We are so grateful for every referral you give us. To show our thanks for your trust and kind words, we want to give the gift of supporting your local food bank this holiday season! From December 1, 2022 to January 31, 2023 anyone who refers their family and friends to Jencor will be entered to receive a $500 donation to the Calgary Food Bank or the registered Canadian food bank of their choice. How it Works When we receive a call or email from a new client, we will ask who sent them our way. The referrer’s name will then be entered…

You may have heard people say “s@@t happens. In the mortgage broker world, JIDD happens. These are unexpected events that can turn a happy homeowners’ life upside down. JIDD consists of: Job Loss – often unexpected and with no time to save for emergencies, things get ugly pretty quick. E.I. payments can run out leaving you with the option of buying food for the family or paying your mortgage. Illness – Cancer treatments can be so hard on a person that even if it’s only a 5 minute radiation treatment, you are left feeling unable to work for the rest of the day. Short…

Quiz time! Who is the largest non-bank mortgage originator in Canada with over $100 billion dollars in mortgages under administration? Answer – First National Financial Corporation. If you’ve never heard of them before, don’t feel bad. The only way to get a First National mortgage is through the broker channel. They do not have any branches anywhere in Canada. How did First National become #1? Service – First National are fast. They will accept your application, underwrite it and if approved you will get a response within 4 hours. The industry average is 24 hours. Mortgage brokers use First National for…

During most of the last 28 years, choosing a 5-year variable at any random date would lead to lower interest costs for the following five years. The thing to understand is the last 28 years we have been in the greatest bull bond market in the history of the world, that means the greatest interest rate decline over the longest period ever. The last 28 years were a great time to have a variable rate mortgage. The question now is, what will be the average variable interest rate for the next five years?   The first thing for a borrower to…

Being self-employed in Canada is a dream come true for many Canadians. It gives you freedom and flexibility to forge your path in your personal and professional life. You are in control of when you work, where you work, and whom you work with or for. With that freedom comes a lot of specific responsibilities. Because you are both employer and employee, you are now accountable for the finances of your businesses (assets/liabilities and taxes) as well as your own. Buying a home for self-employed Canadians can be an intimidating process for some because it does require answering a few…

Welcome to Canada! Canada is made up of hundreds of thousands of people and some did not start in Canada but have made it their home. Buying a home, especially when you are new to Canada can be mind boggling, BUT, we have a mortgage for you! The New to Canada Program is designed to help new Canadians purchase their first home sooner and become established faster.  What are the qualifications for this program? Firstly, you must have immigrated or relocated to Canada within the last 3 to 5 years to qualify for the New to Canada Program.  You must have proof that…

Many people think that their credit score will hold them back from obtaining a mortgage.  For some, they may have work to do on their debt beforehand, but sometimes people believe their credit is poor, only to find that it isn’t as bad as they thought.  It pays to seek help from a Jencor Mortgage Advisor to find out where you stand. What is bruised credit and how does it impact your ability to obtain a mortgage?  Mortgage lenders use your credit reports to evaluate risk by looking at your repayment history to see how responsible you are with credit.…

Nationally, Alberta has the highest percentage of homeowners with mortgage renewals coming up within the next two years. You may be coming up for renewal soon. You may be concerned rates are rising, even with a renewal a few years away. The consensus is rates are increasing in North America over the next year and may continue to do so in the foreseeable future. The new government has significantly changed the mortgage market with their implementation of new rules and underwriting guidelines. Due to these changes lenders are now restricted on what they can do and what they cannot offer to…

Ever since the variable rate mortgage was introduced, the question became do I choose the fixed or variable rate mortgage.  With the recent rate increases borrowers will usually choose the security of a fixed rate mortgage.  This does, however come with a premium as variable rate mortgages are generally 0.75% less than their fixed counterpart. On a $350,000.00 mortgage this translates to a payment difference of about $135.00 per month. You as the borrower can take the lower payment and use it for purposes such as:  Debt reduction -  Paying down higher interest rate debt such as credit card, lines of…

As many of you may remember, this past October the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) issued a revision to Guideline B-20 . The changes will go into effect on January 1, 2018 but lenders are expecting to roll this rules out to their consumers between December 7th – 15th, and will require conventional mortgage applicants to qualify at the Bank of Canada’s five-year benchmark rate or the customer’s mortgage interest rate +2%, whichever is greater. OSFI is implementing these changes for all federally regulated financial institutions. What this means is that certain clients looking to purchase a home or refinance their current mortgage could…

