The majority of our clients are residential homeowners and we felt this message from one of our Mortgage Broker Clients, Steven Crews with MyMortgageBroker.com, is timely and great information for all mortgage owners.

If you have any additional suggestions or articles that you think homeowners who care about their property and landscape would like to know, send them our way.

Today, we are living in history. Schools and scholars will be talking about the 2020 Pandemic for years to come. But what can you do today?

If you own a home and have a mortgage, then you may be worried about making the payments. Even if your income hasn’t been affected yet, you may want to cut your largest expense to reduce the tension over the next couple of months.

Options to consider to reduce financial stress during these time

  1. Your income has been reduced because of the pandemic
  2. Your income hasn’t been affect yet, but you want to prepare

Your income has been reduced because of the pandemic

If you or a member of your family has been affected by the COVID-19 virus, then every mortgage lender in Canada is providing options to their clients to defer their payments. Every company is different and you will need to contact your provider to see what is available to you.

How will a payment deferral affect me?

When you defer a mortgage payment (also called skip a payment), the interest that would have been due that payment is added to the principle of your mortgage.

For example, let’s say your regular monthly payment is $1750 and the interest portion of that payment is $1,000. If you defer the payment, then your mortgage balance will go up by $1,000 and you will pay interest on that until you make extra lump-sum payments up to $1,000 (plus interest) to pay that off.

If your interest rate is 3.5%, then that $1,000 of payment deferral will cost you approximately $35 per year (compounding). If you have 20 years remaining on your mortgage, then that 1 deferred payment will cost approximately $1,000 of extra interest (because of compounding).

However, if you make an additional lump-sum payment of $1,035 next year, once everything is over and things are back to normal, then you will stop the compounding of that deferred payment. Check out this video for more information on the costs and benefits of this program.

Your income hasn’t been affected yet, but you want to prepare.

If you are still working, or if you are still receiving the same income but want to put yourself in a better financial position to weather potential future issues, then you have a couple of options.

Summary

In these unprecedented times, it’s important to be cautious with your health and your finances. These options provided in this article can help you with your mortgage finances.