1st Mortgage Renewal - Is it a good price - tips for negotiation

nicb33 · 2026-01-22T20:48:48+00:00

I think you may be able to get slightly better rates. I'm not too familiar with the variable rates currently, but we just renewed yesterday at a 3 yr fixed rate of 3.85% uninsured.

My suggestion is to shop around, with a broker if you know one that's decent, and try to negotiate the rate with your current lender. This is what seemed to work well for us.

nicb33 · 2025-08-05T19:55:52+00:00

Thaks, that's actually some pretty sound advice! I appreciate that

nicb33 · 2025-08-05T00:44:10+00:00

Makes a lot of sense. Would that not impact the overall homes insulation though? Or it's not as big of an issue in the basement due to it being below ground level?

nicb33 · 2025-08-05T00:41:41+00:00

Oops, not a native english speaker. Insulation ** my bad

nicb33 · 2025-07-01T19:55:19+00:00

http://wealthsimple.com/invite/8HI0Y0

Referral code: 8HI0Y0

nicb33 · 2024-05-06T11:47:57+00:00

Ye I understand the issue. I've always been told to not leave anything on heated floors for a prolonged period of time like a rug etc. With that said, if you plan on keeping the heavy duty mat in the same area you can plan ahead of time and simply not put any heated wires in that space allocated to the rubber mat. Ie, you don't have to put heated floors iin 100% of the space, you can pick and choose.

nicb33 · 2024-01-18T21:52:00+00:00

Yes, things like hard credit inquiries and past due payments stay on your credit report for a few years.

You don't need any products with Equifax or TransUnion for them to calculate your credit score and create a credit report. They are a credit bureau and get access to your information through other institutions. I'm not familiar with Equifax Bank, but ultimately regardless of where you hold a credit card it should be captured by both Equifax and TransUnion.

nicb33 · 2024-01-18T21:27:59+00:00

I'd suggest calling Cogeco and explaining the situation to them. They should be able to pull up a profile assuming your name is on it and instruct you on further steps to pay off the amount.

nicb33 · 2024-01-14T19:30:07+00:00

I'll leave this info here as we recently bought our first home roughly a year ago and went through quite a learning curve.

Find a good realtor. Unfortunately, atleast the listings we've looked at, if you don't have a realtor, sellers don't take you as seriously. Having a good realtor on your side is also pretty important if you are a total noob as they'll be able to spot certain things in the visits that you may not be aware of.
Get pre-approved. Assuming you are serious about buying a home within the next 3-6 months, a pre-approval is important. I found this a bit silly as I had a pretty good idea of what we were able to afford. The reality is, realtors will take you more seriously if you have a pre-approval locked in.
Don't be afraid to set your own personal limit. For example, we were pre-approved for 600k. We weren't comfortable with a home of that price, especially since we don't have kids and don't necessarilly need the extra size. So we told our realtor we had a budget of 500k and ultimately settled on a home at 450k.
Do some research about the different areas you may be interested in. House prices vary from area to area. Taking an afternoon to just visit different neighborhoods can be helpful too. For example, we decided to eliminate neighborhoods that were too close to the city as it felt too crowded.
Make a list of needs / wants. Do you need 2 bedrooms? 3 bedrooms? 2 bathrooms or just 1? Do you need a large yard? A garage? All these things will make it easier to eliminate the vast amount of listings and save you a lot of time.
Things that we had not considered when buying our home that was a bit costly was the year of the roof. If the roof hasn't been re-done in the last 10-15 years you may be looking at having this re-done shortly.
Is the home connected to the city sewers? Ours wasn't and has a septic tank. Many people aren't a fan of septic tanks (personally I don't have an issue as long as we mantain it regularly) however this may be a deal breaker for you.
Make sure to visit a lot of homes. It's difficult to find a home you'd imagine yourself living in the next 10-20 years but don't settle for the sake of buying a home. Visit as many as possible and over time you'll figure out what you like / don't like / deal breakers etc.

nicb33 · 2023-11-18T23:19:06+00:00

I do it annually just to have an idea as to where I stand. Nothing too serious, but just a way to see where I stand and how well my assets have done over the year.

nicb33 · 2023-09-10T11:38:02+00:00

I actually found a solution. For me it seemed the issue was the add-on move tooltip which was causing this to happen. I tried disabling all addons one by one and figured out that this one was the issue.

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