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Buying a Home
The property market contnues to boom!
If you decide to buy your own home, you may require a mortgage
(home loan) to buy the property.
There are all kinds of mortgage products available in Canada
with every type of variation. There are even “interest
only” mortgages where your monthly payment services interest
only and not capital. Some mortgage products offer a very low
initial interest rate (like 1.95%) for a limited period, increasing
after that period of time has passed.
Generally consumers have the option of having a mortgage where
the interest rate fluctuates or they can decide to lock in to
a rate which will generally be higher, but which is locked for
a specific period of time and will not fluctuate for that period.
Had you decided to lock in to a rate during the week ending
May 27th, 2005, you would have found the following rates available:
1 year: 3.85%
2 year: 4.15%
3 year: 4.25%
5 year: 4.55%
10 year: 5.14%
So, how does this translate into you repaying your home loan?
If you choose to pay back a $100 000.00 mortgage over 25 years
and you selected the 5 year period above, your payment would
be about $556.26 per month. (Canadian Dollars) The monthly payment
would be fixed for 5 years, the advantage being that you would
not be affected by a sudden increase in your monthly payment
for 5 years.
Renting a Home
Many immigrants will rent a home for a while at least, the
advantage being that they can find out for themselves the areas
of a city that they most like, they can develop a trusting relationship
with a real estate agent who they are comfortable working with,
and they can find out more about the cost of living and what
they can afford to pay for a home. It’s anyone’s
guess, but there are many people who expect a market correction
in the future that could bring property prices down a little
if not substantially.
Here are the approximate average rentals for a 2 bedroom apartment
in 2004 in the following Canadian cities:
Saskatoon $580.00
Winnipeg $660.00
Calgary $805.00
Vancouver $984.00
When renting, expect to get a stove, fridge, washing machine
and dryer (or facilities in high rise buildings), often also
a dishwasher and microwave oven.
I also get lots of questions about the weather....
The Weather
Summer started officially today....time to play golf 'till
10 at night and take long walks along the sea wall here in Vancouver!
Here are the temperatures for Tuesday 21st June 2005. Hopefully
they dispel the perception of Canada as the “great white
north” covered in snow all year round!
All temperatures are in degrees celcius:
Montreal 25 degrees (Eastern Canada)
Toronto 24 degrees (Eastern Canada)
Vancouver 24 degrees (Western Canada)
Thunder Bay 31 degrees (Eastern Canada)
Winnipeg 28 degrees (Central Canada)
Compare these temperatures to Los Angeles at 26 degrees today,
San Diego at 22 degrees, Seattle at 24 degrees, and New York
at 28 degrees!
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Greetings
from Canada - 
I
hear from people who are looking for a job in Canada before
they initiate the immigration process. They send resumes (CV’s)
by the hundred to potential employers in Canada. They seem surprised
that businesses in Canada are not leaping up to employ them.
