GOTTA HAVE HEART: The very oldest part of Vancouver is becoming new again. Not just cosmetically tarted up as Gastown was in its early-1970s first revival. “These buildings are now considered new for insurance purposes,” said Robert Fung. He meant the $65-million-worth of development his Salient Group is near to completing on Maple Tree Square and along Water Street.

The adjacent properties include...

Informative artice by Paul Viera, Financial Post... 

The Bank of Canada scrapped on Tuesday its conditional commitment on interest rates, setting the stage for a June hike if it so chooses.

The move had an immediate impact on the Canadian dollar, as it surged by US1.6¢ to trade just over parity with the U.S. currency, as of 10 AM ET. Bond yields across the board climbed, with the yield on the two-year...

Interesting article by Garry Marr, Financial post... 

Consumers began listing their homes in droves last month which should take some pressure off the heated housing market, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Thursday.

The Ottawa-based group said 97,663 homes were listed for sale across the country in March, a 20% increase from the same period in 2008. A total of 233,402 new listings have...

Interesting article about mortgages from The Province ...

Continued low interest rates, and quickly rising home prices, are helping encourage those who have been on the fence about buying their first home go ahead and take the plunge.

But according to a TD Canada Trust poll of female homeowners, there are a number of things that they wish they'd known before they bought -- for example, 25 per cent said...

Below is an article written by Mike Averbach, as seen in the Averbach news. 

In today's edition of Averbach News, we're going to talk about the importance of locking in a current variable rate mortgage at today's all-time low fixed rates.

Long story short: if you have had a VRM at anywhere from Prime minus .60 to .90 over the last 3-5 years, your average rate has been in the 3.6 to 3.9% range....