Residential Mortgage

Looking to upgrade your family home, downsize for the next phase of life, or purchase a vacation or investment property? Garvin Mortgages specializes in finding the right residential mortgage for your needs.

Whether you’re a seasoned real estate buyer or it’s been years since you explored your mortgage options, we’re here to guide you through the mortgage process, ensuring you find the right terms, rates & conditions for your unique financial situation.

By working with a mortgage broker, you have access to a variety of lenders & lending options, including mortgages that aren’t widely advertised, which sets you up for lower rates, better terms, and more flexibility with your mortgage.

As mortgage brokers, we’re able to source your mortgage from a variety of lenders, which gives us the flexibility that traditional banks don’t have. With over 15 years in financial services, and access to a team with over 30 years in the mortgage industry. We’ve seen and handled it all - any specific or unique situation can be addressed through our variety of lenders.

Our commitment to customer experience is what sets Garvin Mortgage apart - we’re here to get to know you and find the right solution for your unique financial needs. Plus, we pay for appraisals on funded mortgages!

Articles

Fixed or Variable?

By Samantha Garvin • February 16, 2021

If you're looking to buy a new property, refinance, or renew an existing mortgage, chances are, you're considering either a fixed or variable rate mortgage. Figuring out which one is the best is entirely up to you! So here's some information to help you along the way. Firstly, let's talk about the fixed-rate mortgage as this is most common and most heavily endorsed by the banks. With a fixed-rate mortgage, your interest rate is "fixed" for a certain term, anywhere from 6 months to 10 years, with the typical term being five years. If market rates fluctuate anytime after you sign on the dotted line, your mortgage rate won't change. You're a rock; your rate is set in stone. Typically a fixed-rate mortgage has a higher rate than a variable. Alternatively, a variable rate is not set in stone; instead, it fluctuates with the market. The variable rate is a component (either plus or minus) to the prime rate. So if the prime rate (set by the government and banks) is 2.45% and the current variable rate is Prime minus .45%, your effective rate would be 2%. Now, if three months after you sign your mortgage documents, the prime rate goes up by .25%, your rate would then move to 2.25%. Typically, variable rates come with a five-year term, although some lenders do allow you to go with a shorter term. So at first glance, the fixed-rate seems to be the safe bet; even if you have to pay a little more to lock-in, and the variable-rate appears to be the wild card. But this might not be the case. Here's the problem, what this doesn't account for is the fact that a fixed-rate mortgage and a variable-rate mortgage have two very different ways of calculating the penalty should you need to break your mortgage. If you decide to break your variable rate mortgage, regardless of how much you have left on your term, you will end up owing three months interest, which works out to roughly two to two and a half payments. Not that bad. With a fixed-rate mortgage, you will pay the greater of either three months interest or what is called an interest rate differential penalty. As every lender calculates their interest rate differential penalty differently, and that calculation is based on market fluctuations and the remaining time left on your term, there is no way to guess at what that penalty will be. However, with that said, it won't be pleasant. If you've ever heard horror stories of banks charging outrageous penalties to break a mortgage, this is an interest rate differential. It's not uncommon to see penalties 10x the amount with a fixed-rate mortgage compared to a variable rate mortgage. There is a reason the banks like people in 5-year term fixed-rate mortgages. The goal of any mortgage should be to pay the least amount of money to the lender as possible. So while a fixed-rate mortgage might provide you with a more stable payment, if "life happens" and you need to break your mortgage, you might end up paying considerably more in fees than you would have ever paid by taking a variable rate. Now, something to think about related to the times we find ourselves in, mid or post-COVID, the Bank of Canada has indicated that rates will remain low for years to come, making the chances of an increase in prime very slim. While there is no way to completely capture all the information required to decide on a fixed or variable rate mortgage in a simple article, if you have questions, please don't hesitate to contact me anytime. I would love to walk you through everything and answer all of your questions.

3 Reasons to Use an Independent Mortgage Professional!

By Samantha Garvin • January 19, 2021

If you need to borrow money to finance any property, working with an independent mortgage professional will save you money, time, and provide you with better options than your bank. And if that is the only sentence you read in this entire article, you already know all you need to. However, if you’d like to dig a little deeper, here are three reasons why working with an independent mortgage professional is in your best interest. The best mortgage is the one that costs you the least over the life of your mortgage. An independent mortgage professional will guide you. All mortgages are NOT created equal. Unfortunately, slick marketing and consumerism have led us to believe that the lowest “sticker price” equals the best value. As it relates to mortgages, we’re led to believe that the lowest rate equals the best mortgage. However, this is entirely wrong. When considering which mortgage is the best for you, you’ll want to find one that will cost you the least over the total length of the mortgage. There are so many more factors to consider than just rates, such as the initial term, fixed or variable, amortization, or any potential penalty to break the mortgage (should you need to sell the property before the end of your term). An independent mortgage professional will outline all your options, and help you find the mortgage that best suits your needs. Sometimes taking a mortgage with a bit of a higher rate makes sense if it gives you flexibility down the line to avoid huge payout penalties. Save time and protect yourself by submitting one mortgage application, and let an independent mortgage professional find the best product for you. Let’s face it; getting a mortgage can be challenging enough on its own. Everyone’s financial situation is a little different and making sense of lender guidelines is a full-time job in itself. When you work with an independent mortgage professional, you submit a single mortgage application, all your documentation is collected upfront, and one credit report is taken. Your mortgage professional will then compare your mortgage application and financial situation to various lender guidelines and provide you with the best mortgage options (from their expert opinion). By allowing your mortgage professional to do all the research with multiple lenders, you save time while being provided with more options than you’d have available to you if you did all the work on your own, a win-win situation. An independent mortgage professional works for you, on your behalf, while a bank specialist works for the bank and has the banks best interest in mind. It’s no secret that Canadian banks make A LOT of money. It seems every quarter they turn billions of dollars in profit (despite the economic environment). They do this at the expense of their customers by charging as much interest as they can while locking clients into mortgages with fine print that costs them a lot of money down the line if they need to break their mortgage. Bank employee’s work for the bank, they are paid by the bank to make money for the bank. In contrast, independent mortgage professionals are provincially licenced to work for their clients and are paid a standardized placement or finder’s fee for matching borrowers with lenders. When you work with a single bank, you only have access to the products of that bank. When you work with an independent mortgage professional, you have access to all of the lenders that mortgage professional works with and all of their products. If your goal is to find the best mortgage, one that costs you the least over time, you need product options. And independent mortgage professional provides you with this. If you’d like to discuss mortgage financing, as an independent mortgage professional, I would love to work with you. Contact me anytime.