The Vince Files

So Anna and I were driving to work when I heard the contest on QM FM. 

A: When it is a Zamboni® ice resurfacing machine.

After one of Claire’s skating lessons, the Zamboni ice resurfacing machine came onto the ice to start its work.  Claire asked me what it was called and I promptly, though incorrectly replied, “That’s a Zamboni!”.  She gave me a funny look and asked, “A Zamboni?”.
I started to think about [...]

So NCIX was having another one of their sales again.  This time the deals were pretty good.

The federal government has made changes to mortgages effective October 15.
Some key highlights:

Maximum amortization of 35 years
Minimum down payment 5%
Maximum 45% debt service ratio (percentage of gross income for housing costs)

Good luck trying to buy the average home in Vancouver!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080709.wmortgages0709/BNStory/Business/

We’ve lowered our listing price by $10,000 to try to entice an offer from a potential buyer.  We’ve been listed about a month with a couple of open houses, some private viewings and no offers yet.  This is how the market is these days; many listings are staying on the market longer and longer.
Our updated [...]

Part of the BC government’s budget for 2008 is a $100 Climate Action Dividend to every person living in British Columbia.  Anna received $200 which includes Claire’s dividend.  This comes just in time for July 1 when the BC government will raise gas prices by around 2.5 cents per litre as part of their Carbon [...]

This past Tuesday, the Bank of Canada decided to keep their overnight rate unchanged at 3% despite analyst expectations of a 25-basis-point cut to help stimulate our economy.  It seems the BoC now has its sights set on fighting inflation.  How does this affect mortgage rates?

Since our Open House, several groups have come to check out our place during the day while we were out.  Some came for the open house and want to take a second look.  Others missed the Open House completely.
There were 4 groups that came by yesterday, and one today, and another tomorrow.  We’ve had to [...]

Today was the big day.  We finished our last-minute cleanups before our real estate agent arrived.  She had scheduled our open house to be from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.  So we took the opportunity to do some Open House hopping ourselves.
Anna plugged in some addresses into our Garmin Nuvi 350 GPS and we were [...]

Now that our home is on the market and people are aware of our upcoming Open House, it’s time to clean up.