This is Patrick’s bio
A 47-year-old accountant in Oakville refinanced in March 2021 at 1.84% on a five-year fixed term. By March 2026, when that term expires, she will owe roughly $310,000 on a property she bought for $620,000. The rate she gets on that $310,000 will
A 58-year-old engineer in Oak Bay walks into a broker's office with $800,000 in home equity and a clean credit file. He's turned down for a $250,000 refinance anyway. The reason isn't the OSFI stress test, though his broker spent
A 29-year-old accountant in North York signed a six-page document in a sales office last month. She got $78,000 off a one-bedroom condo. She also got a clause that forbids her from disclosing the sale price to anyone, including her mortgage broker, for two years.
A Victoria couple in their late fifties walks into a mortgage broker's office with $380,000 left on their home and $620,000 in an RRSP. Their financial advisor has been telling them for three years to liquidate the registered account and kill the mortgage before they turn
Miguel and Claire sat in their broker's office in Oakville with $85,000 saved and stable incomes totaling $140,000. They'd been pre-approved at $625,000 three weeks earlier. Now the broker was telling them their approval had dropped to $545,000. Nothing about their
The policy was in force for three years before anyone noticed. The employee's salary had climbed above the non-evidence limit, the threshold at which group life insurance requires medical underwriting, but HR never triggered the health forms. Premiums were collected on the higher amount. The file looked
A mortgage broker fielding renewal questions hears it constantly: "What's the penalty if I break early?" The client needs the number to decide whether refinancing makes sense. The broker can't provide it without contacting the lender, which requires authorization the client won't
On March 21, 2025, Prime Minister Mark Carney cancelled the proposed increase to Canada's capital gains inclusion rate. The change was scheduled to push the rate from 50% to 66.67% for gains exceeding $250,000. It will now stay at 50% for 2026 and forward. That reversal
Most tenant insurance policies in Canada already cover your bicycle up to $2,000 for theft or damage, even if you lock it up at the office or chain it outside a coffee shop downtown. That coverage is sitting in a policy you're probably already paying $25 to
A 47-year-old dental hygienist in Burnaby, pulling down $72,000 a year, just watched the market she spent two years waiting on start moving without her. June brought a 10% jump in sales across Greater Vancouver, the kind of number that gets quoted in boardrooms as proof the
The couple had their down payment. They had stable jobs. They had done the math on what a $650,000 mortgage would cost them monthly at 4.39%. The lender said no anyway. Not because the bank doubted their ability to carry the loan. Because Ottawa requires lenders to pretend
My landlord in Toronto accepted a post-dated cheque for twelve months of rent before I had a Canadian bank account. The cheque was drawn on an institution that didn't yet know I existed, written in an amount equal to half my annual salary at the time, and