Well, the quick (and somewhat cliché) answer is because it’s the right thing to do. While that should be enough, let’s look at a little bit deeper and consider a longer and more pragmatic answer:
Financial planning is a long distance marathon. We each will go through a variety of stages in life, each require a somewhat different financial solution. I’m licensed and trained to help you with your financial plan from start to finish. My desire is to work with you, your friends and family for many years to come, helping you build, maintain and adjust your financial plan as you move through the various stages of life. Apart from it being the right thing to do, you can’t build the trust needed to be a personal’s financial planner for decades to come if you short change them today. I’ve positioned myself and my business so that I have the tools needed to help most people with their financial plans for the long haul. Being honest and upfront is necessary to serve my clients well and ultimately to make sure my business is here for the long haul too.
In addition to honestly and straight-forwardness being the right thing to do, consider this: It’s more cost effective for me to keep clients (and gain referrals) by doing a good honest job for them, than to make a quick buck today but always be having to be searching for new clients. Some financial service business can survive on the “churning through clients model”. Mine isn’t one of them, nor would I wish it to be one of them.
Of course this would depend on a number of circumstances including your current & future income; your current & future tax bracket, risk tolerance and purpose of the investment. But generally speaking, TFSA’s can be very useful for short term investments that you’ll use before retirement. You get your TFSA room back if you withdraw funds so you can reuse if over and over again. RRSPs are useful for saving for retirement if you’re not going to touch the money until then. Your tax owing today will be reduced, but you will have to pay the tax later (in retirement). So should you be paying more tax today than you expect to pay in retirement; RRSPs can be very useful. Folks that are self-employed don’t always benefit a whole lot from RRSP’s, so there are some other investment strategies to consider in that situation.
No. I am not a “captive agent” who can only offer Life and Health Insurance from one company. I don’t believe that serves my clients very well as different companies offer different premiums for different clients. Having the ability to shop around lets me get my clients better rates!
Probably Not: Debt can be very dangerous, especially personal debt. The logic to leveraged investing is this: borrowing money to buy an asset that is going to generate income. In theory as long as that asset is able to generate more income than the cost of interest then you’re further ahead than if you didn’t borrow money to invest. However I don’t generally recommend leveraged investments because of the high degree of risk. When the market drops you could easily find yourself owing more money that what your investments are worth. This could drastically affect the rest of your financial planning in a very harmful way. I’ve spoken to investors who’ve been feed the story that using someone else’s money to make money is the way to go, only to hear about how badly it’s hurt them financially. Most people most of the time should not use leverage in their portfolio.
However, that being said I do have a very small number of clients who do use leverage in their portfolio. They are fully aware of the risk and have both the assets, the income, and the financial literacy to support the risk and mitigate the certainty of eventual poor market conditions.
I can’t really answer that without knowing more about you!
GENERALLY speaking: If you’re purchasing insurance to protect your mortgage and family you’re probably better buying term insurance because it’s cheaper and those needs should be temporary. See life insurance section for a more detailed explanation. Of course to fully answer this question we should sit down and discuss your insurance needs.
Probably not! (see section on mortgage insurance). Bottom line, Mortgage Insurance is usually significantly more expensive and has far fewer features than regular term life insurance. Your mortgage provider has done you a terrible dis-service if they didn’t explain this to you, and told you how to cover your mortgage with Life Insurance.
All is not lost! Although it of course depends on the situation, there are a variety of different lenders who lend to people in different situations. So just because your bank has turned you down doesn’t mean you can’t get a mortgage. As a mortgage agent, I can shop your mortgage around to a variety of lenders find the solution that is best for you.
I don’t like broker fee’s and you’re all but guaranteed that I won’t ever be charging you one! The only scenario where a broker fee might happen is if you didn’t qualify for an “A” lender, still didn’t qualify for a “B” lender, and we had to do a private mortgage. If that is the case however, it might not be in your best financial interests to be getting a mortgage and I’d talk to you about other alternatives.
No way! The banks would like you to believe that no doubt. But it’s totally false. As a mortgage agent, I have access to many “A” lenders including many of the big banks for which I can place business. Lenders including the big banks, have to offer better rates in the broker channel because of the competition (unlike if you walk into a branch yourself). So while it is true that I can help many people a bank would turn down, I can most certainly also help people the bank would approve too!
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