Government Releases a ‘Mortgage Prepayment Code’

Yesterday, the federal government published a ‘Mortgage Prepayment Code‘ which basically guides all (federally regulated) lenders how they communicate the IRD (Interest Rate Differential) to borrowers. Yay! This has been a long time coming. For years, banks and lenders have been obscuring penalty descriptions with vague, complicated formulas for calculating prepayment charges. A link to… Continue reading Government Releases a ‘Mortgage Prepayment Code’

The Best Mortgage Rate is Not Always the Best Option

In the mortgage world, there’s always a lot of talk about rate.  What’s the current best 5-year rate?  What’s the best rate I can get?  What’s the best rate you offer? While rate is definitely an important part of the mortgage equasion (and we discussed a while back why term is also important), sometimes the… Continue reading The Best Mortgage Rate is Not Always the Best Option

The Cost of Borrowing

With the emergence of the Internet over the past couple of decades, more and more consumers are playing an active role in “rate shopping” for their mortgage.  Unfortunately, the “best rate” doesn’t always equal the best mortgage – there’s usually a big difference between the lowest rate and the lowest total cost of borrowing.  In fact, the… Continue reading The Cost of Borrowing

What is an IRD (Interest Rate Differential)?

The world of mortgages and real estate is filled with an excessive amount of acronyms.  If you were to overhear some of our conversations, you would swear we were speaking a different language – LTV and PMI this, and IRD and ARM that, API, BPS, and it goes on and on.  While most people don’t… Continue reading What is an IRD (Interest Rate Differential)?