The mortgage rule changes that were passed by the Ministry of Finance in October 2016 are still having their effect one year later. Higher qualification requirements and new bank capital requirements have split the industry into two segments – those who qualify for mortgage insurance and those who don’t. Mortgages that qualify for mortgage insurance are basically new purchases for borrows that have less than 20% down and can debt-service at the Bank of Canada Benchmark rate (currently 4.89%). Those who don’t are basically everyone else – people with more than 20% down payment but need to qualify at the lower…

Fraser Institute doesn't believe the changes are necessary and says another key result could be a less competitive mortgage industry   Add another group to the growing list of organizations trying to convince the federal banking regulator to back down from its plan to tighten the reins on consumers borrowing with low ratio loans. The Fraser Institute said Wednesday the changes to consumers with 20 per cent down could make it harder for them to access mortgages, especially in higher-priced markets. Those buyers could turn to less regulated finance companies or perhaps turn to shorter, more volatile variable loans to meet qualification criteria. “The…

You’ve been squirreling away your bonus cheques, savings and reducing the amount of times you visit Starbucks so you can finally get into your own home to build solid equity for your future. Now that you know what you want and what you can afford, it’s time to visit your local Dominion Lending Centres mortgage specialist to get yourself pre-approved for a mortgage. Note, we did not say go to your bank to get pre-approved! A mortgage broker works with banks (including yours), credit unions and other lending institutions to help find you the best rate on your mortgage. Since they work with…

While the headline net jobs gain was a disappointing 10,000--well below the average monthly increase in the past year--the underlying data in this morning's StatsCanada release were quite robust. The jobless rate remained unchanged at 6.2 per cent as the acceleration in wage gains suggests that the economy is close to full employment. Average hourly pay gains hit 2.2 per cent year-over-year, the fastest pace since April 2016, mostly reflecting a long-awaited acceleration in wages in the past few months. The Bank of Canada has cited sluggish wage growth as evidence of slack in the economy. In a reversal of…

Rates are Rising

Preserve your Buying Power - Get Pre-Approved now

Many banks and mortgage lenders have hiked their 5-year fixed rates.
Jencor still has 2.99% 5-year fixed rates for insured or uninsured purchases,
refinances and pre-approvals, 90-day rate holds, also a 12-month rate hold
for new construction properties.

You Can “Save Money”

We know – more changes?! How can that be! With this ever-changing landscape, mortgages continue to get more complicated. This next round of changes is predicted to take affect this coming October 2017 (date not yet available). These new rules contain three possible changes, the most prominent being the implementation of a stress test for all uninsured mortgages (those with a down payment of more than 20%). Under current banking rules, only insured mortgages, variable rates and fixed mortgages less than five years must be qualified at a higher rate. That rate, of course, is the Bank of Canada’s posted…

What prevents many potential homeowners from buying a home is the lack of a down payment. Many first-time home buyers are receiving down payment gifts from family. Unfortunately, many are not in this position and need to plan to save their own down payment. When you can visualize the benefits of owning your own home and it becomes your number one desire, most of us can save that down payment. Every time you feel like spending money that is not a need and takes away from you down payment, consider what you could be giving up, your home. I recently did a mortgage for a…

This is part two of our mortgage basics series. It is a good idea to revisit the basics when looking at a complex thing like a mortgage. There can be misunderstandings which crop up. The mortgage process can be very stressful as you wait for some anonymous entity top decide whether or not you are able to buy the home of your dreams. It is no wonder that things can get missed. Fear not! We will take a look at some of the basics so you can avoid things best avoided. There are three types of mortgages in Canada, so we…

There are 9 million Millennials in Canada, representing more than 25 percent of the population. Born between 1980 and 1999, the eldest are in the early stages of their careers, forming households and buying their first homes. Buying a home is a daunting process for anyone, but especially so for the first-time home buyer. This is the largest and most important financial decision you will ever make and it should be done with the appropriate investment in time and energy. Making the effort to be financially literate will save you thousands of dollars and assure you make the right decisions…

Imagine that, a few years from now, the time has come to renew your mortgage. Several years back, you got a $350,000 at the then great rate of 2.24%. Your mortgage payments are $1522 per month. Because we are now in what the financial brainboxes call “ an escalating rate environment “ – normal people just say rates are going up – when you open your renewal notice you might encounter the same feeling you get when you look at the price of a car you like. When you actually do look at the renewal notice, you see that the remaining balance on…