Want to enjoy the good life in retirement? Move to a smaller city
Some of retirement`s toughest financial challenges can be solved in a single move.
Just relocate to smaller community. Seniors are doing this all the time and it`s generally cast as a lifestyle decision. But there are clear financial advantages as well.
Most boomers don't want to move from their homes in retirement, poll finds
Aging boomers don`t want to move out of their homes as they head into retirement, according to the results of a new poll.
A majority of Canadians aged 50 and over ` 83 per cent ` said staying in their own homes and paying for home care is the most appealing option for them, says the Royal Bank of Canada survey released Thursday
Dicky Cheney in Toronto: Obama 'Tar Sands' policy 'Totally Foolish'
He got through his Toronto trip without getting arrested for torture, but not without tossing a few barbs Obama`s way over the Keystone XL pipeline.
Appearing at the Toronto Global Forum on Thursday, former Vice President Dick Cheney said the Obama administration`s reluctance to approve Keystone is `totally foolish policy,` and `there is no reason in the world we shouldn`t build that pipeline,` the Toronto Star reports.
Property hot spots from Canada to China renew easy-money bubble fears
LONDON/LOS ANGELES ` From China to Canada and London, fast-rising property markets are haunting the global economy again, five years after the U.S. subprime mortgage bubble burst and triggered the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.
For now, house inflation is neither as high nor as widespread as it was in the middle of last decade. Except in a few cases, the warning signals are flashing amber, not red, and several countries have acted to cool overheating markets.
October was a good month for Canada's manufacturing sector as it grew at the fastest pace for two-and-a-half years, finds the RBC Canadian Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index.
After adjusting for seasonal variation, the RBC Canadian Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI)`a composite indicator designed to provide a single-figure snapshot of the health of the manufacturing sector`rose to 55.6, up from 54.2 in September and above the average of 53.3.
Jobs report likely to show Canada's labour market 'on the mend'
Canada`s jobless rate has ebbed to a five-year-low, reflecting solid job creation in some sectors and ` in September`s case ` fewer young people looking for work.
The labour market has added about 12,000 jobs a month on average this year, a far-from-blistering pace but enough to send the unemployment rate down to 6.9 per cent. It hasn`t been this low since December 2008. Employment has risen in four of the past six months, with gains on both the goods and services side of the economy.
It's a long-held belief that rental properties hurt the values of nearby homes.
"Buyers are definitely concerned about too many renters," says Herman Chan, a real estate broker in San Francisco. "People are less inclined to make an offer on a house that is in a street filled with apartment buildings (because) they perceive (the area) to be more congested, have less parking, and consider the residents more transient."
Weaker loonie, rising demand for resources bode well for export growth
MONTREAL ` Uncertainty has plagued the outlook for the Canadian economy over the last few months. But now there are encouraging signs that economic activity may surprise on the upside.
The Bank of Canada this week downgraded its estimate of growth for 2013, noting that the long-awaited rotation of the economy into an export-led recovery has yet to occur and that it`s dropping its bias toward monetary tightening.
Governments go to extraordinary lengths to avoid policy reversals. They tinker, play for time, create diversions and try to deflect the blame ` anything to forestall an embarrassing about-face.
That is what Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet colleagues appear to be doing now. Their Canada Job Grant program, the centrepiece of last spring`s budget, is in ever-deepening trouble.
Canada among world's top 7 nations for living well: OECD
OTTAWA -- When it comes to measuring the good life, Canada is among the world's top spots for individual well-being, according to report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The others in the top category are Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, the U.S. and Norway.
Cash floods into property as investors seek alternative or safety
LONDON ` Five years after the global financial crisis was sparked by a burst U.S. housing market bubble, real estate is booming again and even considered a safe-haven investment.
With many equity markets at record highs, government bonds offering scant returns and emerging markets looking fragile, investors are flocking to residential and commercial property.
Boomers like their homes and gardens, and they're not rushing to downsize to condos
TORONTO - Baby boomers may be looking to trade their traditional single-family homes for the convenience and comfort of the condo craze, but a mass exodus is likely still a long ways off, real-estate experts and recent retirees say.
The convergence of boomers reaching retirement age at the end of an era of historically low interest rates has conjured fear about the impact on the housing market of a growing number of homeowners choosing to downsize to condominiums.
Despite the cancellation of a high-stakes meeting between the premiers of B.C. and Alberta Tuesday, the option of transporting oil from Alberta to the coast by rail remains a hot topic.
Better off renting? The new economics for young adults
The math of home ownership simply doesn`t work for some young people.
Take a young man we`ll call Neil, for example. He`s a single, 31-year-old journalist in Toronto who makes a middling five-figure salary, rents a cheap apartment in a nice part of town and has $20,000 parked in a bank account. Should Neil buy a house?
Jim Flaherty says interest rates are heading higher regardless of central bank actions
Interest rates are going to go up over the long term regardless of what central banks do at the moment, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Thursday after the European Central Bank unexpectedly trimmed rates.
The bank cut rates to a record low earlier in the day and said it would prime banks with liquidity into 2015 to prevent the eurozone`s recovery from stalling.
Houses and hell: Why Canada isn't on the fiery route
Sometimes the road to Hell is so clearly paved and marked that it is difficult to believe that good intentions explain the route chosen.
So it is with recent proposals in the U.K., the Netherlands, and Italy, to introduce potentially massive, government-backed mortgage lending and insurance schemes.
Mortgage rates today are way below normal. Or are they?
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty called Canada`s low interest rates an `anomaly` last week, echoing warnings that other government officials have been making since 2009. But one of the country`s best-known economists believes today`s rates are closer to normal than many think.
Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC, caught viewers off guard in a recent webcast with a mortgage company TMG The Mortgage Group. Whereas most economists have been calling for the Bank of Canada to lift its 1 per cent key lending rate back to a more normal 3 per cent, Mr. Tal thinks that these days, `normal` is significantly less.
Strength of Canadian housing market surprises economists
It`s increasingly looking like the strength that Canada`s housing market has been showing in recent months has staying power.
Economists have been surprised by the degree to which home sales have bounced back from the pounding they took in the summer of 2012, when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tightened the mortgage insurance rules.