Cedric Liem

Every province and territory in Canada has some tax or fee whenever you purchase a home. You should take this into account with respect to your expenses. Your realtor fees and this land transfer tax are the two biggest expenses after the cost of your home. Mortgage insurance only applies if you’re required to take it, in which case, insurance would be the third largest cost or possibly second. Below is a summary of the land transfer tax in Ontario

Toronto Land Transfer Tax

Toronto is the only city in Canada that applies a land transfer tax to it’s residents. In fact, according to an article I read in the National Post, we’re the only city in North America that has a tax like this and it’s no chump change. I remember when I bought my 2nd home and (if I recall correctly) I had to pay just under $15,000 in taxes for about a $500k townhome. If I was in any other city in Canada, I would have only paid half of that. You’d think with revenue like that and considering we’re the fastest growing city in the world with respect to house prices, our city would be filthy rich. We’ve had this tax since 2008 and according to an article in the Toronto Star, in 2011 and 2012 we racked up $800 million in debt. In 2016, our mayor John Tory announced that he discovered $1 billion dollars in undeclared debt! Yeah, that’s right, $1 billion dollars according to a headline in CityNews. I recall scandals like that with the province or federal level. But, the city?

I digress because I despise this tax since we’re still incurring massive debt. Torontonians love to brag we’re an amazing world-class city. Well, if you’re going to do something that is a “first”and also be the only one to do so in North America, a massive tax like this shouldn’t be one of them! If increasing revenue doesn’t cure our woes, the other option has to do with expenses. It’s basic accounting and common sense logic. It doesn’t take another study and maybe another department of tons of employees to understand, revenue has to exceed expenses over the long run.

Anyways, here is how you calculate the one and only, Toronto Land Transfer Tax. It basically replicates the Ontario Land Transfer Tax.

Toronto Land Transfer Tax

Mortgages Made Simple and Free Credit Scores from Mogo.ca

If you live in Canada and you want a mortgage then there are plenty of banks and other financial institutions looking for your business. But there are also alternatives to using the banks. There are a lot of advantages of working with an expert mortgage broker and you get all of this and more at Mogo.ca.

Sure there are a number of mortgage brokers around but Mogo is “fintech” company. They offer a number of advantages which we will take a look at here. Everything is clean and simple with Mogo and they are very easy to work with. That’s not something that you can say about all companies in the mortgage business.

The Mogo App

The first thing that is impressive about Mogo is that they offer a really good financial management app. This is a really good app that offers a whole host of features. Here are some of the great things you can do with the Mogo app:

• You can access your credit score for free (more on this later)
• Apply for a mortgage
• Be pre-approved for a competitive personal loan
• Get the Mogo prepaid Visa card for spending control
• Buy and sell Bitcoin
• And more…

The Mogo app is a must have. There is a version you can download for the iPhone here (4.3 rating from 711 reviews as of Dec 10, 2018).

On Android devices you can download it here (4.2 rating from 1088 reviews). There are a number of cool new features planned for the app in the near future as well.

Compare these ratings with the Big Banks which have 3.5 or 3.6 except for TD and CIBC which have 4.0. Mogo is doing pretty good.

Mortgages Made Simple

It is really easy to apply for a mortgage using the Mogo app. Mogo will find the best mortgage deals that match your requirements and present offers to you within the app. At any time you can ask questions and the expert Mogo Mortgage team will help you every step of the way.

You get all of the help and support that you need, and you don’t have to arrange any time consuming and tedious face to face meetings.

You don’t need to use the app to apply for a mortgage with Mogo. From a computer you can access the website and apply from there. You will receive the same high level of support and range of offers from the team.

No Biases or Nonsense with Mortgage Offers

The mortgage experts at Mogo do not work on commission. They are not going to try and push one particular mortgage on you over another to earn a larger commission. Instead they will work tirelessly to find you a great mortgage at the lowest rate. It doesn’t matter if the offer is from a bank or other financial institution – it just needs to be the best deal for you.

I’ve read that some mortgage lenders may play games with people. They will advertise a mortgage offer at a higher rate than you can obtain it for. The idea is that they want you to negotiate and they then become heroes by saving you a couple of percentage points. Mogo hates these tactics and will never use them.

As soon as your mortgage has gone through and your home purchase is funded you will receive a nice bottle of bubbly from them to celebrate. How’s that for service and rewards from a lender?

You can use your Mogo dashboard to keep track of mortgage payments. It is very easy to understand the information as it is broken down into 1 year segments. Mogo wants to help and reward its customers for making mortgage payments on time. Good payers can expect Mogo to pay for a dinner and other rewards.

With the Mogo Mortgage experience you will be able to apply for high ratio mortgages. If you do not have a 20% deposit available, or the equity in your current home is not at this level then you can still apply.

Mogo can send you fixed rate mortgage offers or variable rate offers. The terms of the mortgages range from 1 year to 10 years. It doesn’t matter if you are a first time buyer, self employed, currently own your own home, own vacation property or are new to the mortgage scene in Canada. the Mogo Mortgage experience will be right for you.

