Situations often arise where a new mortgage application, or car loan/lease, is impacted by a credit score that's lower than expected. Frequently errors, or reported items negatively affect your score, but these can be quickly fixed. A couple of case studies show how.Read More
What makes a strong mortgage co-signer? Not a great job, nor huge equity with tiny mortgage, nor a fantastic credit score is enough on its own. Sky high housing costs have many asking whether a co-signer can help with mortgage qualification. What are lenders looking for in a co-signer?Read More
Using Two Credit Cards to Optimize Your Credit History The other day a reader wrote in and asked “is it bad for my credit rating to have an inactive credit card? I prefer to only use one and use the backup card only if I misplace the one I regularly use”. I replied “Good question....Read More
Buying As Much House As You Can Afford, and Not Working to a Budget Can Set You Up for Failure In our zeal to qualify for a mortgage, we strive to meet the debt service ratios used by all major mortgage lenders. The rule of thumb the lenders use is your mortgage payments, property taxes...Read More
How Does Bankruptcy Affect Business Owners? Acknowledgement: Many thanks to Karen Adler, CIRP, who reviewed and improved this series of posts. Karen is a federally-licensed Trustee in Bankruptcy with Rumanek and Co. Karen has contributed to the educational materials and development of the national CIRP Qualification Program for trustees, and conducts seminars on bankruptcy and consumer...Read More
Published: • Reader asks: “Will An Accidentally Missed Payment Hurt My Credit If I Paid In Full As Soon As I Knew?” Hi Ross, I have a Royal Bank Avion card which I have not used in several months. In fact, I rarely use my RBC bank accounts, and as a result, I have no...Read More
#SchoolLenders – Personal finance expert Gail Vaz-Oxlade and Ross Taylor chat on Twitter about irresponsible lender practices Most of us know Gail from her famous television series entitled “Till Debt Do Us Part”. She speaks with passion and conviction and is on a mission to better our lives and educate lenders about the wrongs in...Read More
AskRoss recommends the best personal finance blogs – July 15, 2011 Here are this week’s articles which deserve a broader audience. They cover topics such as how much do you need to retire, credit cards for small business owners, achieving financial bliss in a second marriage, the last minute RESP, investing in TFSA’s as a...Read More
Got Huge Debts? Home Equity may be the answer! A lady called me a few weeks ago inquiring if she was a bankruptcy candidate. She and her husband were in serious arrears on their property taxes – over $25,000 – and their municipality was threatening foreclosure. Compounding the stress was around $100,000 in unsecured debts –...Read More
