Should the RRSP Home Buyers’ Plan (HBP) be expanded and modernized? That’s what the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) is proposing. CREA has put forward a number of proposals, the biggest of which is “intergenerational RRSP loans” to help first-time homebuyers. At first glance this seems like a good idea. Home prices are rising fast […]

Canada’s banking regulator OSFI (short for Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions) has become quite the water cooler conversation topic these days. “How ‘bout them Blue Jays?” has been replaced with “did you hear about the latest mortgage rule changes?” Although these were perhaps the most anticipated mortgage rule changes in history, there’s still […]

Author: Stephen Weyman Credit cards and homeownership are an unlikely pairing … how can these two things possibly be related? More than you might think actually. Credit cards are a powerful financial tool that not only will help solidify your credit score before you need that mortgage, but they can also assist you with your […]

For most people, buying your home is the biggest purchase of your life and with it a HUGE mortgage. On Financially Fabulous with Limor I share my top tips to pay off your mortgage faster and save thousands of dollars in the process. Financially Fabulous with Limor – How to Pay Off Your Mortgage Faster […]

A personal finance book written by an insolvency trustee can’t be interesting, right? Wrong. Straight Talk On Your Money by Doug Hoyes promises to cut through the biggest myths and mistakes about money and, boy, does it deliver! Full disclosure: I’ve known Doug for a while. I was a guest on his podcast when I […]

Ontario is raising its minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2019. Minimum wage is going up from its current $11.40 per hour to $14 on January 1, 2018 and $15 on January 1, 2019. Ontario is following the lead of Alberta, where the NDP announced last year it would boost the minimum wage to […]

The housing market has seen a lot of changes over the past several months. It all started with the new stress test on insured mortgages last year. Then there was Ontario’s Fair Housing Plan in the spring. More recently we’ve seen higher mortgage rates. If that hasn’t been enough changes to get used to, OSFI […]

Last month I sent out a harmless Tweet… or so I thought. Instead it led to a heated discussion about Canada’s favourite dinner table topic – real estate. Real estate is a popular topic of discussion these days. Everyone and their brother seems to have an opinion on it. It’s not hard to see why. […]

Higher mortgage rates could be coming – and a lot sooner than many of us anticipated. Ever since the start of the year, the Canadian economy has been on a tear. GDP soared 3.7 percent in the first quarter, followed by 0.2 percent in April. With our economy not showing any signs of slowing down, […]

Last week I attended the first annual Ontario Housing Summit. The summit was created to address the increasing importance of housing on the political agenda. The event featured panel discussions on a number of real estate topics, including “Deconstructing Ontario’s Fair Housing Plan,” “The Future of Housing,” and a Fireside Chat on “Ontario’s Approach to […]