Great article posted by Fiona Anderson! And with bank rates likely heading up, is a variable contract still a good idea?

Article: "With mortgage rates low and more likely to go up than down, some borrowers may want to think long and hard about whether they want a long and hard -- fixed, that is -- mortgage rate.

The first question is whether to go fixed or variable when borrowing to buy a  home.Statistics show that 88 per cent of the time, a variable mortgage is cheaper than a fixed-rate mortgage, said Feisal Panjwani, senior mortgage consultant with Invis-Feisal & Associates Mortgage Consulting in Cloverdale. But the problem with a variable rate is that it is just that: It changes over the life of the mortgage.

The variable rate is based on the lender's prime lending rate, which today is 2.75 per cent for the major banks and credit unions. The best variable rate available according to Invis -- a national brokerage company who negotiates mortgages on behalf of clients with various lenders including banks, credit unions and wholesale lenders -- is prime less 0.6 percentage points, or 2.15 per cent. But banks change their prime rate from time to time, usually whenever the Bank of Canada changes its overnight target rate, which it has done twice since the beginning of June and is expected to do again in the fall.

Canadians were the top foreign buyers for U.S. properties from March 2009 to March 2010.

The Chicago-based National Association of Realtors released a study that showed Canadians bought 23 per cent of homes sold to citizens of other countries, as reported in The Globe and Mail. Canadians spent about $9.5 billion on U.S. real estate.

In two short years, Alta West Mortgage (Calgary, AB) had increased their portfolio a whopping 400%. Their business plans and marketing savvy were working like a charm, but they overlooked one key thing - automating their operations. They had an administrative nightmare on their hands. They were using old technology to manage their loans: an amortization calculator, spreadsheets, a GL, and many client folders - one for each borrower and for each investor. Dave McKitrick, Alta West Mortgage COO, said "The process was manual with too many inputs - nothing was connected and therefore there were too many errors being made." He adds "There were many miscommunications between the staff and our customers, and worse yet, our investors were finding the errors and losing confidence in the company. We knew we needed to automate our back office, but didn't know how to do it."