Free Credit Score

If you are looking to borrow money you know how important it is to be aware of your credit score right? Lenders will look at your credit score to assess what kind of risk you are. But checking your credit score will usually cost you money.

You can check your credit score each month with Mogo for free. They will show you your Equifax credit score as soon as you become a member. Equifax is the largest of the credit bureaus in Canada and Mogo has partnered with them to provide this service free to you.

If your credit score is not as good as it could be then you can take a number of actions to improve it and then monitor how your score is improving every month. The team at Mogo will provide you with advice on how to increase your credit score.

When you check your credit score through Mogo it is done securely and softly. This means that you never affect your credit score with these checks. Most lenders in Canada use the Equifax credit score system to assess applicants. So having free access to the same information is a tremendous advantage for you.

Other Valuable Mogo Services

As a member of Mogo you will receive some other useful financial services such as:

Making Bitcoin purchases

The benefits of buying Bitcoin through Mogo are:

• It’s really easy
• The fees are low at 1% for buying and selling
• Fast account funding in around 30 minutes and its free
• Safe storage of your Bitcoin
• Investment tracking

Identity Fraud checking

Unfortunately, identity fraud is on the rise so you need to do everything that you can to protect yourself. Here are the benefits of the Mogo identity fraud service:

• Daily monitoring of your Equifax credit inquiries
• You receive alerts with all new inquiries
• If you believe an inquiry to be suspicious you receive guidance on what to do

Become a Mogo Member today

The improved mortgage experience and the free credit score monitoring are the main reasons for becoming a Mogo member. Other services offered by Mogo are a valuable bonus. Head over to Mogo.ca now and take a giant leap forward with your finances.

Banks are usually the first place people turn to when looking for a mortgage.

But, when you have bad credit, they’re not so helpful.

If you have a credit score lower than about 600, you’ll need to get a mortgage from a B lender or private mortgage firm.

A lenders are the big banks. B lenders are trust companies, although, they’re more like A- lenders. Your credit can’t be that bad otherwise you won’t be able to get a mortgage with Trust companies either.

When it’s really bad, you need to go to a private lender.

So, how do you determine if your credit is bad?

Two major companies keep a tab on your credit score:

Equifax

Transunion

You can request copies of your score from them.

But, they charge you if you want it online, i.e. immediately. If you want it by mail, it’s free. How absurd!

First of all, I don’t want all that info being sent by regular mail. Secondly, shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Anyways, that’s how Equifax is doing it. I haven’t checked with Transunion.

Your score can be a maximum of 900. If you have a credit score of about 600 and above, then you probably can get a mortgage with a major bank. It’s not a guarantee, but, it’s just one of the important requirements.

When it’s below 600, you can try a Trust company. If it’s too low, they won’t provide you with a mortgage loan either.

Your next step is to try a private lender.

A private lender may be an individual, a group of individuals, or a company with lots of cash who can provide you with a mortgage when the bank or trust companies don’t want to.

They won’t lend money for everyone, they have limits as well, but, they’re your last type of lender that you can go to after trying a bank and trust.

You should note that you can try different banks if one of them declines you. 

When I was younger and just graduated from university, I wanted to borrow $10k from my bank, TD. I got declined because I only worked less than a year. I showed them that I had $10k in my bank account, but, they still wouldn’t budge.

I ended up going to ING Direct (now known as Tangerine Bank) and I got the loan in about 10 minutes!

Now, a regular loan is not the same as a mortgage and the criteria or determining whether to lend to you or not is different. But, I would speculate that they may be a bit more flexible than the bigger banks.

So, no need to go immediately to a trust or private firm, if you get declined from one of the big 5 banks, try a smaller bank next

If the smaller bank doesn’t work out for you, then try a trust company, and finally a private lender.

This is where having a mortgage broker can really help and save you time.

Now, you probably already know some of the big banks and trusts. You’re probably wondering who some of these private lenders are.

I did a quick search on Google for “private mortgage lenders” and what I noticed is that the first couple pages are actually lists of mortgage brokers, not the actual lenders.

So, after delving into this more, what I learned was that most of these private mortgage lenders don’t advertise to the public. They use mortgage brokers to sell their products and services.

If you don’t know what a mortgage broker is, read my guide on mortgage brokers here.

And that’s why you’ll see mortgage brokers in the first few pages. In fact, I didn’t find an actual lender until the 4th page.

Many private lenders are not accustomed to dealing with the public from what I read. So, it’s best to use a reputable mortgage broker who can help you find a good private lender and broker the transaction for you.

Information on private lenders seems scarce. This is definitely an area where you want to use a mortgage broker. And you probably want to use one who actually specializes in this area, not just any mortgage broker.

Although I outlined above how you can do all this yourself, I would just look for a mortgage broker to begin with and save yourself the work.

Note that when using a mortgage broker for getting financing with a private lender, you’ll probably get charged for it. This is the one area where their services are usually not free.

You should also note that the interest rate that private lenders charge is much higher than the banks or trusts.

Are you planning to use a private lender? Comment below and let other readers know how it went. Information is scare and Mortgage Crunch would love to hear from you.