John O'Fee ** writers note to me, which I am passing on to you ... given that I teach real estate transactions in Thompson Rivers University (TRU) law school, I feel qualified to comment When the sub-prime mortgage crisis hit the United States in 2008 it triggered a global recession. By almost all accounts, Canada emerged from this crisis remarkably unscathed. The reason for this is that Canada has stricter rules to qualify for mortgages and stricter rules about paying them off. You might think this would result in lower rates of home ownership in Canada when compared to countries with laxer rules like the United States. In fact, home ownership rates are nearly identical despite the fact that Americans can generally deduct the cost of mortgage interest from their income in the United States. Mortgage terminology can be confusing but a couple of simple concepts should be understood. Every mortgage has an interest rate, a term (how long ...
A discussion on political, economic and social issues in British Columbia, and Canada