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From residential to commercial and recreational properties, your One Link Mortgage Professional can help you make the right decisions by providing you with a wide range of alternatives. Whether you're buying a home, renewing your mortgage, or thinking about refinancing to renovate, invest or consolidate your debts - TRUST THE ONE LINK MORTGAGE PROFESSIONALS!
5 ideas for families to make the most of staying home this March Break
(NC) Due to current travel restrictions, families will be spending March Break at home. One way to keep your kids busy is by making personal finance a group activity.
Research shows that young people who discuss money matters with their parents have higher financial knowledge and skills, which leads to stronger financial well-being in the future.
Here are five ideas for simple things you can do with your kids to help them develop good money habits early:
Involve your children in age-appropriate conversations about news related to economics or budgeting, and discuss how the family is responding to the unprecedented circumstances caused by the pandemic.
Use the Financial Consumer Agency of Canadas online interactive budget Planner to teach your children about the importance of a financial plan. Try making a budget for your next family vacation.
Encourage your child to set up a savings account. Forming good savings habits early can help kids learn how to be financially independent and avoid relying on credit cards and loans in the future. Help your child to make a plan to save for something they really want, like a new toy or video game.
Show your child how to set up an automatic payment for either a subscription or their cellphone. This is an opportunity teach them about the importance of never missing a payment, which could have a negative impact on their credit report in the future.
Review your childs bank account agreement with them and make sure they understand their responsibilities, such as keeping their PIN secret, even from their parents. Sharing their PIN means they may not be protected from a fraudulent transaction on their account.
Understanding personal finances can have a big impact on the present and future well-being of young people. No matter what life stages your child is at, you can find unbiased and fact-based information from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada at canada.ca/money.
Is Canada’s housing policy working? Look at the outcomes for people, says new report from the National Housing Council
As the federal government launches a new drive to address Canadas housing crisis with Build Canada Homes, a new report released today by the National Housing Council (NHC) offers a comprehensive framework to assess the effectiveness of federal housing policy.
The report entitled Measuring What Matters: Proposing an Outcomes Framework for Federal Housing Policy, tackles a central question: how will Canadians know if housing policies are working?
Analysing the current health of Canadas housing system, the report finds that:
Affordability is declining: Home ownership is affordable in fewer than 20% of Canadian markets, and asking rents are unaffordable for most renters.
Housing transitions are stalling: Canadians face increasing barriers to moving through the housing system, from renting an apartment, to moving into ownership and from a first-owned home to a family-sized unit.
Equity gaps persist: Lower-income households, women, Indigenous people, racialized communities, and other equity-denied groups experience worse housing outcomes.
Supply challenges are growing: Rising costs of materials, land, labour, and municipal fees, along with approval delays and labour shortages, are driving a cost-of-delivery crisis.
Policy misalignment remains: Success is often measured by inputs and outputs - such as dollars spent and units built - rather than improvements in housing outcomes.
Grounded in the National Housing Strategy Act and the principles of the right to adequate housing, the report states that outcomes for people are what matter most when assessing if housing policies are working.
https://nhc-cnl.ca/news/post/is-canada-s-housing-policy-working-look-at-the-outcomes-for-people-says-new-report-from-the-national-housing-council-
Record December caps record year for Canadian home sales
Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show national home sales set another all-time record in December 2020.
Home sales recorded over Canadian MLS Systems jumped by 7.2% between November and December to set another new all-time record.
Seasonally adjusted activity was running at an annualized pace of 714,516 units in December 2020 the first time on record that monthly sales at seasonally adjusted annual rates have ever topped the 700,000 mark.
The month-over-month increase in national sales activity from November to December was driven by gains of more than 20% in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Greater Vancouver.
Actual (not seasonally adjusted) sales activity posted a 47.2% y-o-y gain in December the largest year-over-year increase in monthly sales in 11 years. It was a new record for the month of December by a margin of more than 12,000 transactions. For the sixth straight month, sales activity was up in almost all Canadian housing markets compared to the same month in 2019.
For 2020 as a whole, some 551,392 homes traded hands over Canadian MLS Systems a new annual record. This is an increase of 12.6% from 2019 and stood 2.3% above the previous record set back in 2016.
