My wife and I recently had an offer accepted to buy a home in Canada. For various reasons, it would be advantageous to pay all-cash when the deal closes on April 10.
I (US citizen) have substantial US-domiciled non-registered assets, and would need to transfer about US$550,000 in order to pay all-cash.
Basic idea:
1. Liquidate US$550k of US-domiciled ETFs
2. Wait for trades to settle
3. Transfer USD to BMO investorline
4. Norbert's Gambit...
MIC is a mortgage investment corporation (eg Fisgard). All I wanted to do was diversify (maybe 10% of portfolio) with some non-stock/bond holdings that have potential for a decent return albeit with some risk I handle my own investments through TD Waterhouse but would purchase shares in the MIC directly (no broker). I have completed half the courses towards a Financial Planning Certificate and have been directing my investment for more than 6...
My brother just purchased a duplex very recently. This is in British Columbia. My mother and I have been actively assisting him with various things. One email that we received from our notary public, which was about the title registration, reads: I attach the registered Form A Freehold Transfer for your records and will provide you with a State of Title Certificate in about three months' time once the vendor's mortgage is removed.
Ottawa's new Tax-Free First Home Savings Account is coming: What you need to know
Draft legislation has been issued for the new Tax-Free First Home Savings Account (FHSA). Jamie Golombek has many details in the linked article. Taxpayers with comments and suggestions have until September 30th to make them.
This new registered plan gives prospective first-time homebuyers the ability to save $40,000 on a tax-free basis towards the purchase of...
I started the year with $300,000 in my corporate bank account, earned another $200,000 during the year and bought a $400,000 condo with cash as it was a good deal. Thus was left with $100,000 in my bank account at year end. Ignoring Land transfer tax and closing costs; can I deduct the full cost of the condo of $400,000 against that years corporate income, or only the $100,000 I earned that year?
I bought 2 rental apartments many years ago. When the values increased by more than double I sold one to pay off the loan.
Now I have an apartment worth 400 that was bought for 125. when it comes to rent it still is not really giving a return that say a GIC could at this point. But that is based on 400, not 125. Does one use the lower value?
We had a grease fire in the kitchen - unattended deep fry bowl. Direct damage to four custom cabinets, blackened, peeling ceiling. Rest of the cabinets and walls various shades of white and grey now.
Called the insurance, a project manager from internal restoration arm of the insurer came by our place.
He started pushing the easy stuff: cleaning with sponges upstairs(useless, no need), duct cleaning etc. while avoiding an itemized, high-level...
My friend Mike owns house A (in the city) and house B (in the country).
House A is his principal residence.
He plans to sell house A and to rent an apartment (in the city).
After selling house A, can he declare house B to be his principal residence (in order to pay less tax on the capital gain when he sells house B sometime in the future) even though he would spend 60% of his time at the apartment and 40% at house B?
New to FWF but have a learned a ton from here already, so thought I would pose this question to the forum. I have searched for threads on the smith maneuver, but haven't found much in the way of testaments or personal experiences.
Until recently I had written off the idea of home ownership as I thought the opportunity cost on the capital I have managed to save would be too great. I live in a VHCOL area and would need a significant down payment...
I'm hoping someone can provide a little info on this situation. I sold my home several years ago and carried a mortgage for the new owner. It's currently a little less than half the sale price. Got a call from the owner today letting me know that the house burned down last night. Everybody got out, thank God. The house is a total loss. I've never held a mortgage before and I'm wondering just how it works. Does the insurance company just cut a...
A retired couple I know (early to mid 70's) has had their home condemned due to Earth movement and insurance does not cover this , so they are looking for new accommodations. Their financial advisor has suggested selling all their investments in order to purchase a home and then borrowing against the home to repurchase the investments. This seems like bad advice to me. Looking for any input before asserting my 2 cents.
2023 and 2024 will be an interesting period for real estate in Canada.
Just about every market so far has had declines of varying severity.
We have a fixed mortgage for another 3 years and if we were to renew today at a 5% fixed rate, our mortgage payments would be 45% higher.
Our household can deal with that cost but I suspect many families will struggle to do that. Moreover, if carrying costs become 40% higher for new buyers that will...
Fortunately we have been mortgage free for many, many years. However my adult children are looking at purchasing a first house and need to educate themselves on all things related to having a Mortgage - finiki .
