Government of Canada announces changes to mortgage lending Effective March 18, 2011

Today, the Government of Canada announced new mortgage lending regulations that will affect every home owner or potential future home buyer. There are 3 main changes namely,

• Mortgage amortization will be reduced to 30yrs from the current 35yrs.
• The maximum borrowed to refinance a mortgage will be lowered to 85%. Currently it is 90%. 
• The government will withdraw its insurance backing on secured lines of credit, such as home equity lines.

In essence, these changes likely will not have any effect on home buyers in the Winnipeg area, however can affect those looking to refinance their existing mortgage.

For further information on hoe this may affect you, please call me at 204.946.5333 oe email BloggerHelp@jeffstern.com

Lets Pay Our Fair Share Of Property Taxes

It is nice that Mr. Katz is seeking another tax freeze but if costs are increasing in one area of infrastructure, another area will likely "feel the squeeze". As a homeowner and I am pleased that our properties are increasing in value after so many years lagging behind National averages. What I do not understand is why our property taxes are tied to the assessed value (the City of Winnipeg's opinion of Market Value) rather than the actual cost that the homes and commercial properties in their catchment utilize in comparison to other area's.

Why is it that the property owner is even likely penalized for maintaining their property therefore increasing the demand (which is the driver of market value) increasing their assessed value when they may not even be using the same percentage of infrastructure costs than another area. As an example, older areas have a back lane that adds additional cost to snow clearing and road repairs versus a newer community that does not. Areas of high appeal/demand as an example, likely do not have the same emergency services costs and yet pay more in taxes towards the costs supporting a higher demand area. There are property owners that do not even have children so they do not use the schools or community centre's but must still contribute!

Why not apply the property taxes on a user-fee basis so that actual use results in a fairer charge-back? Just because one home owner's property is worth more, does not necessarily mean that they earn more income (take senior citizens for an example who are on fixed income) so may not be in a financial position to "carry more of the load" as the system currently works. How much could we save in tax dollars by reducing the assessment department overhead?

Perhaps simply charging by frontage foot (times 2 if a back lane) and then dividing the use versus cost of City services by area using the voting constituency map is fairer than by assessed value as when looking at the assessment website they calculate lot square footage not frontage however the frontage is on the tax bill so the city already has that data and the frontage reflect the actual cost of road maintenance and snow clearing.

Isn't it time for our property taxation system to be more fair?

In an era of online socializing, keeping your information safe is a full-time task. Here is something I learned from a friend of mine,Lesley Wagstaff,  a fellow REALTOR® in B.C. (Thanks Lesly!)  NEW PRIVACY setting called "Instant Personalization" that shares data with non-Facebook websites and it is automatically set to "Enable." Go to Account(top right) >Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites >Instant Personalization > Edit Settings, and un-check "Enable" (bottom of pg)BTW if your friends don't do this, they will be sharing info about YOU. PLEASE COPY & REPOST