Best Place to Get a Mortgage?

[bellini]

I was wondering if anyone has any advice on the best place to get a mortgage. We our first time home buyers and our looking for around 200k. We deal with RBC and TD Canada Trust for banking and investments. I heard that big banks charge more interest on Mortgages any advice would help

[Midnightly]

not sure where your located but i'd suggest a mortgage broker.. they can shop around and find you the best rate

[brunt]

Try ING (http://www.ingdirect.ca/en/mortgages/index.html). Decent rates, good repayment terms.

[Zonny]

I absolutely second the mortgage broker route. Check out this earlier thread on this topic:

http://forum.smartcanucks.ca/126445-...rokers-canada/

We've used a broker twice now. Our broker got us a lower rate than the bank we've done business with for years, our 'home bank' wouldn't match it.

[Eeyah]

Broker! You can usually get away with ONE house appraisal and then they can shop that appraisal around to the lenders that they have access to. Where as a homeowner cannot shop an appraisal around - each bank will require there own and in the end it'll cost you.
Also Brokers do get better rates, when we started the process CIBC was going to give us 5.25% went to a broker and he was able to "lock us in" at 4.24% and if the rates went lower we could of course get the lower rate...the day we signed the doc's we got in at 2.1%....CIBC was advertising 4.95%. Funny thing was our broker worked for CIBC, and he was still able to get us better rates than going into bank itself. Shop around and select a broker(or banker) that suits your needs, feel comfortable with them, and make sure that they will answer all of your questions - I walked out on two Brokers cause they couldn't be bothered to answer my seemingly silly Q's, and I don't regret it at all...Knowledge is power

[ashedfc]

Look for features in your mortgage - institutions do not matter (as all of them deal in the same Canadian dollar, & similar interest rates).
Its the mortgage features which makes a mortgage good or bad. There are cases when, a higher rate can lead into a lower monthly payment (explore all your options).
My personal recomendation is a readvancable mortgage.

However, every individual is different, & its your spending habits which is more important in mortgage. If you have surplus money every month, then you should be able to pay extra towards your mortgage. And, if you run out of money, then extra amount paid should be accessible as line of credit.

[bellini]

Thank you so much for your advice everyone

I ended up going with RBC and getting the rate capper mortgage with a starting interest rate at 2.3%

[ashedfc]

Prime less 0.6 means, 1.9% interest rates are available, recently, one of my friend got this rate from BMO. They also gave him a homeline (any principal amount he pays every month is available as a line of credit at Prime + 0.5% = 3%).
This homeline is an important feature, for financially disciplined individuals (it prevents you from going into higher interest credit card).

[Bumper]

Totally agree. I love the ING mortgage and pre-payments can be done on the internet in about 2 minutes! If you go through a mortgage broker, you might be able to get a small disount off the competitive posted rates too.

Try ING (http://www.ingdirect.ca/en/mortgages/index.html). Decent rates, good repayment terms.