you want to know what a rate hold is, check out my other videos. Basically, the broker had gotten them about three different rate holds at different lenders, based on the situation that they thought it was, and by the time the person actually went to purchase, two of the rate holds had expired and there’s only one left.

Now, it was at this point during the purchase that the broker found out that the person’s actually buying a rental property not owner occupied. The unfortunate thing there was that the one last rate hold they had, that lender does not do rentals. It’s just their policy. They don’t like them. They find them to be risky. They want to keep a very clean, clean profile or portfolio, rather.
So, because of that, this person is going to have to be stuck with today’s higher rates than what the rate hold was at the time. That’s why it’s very important that you’re upfront with them now. Of course, a lot of this onus has to go onto the broker, making sure that we’re asking the right questions and so forth, but I know there’s definitely times when people are withholding information.

Now, I want to help you to try and get the deal done. If I don’t think the deal can be done, I’ll let you know upfront because obviously that’s using my time for something where I’m just going to be spinning my wheels later on. So, I will be upfront with you, and I will let you know the steps that you need to take in order to be approved for the mortgage, amount you’re happy with.

If you’re going to withhold things like, for example, self employed people are definitely prime candidates for this where I’ll say how much do you make, and they’ll say, well, how much do I need to make? And that’s not the right answer. I need to know, what were your gross revenues? The bank is going to ask for paperwork, so this isn’t just a number you can hypothetically pull out of your butt. OK, we’re going to be looking at past performance not going forward.

So, you can’t just say, Oh, this year I’m projecting 300 grand in income. OK, that’s great, but what did you file the last couple of years? Oh, uh, 40 grand. OK, that’s a big difference. So, you need to be upfront with me. You need to give me the right answers. If there’s something you’re worried about, just let me know. I’ll let you know if it’s a concern, and we can go from there. But if you’re going to withhold things from me, I assure you once I pull credit, once I start asking the right questions, I’m going to find out anyway. And you’re going to waste a lot of our time going the wrong direction.

So, if you have any questions about this, if you want to be pre approved, if you want to know what your situation is as of today and how to get it so that tomorrow’s a lot better for you in terms of qualifying for the mortgage you want, give me a call, give me an email. My contact info’s on this page.

My website, if that’s not where you’re at, look for me on YouTube. It’s LeahCoss.ca, and I guess that’s about it. Don’t forget to subscribe to my videos, and that’s it for now.

So, Leah Coss with The Mortgage Broker. I’m a Canadian broker helping you understand your mortgage.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

Hi everyone, it’s Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I’m going to kind of sit off to the side and keep the sun out of my eyes so I don’t squint while talking to you. But I wanted to talk about why a mortgage broker might use one lender over another, especially if all things are equal. Is it the same rate, same prepayment options, same terms, and everything like that?

If everything’s equal, why would a mortgage broker put you with one as opposed to another? And yes, there are definitely reasons that come into consideration, more so for our ease, but in some cases for your ease as well.

The first thing is, especially if we have the choice between a chartered bank and a regular mortgage lender. We might, depending on how big of a hassle we want to give you, just go with the nonbank, the mortgage lender as opposed to the chartered bank. The reason for this is simply that then you don’t have to do what’s called a branch signup. A branch signup is really something that is unnecessary.

It’s just the opportunity for you, for example, so you go into Scotiabank or TD or wherever, they require you to do a telebranch signup which has nothing to do with your mortgage. They just simply want you to come in so that they have the opportunity to try and upsell you on things such as insurance, RSPs, opening a bank account with them, and so forth. Depending on how I think you are, I might say, “You know what, let’s just go with the regular mortgage lender as opposed to the charter bank because I know you’re a busy person. You don’t want to have to do a branch sign up.”

On the other hand though, some people are very brand oriented. They’re like, “Who is this First National, who’s First Line? I don’t know who these people are. I want to go with someone that I’m familiar with. I want a TD. I want a Scotia. I want a credit union that’s in my neighborhood.” Well, in that situation, obviously I’m going to go the other way around and I’m going to make you do the branch sign up. But, it’s going to be with someone you feel comfortable with.