A somewhat new development this week is the Canadian Mortgage Charter. This week's Fall Economic Statement unveiled an initiative it calls the Canadian Mortgage Charter.
There have been a number of articles written on the subject...
Age: 36/36 married
Portfolio: 1.2M CAD all basic indexes. XEQT biggest position. ~10% bonds. About 40% in unregistered.
Household Income: 360k (260k/100k). The 100k is government and stable + DB pension (not included in portfolio). 260k is less stable. This is pre-tax.
City: Edmonton
Current Rent: $1900 full house. 1950s. (Home value approx 580k)
Debts: no
Current spend: approx 65k. likely overly frugal due to backgrounds.
Kids: not happening...
If one uses the same realtor to sell and buy…. Don’t you think you have the right to ask for a “cash back” on the purchase price of the new place i.e part of the commission your realtor will get from the listing agent … it can be in the range or 3 to 4 % of the selling price of the new house . I think it is fair to ask your agent to give you back 50% of that commission.
I understand when house prices were low ( back 15 ~ 20 years a go) the...
My Uncle died in Canada - Nova Scotia and left me a house & I live in the USA. It took me 2 years after his death to sell the house. He lived in the house until his death, after that no one lived in it. The house was empty the entire time . it was not rented or anything. I had to spend a lot of money to upgrade the house to sell it as well as pay to maintain the grounds, pay electricity, heat etc over the two years before it sold. I now have to...
Hi, appreciative of any feedback the forum can offer on FHSAs and gifting contributions to children.
We have 3 children who have either entered, or nearing entry into, the workforce. We, the parents, plan to provide financial support in the event they want to enter the real estate market. One approach for this is to gift money for contributions to individual FHSAs. We are trying to anticipate what we should be careful with.
I was arguing with a friend, who lives in Hong Kong, yesterday. He told me when he wired money out last year to buy a presale condo here, he was required by the bank there to provide proof, aka purchase contract.
Personally, I think that is a ridiculous request (privacy reason) but my friend insisted it is required by all banks around the world since the anti money laudering act was in place some years ago.
with interest rates where they are now, i anticipate a decrease in real estate prices on the horizon. i have a bit invested in vangaurd world etfs (VWRD,VBAL,VEQT), which have about 3.5% real estate in the allocation.
would it be a good idea to sell at the high they are now, in anticipation to housing prices dropping? i haven't bought anything yet and already a little priced out of the market so i see this is as my only good chance....
So this just happened to a friend and I wanted to see if anyone had any advice.
She purchased a condo and the closing was on Friday. Yes, last Friday before the Labour Day long weekend.. therein lies the problem. Her bank was to send the mortgage funds to the lawyer no later than 1800 hours on Friday. The bank woman she deals with swears up and down the funds were deposited in the law firms account. The law firm claims they were not received by...
So I'm bringing this topic up again. Everytime I feel like I've convinced that renting makes more sense financially, I'm hit with an anecdote of people making money from RE sales. I know that people often exclude real extra costs of ownership being deducted from gains (such as maintenance, opportuniity costs. etc.), but this recent anecdote came from a close friend of mine and I'm pretty sure she isn't inflating....
Looking for some advice. (Which is what this forum is all about, right?)
My mother-in-law (MIL), who is 95, owns her own home and is widowed. Eight years ago her oldest daughter (my SIL) moved in with her to help care for her husband (SIL's father). Three months after she moved in, my SIL's son moved in as well. Both have been there ever since. The husband (my FIL) died 4 years ago and the SIL and her son continue to help take care of my MIL....
Hello. As you probably all know, I recently bought a pre-sale condo. We signed the standard sale and purchase contract. However, a few days ago, I received a second amendment to the original disclosure from the developer. There are a few changes, however we disagree with one of them. What will happen if we refuse to sign this second amendment?
Also, I feel that they pulled a bait and switch. If they have certain conditions, they should have...
Hello. I have been thinking about any potential downsides of owning a condo and how to prevent them. I have heard of a case in Ontario, where for some reason, the strata fees of a condo building skyrocketed to $2000. The owners couldn't sell their unit, because nobody wanted to take over a condo that would cost them 2k every month to maintain. So they were stuck with it. This story really gives me nightmares, because I bought a presale condo,...
Seeking to speak to commercial mortgage brokers that specialize in multi unit residential, who have access to OFF MARKET deals in any part of Ontario (within 1 hour of a commercial centre) or Nova Scotia, either now or get them from time to time. I'm a partner in a real estate investment firm that buys apt buildings. Open to a referral fee and giving you involvement in the underwriting process. Please read this ad carefully before you reply. I'm...
