Canadian Personal Finance Blog

As has been pointed out by both Canadian Capitalist and Michael James the Bank of Canada’s 1/2 point rate drop has not been reflected by the major banks yet, in terms of Mortgage rates (especially in longer term mortgages). Short term mortgages and credit vehicles that are typically based on the Prime interest rate, do reflect this dropping, but longer terms (greater than 6 months) certainly do not reflect this drop.

Why are Mortgage Rates not Lower? Darn good question. Currently the TD Bank’s prime rate is 4.75% and that is also what they are charging on their variable rate 6 month mortgage, however, after that the rates start climbing, to a maximum of 7.75% for a ten year fixed rate mortgage (more than twice the current Bank of Canada rate).

Remember that all rates posted on these sites are negotiable in some fashion or another, and here we come to the real core of this post.

If the bank says, “We don’t negotiate Mortgage rates”, simply leave, and call a Mortgage Broker and you might be surprised that the Broker can get a cheaper rate from the exact same bank (and remember the Broker makes money on this too).

Banks Need You

Remember, if you are a good credit risk and you want to truss yourself up with a long term debt like a Mortgage, the Banks want you! They want your business, and they want your money passing through them. They want you even more, if you carry balances on your Credit Cards, but let’s not go to that subject today, but remember, the bank wants your business, and keep that in mind.

When you are talking to a bank about Mortgage rates and such, it is an excellent time to discuss getting Free Banking too. This corporation wants your business, now is the time to be asking (or demanding) for the best deal you can get. Be prepared to talk to a few banks, and also be prepared to be promiscuous with that information, tell the banks the deals other banks are offering you, and see if they will match the deal or even make a better deal (I don’t suggest lying, mostly because I am a lousy bluffer or liar, being dishonest isn’t the way to go).

Let me be honest, I am awful at negotiating, but I am learning that it is an important skill to develop, so I work on it. It is all a game for me, and getting the best deal I can, is the goal of the game. A really good tactic is to get friends or family to tell you what deal they got, and see if you can beat that deal. You may not get that deal, but maybe you’ll get a better deal, you never know, until you negotiate.

The only thing I can tell you for sure, if you do not try to negotiate, you will not get a good deal from the bank. Strangely the opposite of this is not true (i.e. if you negotiate you will get the best deal), but, if you don’t negotiate, I promise you will not get a good deal (unless your father or mother or a relative owns the bank or works at the bank, but then you are playing the game by using connections, so go for it).

After posting yesterday’s best of: Free Banking post, I received my monthly balance sheet from the bank for my bank account, and dutifully I went into Quicken and ran my monthly reconcile of my chequing account. At the end of the document from the bank it had this very interesting statement:

You have saved $72.50 in Service Charges this month

I beg your pardon? The statement reflect that if I was paying for the $12.95 a month TD program, that I might not be paying for right now, I have saved $72.50. If I was gouged for $73 in bank service charges for a month, I’d start putting my money in a mattress or carrying it around in my shoe.

Then I started to wonder is there anyone out there who actually pays that much a month to the banks? I really hope that is not the case, as you saw yesterday, I think it’s ridiculous to pay $13 a month, $73 a month would be highway robbery. What services could be worth that much?

• Tellers deliver money directly to my house?
• Bank Manager drops by and helps clean out my garage for the spring?
• FREE MONEY! (two words I love to see)
• Interest payments that amount to more than a single bus ticket in value?

Given none of those services are offered by my branch of TD, my guess is those service charges of $73 are fiction, since no one would pay it, would they?

This is why I invest in banks.

Snow and Flooding

With the snow pack in Ottawa disappearing the flood planes of Ottawa are filling up quickly. My area of Ottawa is less likely to flood, however, I am not that far from the Mighty Jock River so there is a chance yet.

How much does flood insurance cost? What does it cover? Is it better to just invest in a sump pump? I have a good shop vac for small wet spills, but if my basement floods, I would have to run to Canadian Tire to get a real pump!