In terms of options that are going to make my life easier if all things are equal, is do I have a designated underwriter with them and are they on the Pacific or Eastern? If I have someone like, for example, TD’s underwriting offices are all over on the East. Well, that’s a different time zone. You may send me documents at 3:00, but now I can’t send them to the underwriter to get things checked off our list, because their offices are already closed.

So in that situation, I might say, “You know what, I’m going to go with someone on the Pacific side so then they’re on the same time zone.” As well, depending on our volumes at certain lenders, we get what’s called the designated underwriter. That means we’re getting snappity, snap, snap responses.

We send something in; we’ve got some lenders that guarantee us two hours response. That’s pretty fantastic. Others, no guarantees whatsoever. In fact, some of them, they take quite a few weeks to get back to us. So that’s obviously going to come into our decision, because it’s hassle factor for us, and it’s going to make you have to wait longer.

The last deciding factor is definitely our volumes. People say, “Oh, people will shove you with the same lender because they get all these extra bonuses.”

Well you know what; those extra bonuses are actually helping you out. If all things are equal, and I have one lender that I use all the time and one that I don’t, I’m probably going to go with the lender that I use all the time.

Because of the designated underwriting, but also because we get something called volume discounts. If we keep a certain amount that we’re funding with them every month and every year, they actually give us discounts.

So there are many cases where I actually can get better rates with some lenders as opposed to other lenders, or other mortgage brokers, rather. So two mortgage brokers could both go to TD, and TD gives me a different rate than they give this mortgage broker based on volume discounts. So it’s actually helping you by me piling stuff all with the same lender.

So those are the three main reasons on why we might, if all things are equal, go with one lender to another. If you have questions about the lender that your mortgage broker’s trying to put you with, who they are, or what they do, why they might be doing that, or if you want me to do your mortgage for you and explain to you the different options, let me know.

Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I’m a Canadian mortgage broker and I’m here to help you understand your mortgage.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

Hi everyone, it’s Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I wanted to talk about down payment. Now, I know this is a point of frustration for people, but you have to understand that you need to prove where your money is coming from. A lot of people think they can just walk in, put some money down and no questions are asked. Well, there are some pressures, whether it be from government or social or whatever, but the banks don’t want to ever have the finger pointed at them saying that they’re assisting in money laundering because if you think about it, a drug dealer can simply get some bad money, go put the money down on a house, and prove it’s clean. So, the banks are very concerned with this.

What they want is for you to actually prove your down payment, whether that be with 90 days of bank statements, just simply showing the activity of your account, what it’s been doing, and if any major deposits like five grand or 10 grand have been thrown in there within that 90 days. They want to know where that money is coming from, and they’re going to want some sort of paperwork to support it.

Some common things that people have said is actually, I go an IC/BC payout, and that’s where this lump sum of money is coming from. OK. Great. Just show us the piece of paper that says that you were paid 10 grand, awesome motorcycle, and that’s all that they need. We’re not asking you to like do a song and dance, get the bankers at IC/BC to call the banks or anything like that. We just simply want to see the documents that say you got a payout from IC/BC. Same thing with inheritance. Let’s see the will, or let’s see the notarized document of it paying it out to you or saying you’re entitled to this amount or whatever the case may be.

The other thing is a gifted down payment. I get a lot of people saying the money, there is no paperwork. My mom’s giving it to me. Well, that’s cool, that’s totally fine. Depending on the lender, they each have their own requirements, but definitely something called a gift letter will be required. I’ve got those on hand. You can find them on my website as well, and the gift letter is OK. It’s not a massive book of forms. It’s one paper that says your name, your mom’s name, the property address, and how much she’s giving you, signature, date.

That’s it, but a gift letter will be required. Some lenders want to see the money come out of your mom’s account and into yours. Others just want to see it go into yours. Some just want the gift letter. Each one has their own requirements, but again, at least, the bank can say they showed this gift letter, this is where the money came from if ever fingers get pointed.

