Q: I bought a condo for $100,000 in 2001 and it went up in value to $125,000 until the 2008 stock market crash. Now similar condos in the complex are short selling for $50,000. After a couple of refinancings, I owe $120,000. And I owe association fees, although my unit doesn’t have a pool, gym, central air or washer/dryer. I can’t wait to get out. Should I walk away and ruin my good credit score? Can the banks garnish my wages if I walk away?
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Isaac and Stephanie Adams live in Richmond, Va. and are expecting a baby in June; last year they decided to buy a house. With home prices and mortgage rates both at historic lows, it seemed the perfect time. Unfortunately, student loans stood in their way.
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It’s easy to dismiss events in Cyprus as yet another hiccup in the never-ending series of European debt crises from which Canada has managed to stay insulated. But despite Cyprus’s tiny size, events there are worth paying attention to for troubling reasons we haven’t seen before:
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Despite all the recent talk about personal debt loads Canadians are carrying, there was some good news recently from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada.
In Alberta, there were 346 personal bankruptcies filed in December of last year and that is down from 420 in November.
Todd Hirsch, senior economist at ATB Financial, says that’s the lowest level of bankruptcies since December 2007.
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This is a landmark day for Alberta’s finances as the province officially pays off the last of its debt.
On Friday, the provincial government writes the last cheque to pay back more than $22 billion in debt incurred by the Lougheed, Getty and Klein governments.
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This is not your father’s Alberta.
Despite all the oilpatch dollars flowing into the kitty, the Redford Tories are going to rack up debt to bankroll specific building projects.
“This is no different than what any home or business does,” says Doug Horner, the province’s budget boss.
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BANGALORE, India- Stephen Harper’s first call to U.S. President Barack Obama since his re-election earlier this week was a combination of warm congratulations and neighbourly concern over the fiscal state of affairs across the border.
The prime minister placed the 10-minute call from India where he is at the tail end of a six-day tour.
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While stock markets (briefly) cheered the rollout of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke’s QE3 program a few weeks back, the flip side of the story is that ongoing U.S.efforts to stimulate the economy come at a hefty cost to the national balance sheet.
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Canada is one of only six countries in the world that still holds a perfect credit rating by the largest ratings agencies.
And while that’s good for Canada, it’s creating a problem for investors, as the amount of so-called “risk-free” assets have plummeted in the wake of the financial crisis and ensuing debt crisis that is still raging in Europe.
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JUST as beleaguered borrowers are beginning to feel some relief from a $25 billion deal requiring the nation’s biggest banks to forgive more mortgage debt, another financial threat looms.
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