Ajax Pickering Real Estate Blog

TD Canada Trust Launches the Green Mortgage and the Green Home Equity Line of Credit

Today, TD Canada Trust launched two new Green Home products for those who are planning to purchase a home or leverage the equity in their existing home. The TD Canada Trust Green Mortgage and the TD Canada Trust Green Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) offer a lower interest rate and rebates on certain purchases, while giving back to the environment.

Save money and help protect the environment

TD Canada Trust’s Green products offer a 5-year fixed rate Green Mortgage or Green HELOC with a 5-year fixed portion at 1% lower than the posted rate. In addition, upon validation TD Canada Trust will provide a cash rebate of up to 1% of the amount of the mortgage or fixed portion of the HELOC when the customer purchases and submits receipts for ENERGY STAR qualified products within six months of the term start date of the financing. At the time of the rebate, TD Canada Trust will also make a donation of $100 to the Friends of the Environment Foundation.

What’s eligible?

A wide range of ENERGY STAR qualified products in the following categories:

* Major appliances
* Heating, cooling and ventilation equipment and controls
* Windows, doors and skylights

The cost of a residential energy efficiency assessment is also eligible.

Canadians keen to make a difference

According to a recent survey conducted by Ipsos Reid for TD Canada Trust, one third of Canadians are likely to make significant improvements to their homes in the next 12 months (15% were very likely and 18% were somewhat likely). Furthermore, 76% said they were likely to consider conducting an environmental assessment prior to finalizing renovation plans.

Although cost savings and increased resale value were the strongest drivers for seeking environmentally friendly features, 92% of Canadian homeowners said reducing their home’s impact on the environment is an important factor (49% very important, 43% say it is somewhat important).

“Our recent Green home ownership survey, together with the growing demand we are seeing for green products, shows that Canadians are evolving from being concerned about the environment, to taking action on it,” says Joan Dal Bianco, Vice President, Real Estate Secured Lending at TD Canada Trust. “We’re pleased to be able to support this shift with the first product offering of its kind on the market that brings together home borrowing with Canadians’ efforts to make environmentally friendly changes to their homes.”

How it works:

A typical scenario for TD Canada Trust’s Green Home Products might involve the purchase of a home for $250,000 for which the buyer secures a 5 year fixed rate mortgage of $200,000 with a rate discount of 1%. The homeowner then invests $10,000 to complete some ENERGY STAR-qualified upgrades to the heating system, windows and doors, as well as new kitchen appliances. After submitting the receipts for these upgrades, TD Canada Trust will provide the homeowner with a rebate of up to 1% of the $200,000 mortgage. In this case, that adds up to $2,000 in rebates. (If the homeowner spends less than the equivalent of 1% of the mortgage on ENERGY STAR-qualified products, a rebate for that lesser amount would be provided.) At the time of the rebate, TD Canada Trust would make a $100 donation to the Friends of the Environment Foundation.

Making a difference in your own backyard

“The great thing about this donation is that TD Friends of the Environment Foundation works through almost 100 local chapters coast to coast to ensure that donations are directed to projects in the contributor’s community,” continues Dal Bianco. “This program not only rewards homeowners who make environmentally friendly changes to their homes, but also benefits the environment in their own backyards.”

* More information on our new offering is available at www.tdcanadatrust.com/greenhome
* Information on TD Friends of the Environment Foundation is available at www.td.com/fef/.
* Information on ENERGY STAR(R)-qualified products is available at http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/energystar/.

About TD Bank Financial Group

The Toronto-Dominion Bank and its subsidiaries are collectively known as TD Bank Financial Group. TD Bank Financial Group serves more than 14 million customers in four key businesses operating in a number of locations in key financial centres around the globe: Canadian Personal and Commercial Banking including TD Canada Trust; Wealth Management including TD Waterhouse and an investment in TD Ameritrade; Wholesale Banking, including TD Securities; and U.S. Personal and Commercial Banking through TD Banknorth. TD Bank Financial Group also ranks among the world’s leading on-line financial services firms, with more than 4.5 million on-line customers. TD Bank Financial Group had CDN$385.8 billion in assets, as of July 31, 2006. The Toronto-Dominion Bank trades on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges under the symbol “TD”.

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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960

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The purpose of a home loan bank is to facilitate the customers by offering them easily payable home loans. The loan system also offers a loan guaranty service for the facility of the loaners. In any case , the categories offered are innumerable, ranging from instant to pay day loans.