So, they’re just simply wanting to do their due diligence. They want to make sure they cover their bases and that they’re not helping with any kind of illegal activity. If you have questions about where your money is coming from, like overseas, a lot of people say, oh, well, it’s coming from a Chinese bank account. Nothing’s in English. We don’t have the same kind of bank statements that you have here. That’s cool. We’ll still need a letter from the bank just simply saying how much is in your account, or we’ll need to see the transfer from one account to the other. Even if it’s in another language, that’s cool. The bank will pay to have it translated if they really want it that bad, OK?

So, there’s always a way, but if you have questions about where your down payment is coming from, why you have to prove it or if you want me to handle your mortgage so that I can show you how you can prove your down payment, just give me a call or send me an email.

I’m Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I am a Canadian mortgage broker, and I’m helping you understand your mortgage.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

Hi everyone, it’s Leah Coss with the Mortgage Centre. I’ve been getting a lot of questions and ongoing I think I’ll continue to get this question but people ask, especially it tends to be women, “If I received child support or alimony payments can I use that to help me qualify for my home?” Like with many things in mortgages, every lender has their own opinion on this. And, as well, the question is going to have the answer of “Yes,” and “No.” So let’s go through alimony first. Now, you need to remember if you’re qualifying for a mortgage, a mortgage is typically 30 years long, sometimes 25 years long, even though the individual term with each lender is only five years here in Canada. So because of that, you won’t most likely or typically get alimony for that length of time.

If you’re receiving alimony and you get into a new relationship and move in with them or get married that alimony is going to be gone. As well as some alimony has lengths, like you’ll get alimony for the next three years or something like that, or you’ll get alimony until you’re out of school, or alimony until you get a job or something like that. So, therefore, it’s not a guaranteed income and it makes lenders so much nervous because of that.

So even if you did find a lender who would allow you to use alimony, it will not be able to be 100 percent of where all your income is coming from, OK. Unless you have an ironclad contract that you and if you have this kind of lawyer, I’d love to meet him but where it says, “You will, for the rest of your life, get alimony no matter what happens, and in this amount, or what have you,” then maybe, but even then, you might have to go to a private lender for that.

But in general, alimony, not really, and it cannot definitely, definitely, definitely cannot be 100 percent of your income. You must have a job and perhaps some alimony and then if needed to boost you up, you can use the alimony at that point with some lenders.
Child support is the same rule of thumb. It can’t be a 100 percent of your income if that’s all the income that you’re getting, not reliable. Your kids, once they are out of school, you’re no longer going to be getting child support from them. As well, say you’ve got a kid who is 16, or your mortgage is going to be five years long, and what if they don’t go to college?

That means in two years, no longer are you going to be getting that child support. So the banks don’t really want to bank on that. Some of them just don’t allow child support altogether, some of them want the kids to be under nine years old, some under 12 years old at the point of obtaining that mortgage.

But again, in general banks don’t like to use it. They don’t like to rely on it and it cannot be a 100 percent of your income. You must have other income, not alimony, that is contributing to your household income.

So there’s the answer for you. It may or may not be the answer that you want, but really, if you think about it, it does make a lot of sense. So if you’ve any questions about this or anything else, be sure to leave a comment below. Subscribe to my videos, and I guess that’s about it.

Let me know of any other questions that you have. This is Leah Coss with the Mortgage Centre. I am a Canadian Mortgage Broker being eaten by mosquitoes. I’ll talk to you later.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

Hi, everyone. It’s Leah Coss with The Mortgage Centre. It’s been a long time since I had spoke with you. I’ve got two dogs now since you saw me last. This one’s Boone, of course, all grown up, and this one’s Steve, our latest addition. And you guys are good. You can go away now. [laughs] And I want to apologize. It’s been a really, really long time since I’ve done a post. I’ll be completely honest with you. I got a really bad haircut, so bad I didn’t even know what to do with it. So I just didn’t feel like being on camera.

Nothing major has happened in the mortgage industry. It’s pretty much the same old stuff. So a lot of you have found my old video blogs, and if you have additional questions, you just ask me. I’ve been compiling all those questions, though, so I’ve got a lot of video blogs that I’ll be doing coming up that I can release for you, and hopefully that’ll help you out some more.