You may have read my last thread, but this is a new question I would love some opinions on:
I went the old house route. I think I got very lucky and found what seems like its going to be a great place. $455k. Edmonton has some upsides. I honestly am totally shocked at the value I feel I got.
I am wondering if I even bother with a mortgage or just pay it in full.
Just wondering if anyone has ever had any experience in investing with a land banking company. Some big ones in Canada are Walton and S&D here in Edmonton where I live. Essentially a pool of investors purchases large tracks of land and sits on it for 5+ years and then sells once development comes close to the area.
I've looked at S&D closely on their website and all of their projects have garnerd minimum 20% return per annum, but of course...
Seller and realtor have to volunteer to participate so I don't know why seller or realtor would want to make offers public. Should be be made mandatory.
Hello. I just bought an apartment off the plan, it will be move in ready in 3 year's time. I will need to pay roughly 100K in the next couple of years.
I am worried if something will go wrong with the developer, because another developer in my area just became insolvent. I don't know if the same thing will happen to the developer for my building or not, I am just really worried. What if they can't complete the construction of the building, will...
Okay, first up - please forgive my total ignorance on this process. I have only just begun trying to understand this and thought I would come here first because the advice here is excellent.
My mother and father in law own a large acreage. The acreage can be subdivided. They want to sell or gift a portion of this land to their son, who will build a house on that piece of the property. There is power, water and an approach and such, that is not...
I'm looking to buy a house together with my girlfriend. Most of my savings are in my CCPC (invested in stock index funds) and I'm wondering how I could go about buying the home in a money conscious/tax efficient way. I'm guessing that I would be able to write off one room/office of the home as a business expense? This would be the same way that I write 25% of the rent off from my apartment.
I would also like to know if there is any way that I...
I just bought an apartment in GTA, and have a 5-year fixed mortgage at 5.3%. The rate isn't that great these days, and I do project having some ability to prepay, which my mortgage allows me to do flexibly up to a large amount ~15% pa of mortgage amount.
However I am not sure how to think about that decision: on the one hand, prepaying saves me interest. On the other hand, stocks are cheap now, so the opportunity cost is losing out on the...
I've searched on this forum and others but I never found a clear answer.
I'm working on the business plan to acquire a property to put it on the short term retal market (Airbnb, Vrbo, etc.) in Ontario.
I understand that you can deduct the mortgage interest from the rental revenue.
But is it done proportionally to the number of day it was rented? Or proportionally to the number of day it was on the rental market?
We're on TOU.
I discovered accidently that my power (hydro some will call it) provider Alectra in ON offers
tiered pricing, evidently they were forced by the govt..? during the pandemic
They managed to keep it quiet, wherever they buried the news, I didn't see it.
They have a calculator on their site, which allows one to compare the two options based on the actual usage.
We're diligently doing everything...
We have moved recently to Canada from Australia. I have been in the real estate for some time buying, building and selling in Australia. Circumstances happened we had to move to Canada. I sold couple properties in Sydney and moved.
I am now buying a house and actually landed myself on what i believe a good deal. I am buying a house for about $200k below its market value (due to the interest rate hike seller dropped the price). Now to...
Haven't posted in quite some time, but have enjoyed reading many of the threads. So much great information here....even though I am a novice who can't understand much of it!
Anyhow, I am hoping for some advice:
Our daughter is attending university in Hamilton. She is in residence this year, but we are looking ahead to next year. Student housing has always been difficult to secure around McMaster. The university tells studetns they shoulf start...
I am interested in buying a pre-construction condo in Toronto for both investment/retirement purposes. I currently live in the US for work but plan to move back to Toronto at some point since my family lives there.
Can you please suggest anything I should consider for such a purchase? For instance, do I have to pay additional taxes (e.g., Non-Resident Speculation Tax or Land transfer tax)? I am a Canadian citizen, with permanent...
My brother and I have inherited a house in North York (Willowdale). We could sell it soon, or wait some time, for example until next spring.
How should I think about this decision? For stocks and bonds, I tend to think in terms of the Efficient Market Hypothesis, and basically that there's no advantage to waiting. But housing markets aren't as liquid as stock markets.
There's more uncertainty than usual now, and that may resolve over the next...
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