Is flood insurance worthwhile? Opinions?

Last year about this time, I wrote about one of my favorite fights that I have most every year, and that is my fight to not pay banking fees. Some years I win the fight, some years I am forced to pay the exorbitant fees the banks wish I pay, can you guess what happened last year?

Free Banking?

Last night, my wife and I went for our yearly meeting with our current bank to move some money around, update our kids’ RESPs and to attempt to receive Free Banking. My wife was sure that this was not going to happen, and that we were going to walk out of their empty handed, and I would be ranting about how we have to change banks. I guessed I might get something, given I had some compelling arguments, so we had a friendly wager(my wife taking the “We are going to continue paying bank fees” side of the bet) for a sweet treat at a local food establishment.

Now if you don’t remember my compelling arguments were outlined in yesterday’s posting: Changings Banks? but I thought of 1 or 2 other arguments just in case.

My extra arguments that I thought of on the spot during the discussions were:

• If I walked into the Bank of Montreal down the road, and say, I’d like to transfer all of my banking to this branch today, if you give me free banking for a year, I am sure they would comply with my request (and if they didn’t I could simply go to the Scotiabank in the same mall and ask them for the same deal).
• Why if I was a new client, you would give me a free iPod which retails for about $130, yet as a customer in good standing, you expect me to pay $156 a year to use your bank?

The meeting was quite cordial, and we got the banking we needed done, and we were very happy with the service that we received, but when we were left alone, my wife was still adamant that we would not get any concessions (and I was starting to wonder if she was right).

The counter points made by my bank representative were:

• PC Financial and ING have no service charges because they are virtual banks and have much lower overhead, due to them not really having “branches”. This is an interesting argument, except that PC Financial isn’t even really a bank, it is a FRONT to CIBC right now.
• There is a policy not to give free banking services to anyone, since this is a business. As a share holder in TD I am glad to hear that, since I like seeing companies I invest in profit, however as a customer I am not happy to hear that.
• An implied argument, but never stated directly was, “If I give YOU free banking, everybody will want it”, which is very true.
• If I carried the minimum balance in my checking account (I think it is $1000) I would get free banking (i.e. no bank fees would be charged), so why wasn’t I doing that? I pointed out $1000 in my bank account does me little good, but $1000 paid on my debts, does a great deal of good. My guess is if I ever get out of debt, I will carry a balance and get free banking (of course by then I will get the Senior Citizen discount).

What was the final resolution of this discussion? Well, I promised the bank representative that I would not say, and I will abide by that agreement.

Later in the evening I did enjoy the Dairy Queen Blizzard that my wife bought for me, and I will enjoy it for the entire year.

Yes, today is Canadian Thanksgiving, so Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers, and their families. So far it has been a busy weekend for me and the little C8j’s. For those of you looking for a great Turkey story, click on The Greatest Turkey Story Ever Told to read how to prepare your turkey for Thanksgiving.

What is Old is Cheap

Thanks to all this new furniture I collected last week, I now had a wall unit that could accommodate a LARGE screen TV. I know the prices of HDTV’s are coming down, but they are still too cheap for me. As a side note the last TV I bought was 20 years ago, so no, I don’t usually invest too much money in my TV’s. A friend told us about a 32″ regular NTSC TV by RCA at Wal-Mart. We picked it up (and my back still hurts from it), and now we are watching on a BIG (regular definition) the Monday CFL football games!! I am enjoying it, and I enjoyed the $267.00 price as well. The best part, I bought it with PC points (in a round about way), so my Bank bought me the TV!

How much is that Turkey?

My daughter’s part time job this weekend gave her new hatred for poultry, especially Turkeys, due to their weight, and the inability of people to know how to cook the darn things. Why do people ask a 17 year old how long it takes to cook a frozen 18 lb. turkey? My daughter doesn’t cook the darn things, she simply allows you to buy one!

Enjoy the Day

Yup, that’s it for me, I am on vacation today, so not much to write about today, other than the Turkey story. Don’t eat too much.