But I just wanted to let you know that there haven’t been any major changes out there, except for a couple. For one, right now, it’s the beginning of July, and rates are starting to increase. And since I spoke with you, rates have gone up, they’ve gone down, they’ve gone up, they’ve gone down, and now they’re just going back up again. Now, are they going up crazy? Not a lot, but it’s still a good idea to consider getting a rate hold if you’re going to be getting a fixed rate. So you can always give me a call and I can help you out with that if you like.

And then the other thing is one of our major lenders, MacQuarie, they have not gone “out of business” in that they’ve crashed, but they simply stepped out of the broker channel. And the reason is that MacQuarie actually does so many things. They’ve got their hands in many different financial type endeavors.

And because interest rates are so low, I mean, if you think about it, you can have a savings account and make the same amount of interest as what you’re paying on your mortgage. So, to an investor, where’s the profit margin, right? So they just opted that. They’re still going to be doing the people who are currently on their books with their mortgages. They will also continue doing the renewals of those. But, in terms of going forward, there’s just other places they’d rather put their money.

But, other than that, no other massive changes. Just trying to think here. No, there’s nothing else massive to note. And if there is and it comes to me, I’ll definitely do a video blog about it for you. But wanted to apologize that it’s been so long.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment down below. Don’t forget to subscribe. Give me a thumbs up on this video if you like it. And I guess stay tuned, because I’m jumping back in again, [laughs] and I guess that’s about it.

And for those of you who are going to comment, “Why did you cut off all your hair? Then you wouldn’t have had this bad haircut.” Well, actually, every about three or four years I cut off all my hair and I actually donate the bunch to Locks of Love. So if you go to locksoflove.org, great cause. It makes wigs for children who have cancer.

And we all know that going through school was hard enough as it was, let alone having a potentially deadly disease as well going bald and stuff like that. So it’s a great cause. I strongly encourage you to do it. I’m going to continue to do that and risk getting bad haircuts every three to four years. But it’s starting to grow in now. I can actually do something with it.
But other than that, I guess that’s it. This is Leah Coss with The Mortgage Centre. We’ll talk to you later.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

To Skip All of the Transcripts & Just Watch My Videos, Visit My YouTube Channel. Don’t Forget To Subscribe! Click Here

Hi everyone, how are you? This is Leah Coss from The Mortgage Center. I do lot of blogs on self employed people and here yet again, is another one. It’s a really simple quick one. It’s on rates for self employed people. Now some people are in, I won’t say misconception, because it’s not, but they’re under the impression that if they’re self employed, they automatically will have a higher interest rate when they go to get their mortgage. That’s not necessarily the case as you probably know from my other self employed blogs, that there’s two ways of getting mortgage when you’re self employed. You either do a documented income where you are paying yourself out of the company and you’re showing money that you are paying taxes on. OK, and that’s documented and that can then qualify you for your home. In that case, no, absolutely not. You do not get a higher interest rate.

If however, you’re going to use what’s called the ‘stated income’ program, then there’s a couple of different ways that you might potentially have to pay more. First one, obviously is down payment. You can’t do 5% down, you must do 10% down. The other is, depending on the length you go to, yes, if you want to do stated income for one someone, they won’t even do stated income. And then for two, some of the ones who will do them, will charge you a premium on your interest rate. Now do all of them do that? No. And that’s a great reason to go to a mortgage broker because I can make sure I put you with the one who doesn’t offer premium on their stated income application.

The part that you do pay more on because it is somewhat a more volatile file because you are just hypothetically saying what your income is, you’re not actually proving it, for say, if you’re doing what’s called a high ratio loan, which means it is insured by CNHC or Genworth. Typically the scenario happens if you’re putting between 10 or 19% down OK. Once you get 20 %, we can put you with the lender who doesn’t use an insure but it’s an insured deal which often times it is, because you’re only putting the minimum which is 10% down, you’re actually going to be paying a higher rate for CMHC premium, OK.