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The Bank of Canada lowered its benchmark overnight lending rate to 4.25% on December 4th. The trend-setting Bank rate, which is set 0.25 percentage points above the overnight lending rate, now stands at 4.5%.

The Bank acknowledged that the strong Canadian dollar has put inflation on a lower trajectory than previously forecast. It also said exports may be a bigger drag on Canadian economic growth due to a slowing U.S. economy and U.S. housing sector. Turmoil in global credit markets caused by the U.S. sub-prime meltdown was further identified as a risk to Canadian economic growth.

The Bank acknowledged that Canada’s domestic economy remains strong, but said downside risks to economic growth and a stronger Canadian dollar will push inflation lower. The Bank of Canada sets interest rates in order to contain inflation at between one and three per cent.

In line with its updated outlook, it said “the Bank judges that there has been a shift to the downside in the balance of risks around its October projection for inflation through 2009. In light of this shift, the Bank has decided to lower the target for the overnight rate.”

“Financial markets were split as to whether the Bank of Canada would hold rates steady or cut them by one quarter of a percent,” said Canadian Real Estate Association Chief Economist Gregory Klump. “If it didn’t cut interest rates in line with expectations, the Canadian dollar may have soared to new heights and caused even more damage to Canada’s exporting manufacturers. With more interest rate cuts on the way in the U.S., Canada may follow suit early next year,” he said. The next rate announcement is scheduled for January 22nd, 2008.

When the Bank decided to raise interest rates on December 4th, the advertised conventional five-year conventional mortgage rate stood at 7.39% – down 0.05% from the peak reached in October 2007. Competition among mortgage lenders remains stiff, which continues to help many borrowers negotiate discounts from advertised rates. However, fallout from the sub-prime mortgage debacle in the U.S. has caused credit conditions to tighten in financial markets, which has resulted in smaller discounts off advertised mortgage interest rates.

Steady interest rates were factored into the Canadian Real Estate Association MLS® 2007 market forecast issued in October. “Sales broke all previous records in the first ten months of 2007, which will push annual MLS® home sales activity to new heights this year and reach the second highest level on record next year. Prices are also forecast to continue rising next year. Additional cuts to mortgage interest rates is good news for Canadian housing demand,” Klump added.

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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960

By Lori Mcleod, Real Estate Reporter, Globe and Mail

The Bank of Canada’s decision to cut its key lending rate has paid off the way home buyer David Barbuto hoped, even before he takes possession of his townhouse in Pickering later this month.

Mr. Barbuto, a 39-year-old self-employed associate creative director, decided to go with a variable mortgage despite his girlfriend urging him to opt for the security of a fixed rate.

Variable mortgage rates are moving lower in tandem with the central bank’s quarter-percentage-point rate cut yesterday. For Mr. Barbuto that reinforces his mortgage decision; one that has gone against where much of the crowd has been heading as of late.

“I felt comfortable going for the lower rate of a variable mortgage. I don’t have a crystal ball, but whichever way things go I can look at my mortgage again in six months and decide whether to keep going with variable or lock-in if the posted rates drop,” he said.

The quarter-point rate cut to 4.25% will likely put some confidence back into the market, and that should attract more customers to variable mortgages in the near term, said John Schipper, president of Mortgage Intelligence Inc.

“Unfortunately, people have been worried by all of the headlines. In the next 30 to 60 days I think more people will realize that variable-rate mortgages are a reasonably safe investment and that market will pick up a bit,” Mr. Schipper said.

While the rate cut isn’t really material, it’s a move in the right direction for the mortgage industry, he added. Many of the attendees at a large mortgage conference in Toronto this week expected that rates would go up and were happy that didn’t happen, Mr. Schipper said.

Bank of Nova Scotia was first out of the gates following the Bank of Canada cut, lowering the rate on some of its variable mortgages by a quarter of a percentage point to 6%. The posted rate on a five-year fixed mortgage at the big banks is 7.44%, and a mortgage customer with good credit can likely get that discounted to 6.75%, Mr. Schipper said.

Home buyers have been worried about the turmoil in the U.S. housing market, and have been more willing to pay a little more for the security of locking in, he said. But Mr. Schipper said he does not expect any of the banks to lower the rates on fixed mortgages in the near term.

The Bank of Canada’s overnight rate, or the amount of interest it charges financial institutions for short-term loans, affects the cost of variable mortgages. Fixed-rate mortgages are based on bond yields, and then have a premium added on.

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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960