# breaking mortgage



## SpendLessEarnMore (Aug 7, 2013)

Want to see what other's opinion is of this.

My mortgage application has been put in at HSBC for pre-approval until 2 months before my renewal date of upcoming April. Interest rate going up this Thursday at HSBC btw.


Current Mortgage $180k at TD at 4.29% with over 30 years left
Penalty for breaking mortgage is $1900
HSBC offering 3.39% and can go lower for 5-year fixed
House to be appraised I'd estimate little more than $300k.


Reason I want to switch over to HSBC: readvanceable mortgage of 80% of home equity as opposed to TD's non-readvanceable 65%Ease of Global fund transferring and currency exchangestrong presence in Vietnam which is where I'll be in 4 months$9.88 trading fee and $6.88 for premier which if I qualify for their equity mortgage I can drop into blue chip dividend stocks


will lose my TD First Class Travel visa and all the points earned in it
can't invest in TD E-series

But at least $5k won't be tied up in a chequing account. Despite all the bad reviews of lack of customer service and third-class trading platform at HSBC I've been getting horrendous service at TD. Short term I'll probably be out of pocket $1k but long term I'll save over $10k in interest, pay off my mortgage faster and have a leveraged investment account to play with potentially earning more.

I'm going with Advance status at the moment requiring at least $25k in cash and investments. If I get approved for Equity Mortgage I can move up to Premier status.


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## NotMe (Jan 10, 2011)

Side note: re "[*]can't invest in TD E-series"

Ummm why not? You don't need a TD bank account to invest in TD e-series. They can link any chequing account from any canadian bank and I'm sure HSBC is fine if it's a real chequing account - at least it works fine for my BMO chequing account. Please explain. TD e-series is my only TD product.


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## SpendLessEarnMore (Aug 7, 2013)

yes you are correct. I can still have the TD Waterhouse account funded from any other non-TD chequing account. I think I got confused with the you can't purchase e-series from non-TD brokerage. So I take it you have a TD Waterhouse account to purchase the e-series than.

I'm also near the cutoff for Advance status of $25,000 but I think I'll keep the e-series.


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## NotMe (Jan 10, 2011)

SpendLessEarnMore said:


> yes you are correct. I can still have the TD Waterhouse account funded from any other non-TD chequing account. I think I got confused with the you can't purchase e-series from non-TD brokerage. So I take it you have a TD Waterhouse account to purchase the e-series than.
> 
> I'm also near the cutoff for Advance status of $25,000 but I think I'll keep the e-series.



Umm not sure what you mean, but the ONLY TD product I have is e-series resp / rrsp. No waterhouse, nothing else. It's all funded by my bmo chequing account.


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## SpendLessEarnMore (Aug 7, 2013)

this from TD's website:

"Index Investing with TD e-Series Funds
Exclusively for TD clients investing online, TD e-Series Index Funds offers MERs as low as 0.33%. In addition, there are no commission fees to buy or sell."

Guess doesn't hold true if you're able to buy TD E-Series or I'm just confused lol.


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## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

You need a TD Investing account to buy them and hold them in, but no requirement to have any other business with TD.


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## SpendLessEarnMore (Aug 7, 2013)

just an update on the situation. 

I early renewed with TD. They blended in the prepayment penalty of $1500 into the mortgage. Got 3.8% 5 yrs and it's going up again today. Yes a lot higher than what I expected but better than 4.29% I was paying last 4 years. Overall I'm happy as I got some stability for next 5 years.

Got a meeting with them this Thursday regarding getting a HELOC for investment purposes.


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## NotMe (Jan 10, 2011)

Spudd said:


> You need a TD Investing account to buy them and hold them in, but no requirement to have any other business with TD.



Yes to clarify - you need a TD Investing account, but not a TD Waterhouse account (with its associated fees). In other words, you go in and fill in some paperwork to open an Investing account, and then fill out a form to get that account converted to an eSeries account, and then you're good to go.

http://www.milliondollarjourney.com/how-to-open-a-td-e-series-e-funds-resp-account-not-complete.htm 

So to recap: The only fees you need to pay on a TD eSeries account are the MER and other specifically related mutual fund fees, regardless of what the bank lady says (who by the way is not paid commission on eSeries accounts and so doesn't push them).


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