If you don’t know what CMHC or mortgage insurance premiums are, you need to check on that at the blog because that’s a whole other situation. But in terms of rates, no, if you go with me, I will not put you with a lender who adds a premium to your interest rate. However, Government mandate, if you’re putting less that 20% down and you’re doing stated income, you will be charged a premium on your mortgage insurance. OK, because it’s a higher risk file and like anything with insurance, the higher the risk, the higher the premium. OK, so if you have any questions, let me know. Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I guess that’s all I got for you for right now, hopefully I will be talking to you soon.

Leah Coss

Mortgage Planner

The Mortgage Centre Citywide

604.313.9996

Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?

Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate

Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

The content and opinions expressed are solely the expressions of the writer. They do not represent the views or opinions of Mortgage Centre Canada and The Mortgage Centre – City Wide. Neither Mortgage Centre Canada nor The Mortgage Centre – City Wide warrant the accuracy of what is presented.”

To Skip All of the Transcripts & Just Watch My Videos, Visit My YouTube Channel. Don’t Forget To Subscribe! Click Here

Hi everyone, how are you? It’s Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. I wanted to talk about rate holds because there’s a little bit of confusion as to how this works. Now, when you walk into a bank and you get a rate hold, you’re getting a rate hold with that specific bank, right? So if you walk into RBC, RBC says, “OK, today’s rate is four percent. We’re going to lock in with that for 90 to 120 days, or 60 days for some. And that’s what we’re going to do. Come back to us in the next amount of time and we’ll hold that rate for you.” The mortgage broker is a little bit different. We don’t have a magic button that says we are going to rate hold you at four percent with all of the lenders. We have to go into each lender and specifically get a rate hold with each of the ones that we think that you will fit the best with. So, if you’re not going to be buying today but you’re going to buy later, you have to be as specific as you can with what you want and don’t want.

Is it going to be a rental? Is there going to be a basement suite? How many people are going to be on title? Do you need a co signer? How much down payment do you have? Because then we need to go to each individual lender, and it takes just as much time as doing a full live application. We have to go to each individual lender and get a rate hold.

Now, when I do it, I typically do between three and four rate holds with three or four different lenders. And I’ll try to get lenders that specialize in different areas. That way if you happen to find a house that is a little obscure or unusual, or if you end up finding a house that is a rental or has an unauthorized suite, I’ve kind of got my bases covered.

But it’s important for you to know that if you do get a rate hold with me and you do find something that is completely different than what you were originally trying to get, I cannot guarantee that I can get that rate hold for you. So, it’s very, very important that you explore with me all of your different options that you’re considering when buying a house in the next 120 days.

Now, if you’re looking to get a rate hold today, I probably won’t get you one today. What I’m going to do is wait until I get my kind of 24 hour notice that I usually get from my lenders, just from the general media about rate increases, then I’m going to lock you in. That way we’ve maximized the amount of time that that low rate is held for you.

Keep in mind as well that if you are getting a rate hold, this only really applies to fixed rates. So, if a variable rate is what you’re hoping to get, then a rate hold isn’t really going to help you. But always good to double down and ensure that you do have your bases covered, because you can qualify for substantially more when it comes to a purchase price with a fixed rate than you can with a variable rate So, another thing to keep in mind.

But if you have any questions about this, if you want to get a rate hold, if you already have a rate hold, if you’re not sure if you have a rate hold, but you want one; let me know, I can go through all of the ins and outs with you, discuss which lenders I’m going to put you with, and I guess go from there. So, Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. Hopefully, I will be talking to you soon.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              604.313.9996      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss

To Skip All of the Transcripts & Just Watch My Videos, Visit My YouTube Channel. Don’t Forget To Subscribe! Click Here

Hi everyone, how are you? It is Leah Coss with The Mortgage Center. There is a misconception that if you had a foreclosure in the past that you can’t get a mortgage, and I can see why people would be under that impression. You figured, “Jeez! Something happened in my past, I wasn’t able to make my mortgage payments, I even got foreclosed upon, why would anyone want to lend to me based strictly how I look on paper?” But that’s not the case. What happens is, when you get your mortgage, you have a lender. Sometimes you even have a mortgage insurer. Now in a case where you put down more than 20 percent, chances are you’re probably can have a mortgage insurer who strictly, and when I say mortgage insurer, I mean like CMHC or Genworth or Canadian Guaranty. So you are just dealing with the lender.

Now, obviously there’s still a lender out there, if RBC gave you a mortgage and you fell short on that mortgage. Something happened, you went into a foreclosure for whatever reason, obviously, RBC is probably not going to want to lend to you again in the next few year, seven years, 10 years for as long as they have you on their files, they’re are going to consider you higher risk, and there is better files out there.

Now that seems that you can’t; that RBC is out there emailing all of the lenders saying, flag this person, don’t lend to them. Absolutely not. OK. So if you prefer foreclosure than you will probably go to another lender and get a mortgage from them.
Now, if you put down less than 20 percent on that home and you went in for foreclosure, then you probably had a mortgage insurer. Usually the [indecipherable 01:43] typical ones are CMHC or Genworth. Now, it’s important to know who that was that you were foreclosed upon, the lender and insurer. That lender once again will not want to lend to you in the future but as well that mortgage insurer will not want to lend to you.

But, does that mean is that there is one mortgage insurer out there? No. So if you had mortgage with RBC and it was insured by CMHC, one of the reason we don’t go to RBC or CMHC; we go to a lender who is this Genworth or Canadian Guaranty. OK. So I guess that’s the general way to look at foreclosures and whether he can lend again.

Now there’s a little bit more detail that’s just risen as of 2010, in the beginning of the year. Credit reports never showed mortgages before around March of 2010. OK. So if you had 20 properties out there, there is no way for any one lender to know that you have 20 properties or 20 mortgages, unless all 20 of those properties were held with the same lender. OK.

So with that being said, if you were in foreclosure before around March 2010, chances are that foreclosure didn’t show up on your credit report, which means that it didn’t impact your credit. If however you had a foreclosure after March of 2010, well, then again that’s a grey area.

If it was one of the top five banks, then it probably showed up on your credit bureau. So RBC will be great example. RBC mortgages now show up on your credit bureau. So that means that if you went in for foreclosure, it would show that on your credit bureau, which now means your credit has been hit down quite substantially.

Now, again time heals everything, including your credit and again it doesn’t mean that you will never be able to a mortgage again, it just means maybe not right after the foreclosure you’ll be able to get a mortgage. But time will heal that.

If however, you are with what’s called a non banker or virtual bank something like FirstLine, First National, ResMor, Maquarie, things like that, who are all mortgage lenders, they actually do not show up on credit reports yet. OK. And this is 2011 right in the beginning.

So as of now they don’t show up on credit bureaus, so even a foreclosure was done with them, then it wouldn’t show up on your credit bureau and therefore would not hit your score again. So if you say, “I have had a foreclosure, can I get a mortgage again” .The quick and easy answer is, yes. Whether it would be now or eventually? Yes. You will be able to get mortgage.

Now how many lender options do you have? The choice are going to be very dependent on who you went for foreclosure with and whether it was insured or not. OK. And I can only give you those answers, if you call me with your actual situation and let me know. So if you have had a foreclosure in the past or you are thinking you’re going into foreclosure soon and you are looking for a clear way to get out of going into foreclosure, give me a call. I may be able to work something out, whether it would be private lender to jump in and can save the day or something like that. But give me a call regardless. Anything to do with foreclosures, I can answer your questions and hopefully get you into a new home, sooner rather than later.

So Leah Coss with the Mortgage Center, hopefully I will be talking to you soon.

Leah Coss
Mortgage Planner
The Mortgage Centre Citywide
604.313.9996
Coss.L@MortgageCentre.com

Buying or Refinancing your home soon?
Fill out an application to get you locked in at today’s lowest rate
Apply Now – http://leahcoss.ca

Follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/MortgagesInVan

Friend me on Facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/leah.coss