Driver’s Ed

So your car broke down on your way home, leaving you stranded on Highway 97 with two agitated kids fussing in the backseat.  Unless you’re lucky (or unlucky, depending how you look at it) enough to be driving one of Toyota’s recalled vehicles, you’re going to be looking at a sizable towing bill and a massive dent in your wallet in order to get something you-didn’t even-know-existed in your car replaced.  The mechanic will tell you that your car absolutely needs a new safety loop driveshaft in order to function—at which point you’ll find yourself wondering whether your ’91 Honda Civic is even worth the $685 replacement.

A quick peek in the classifieds will tell you that it’s not.  Although you’d probably be better off getting your kids out of the backseat and hopping on the cab to the nearest car dealership, it’s not a feasible option when you’ve got energy, phone, cable, and credit card bills piling up and bad credit. That’s where we come in.  If you own a home, give us a call and see if you qualify for a home equity loan that puts money in your wallet so you’ll never be coerced into buying another driveshaft, torsion bar, or flywheel housing gasket again.

I'll tell you what you need!

Never Thought I’d Like Rules

The Canadian housing market is a lot tougher than it is in the US. Strict regulations make it hard for us to get loans from banks. We must use our income, other assets, and house as collateral, we don’t have the luxury of freely pre-payable 30-year fixed rates, and our mortgage interests aren’t even tax-deductible. Although these rules may seem like disincentives for potential Canadian homeowners, we have them to thank for why we were able to avoid not only the housing crash, but also the 2.8 million foreclosures that resulted in tens of thousands of people becoming homeless as was seen in the US in the past year.  Click here to read more or to feel your Canadian chest swell with pride.

Going green brings in the green.

Gone are the days when going green meant fueling your car with vegetable oil and to turning the lights off when you’re using them.  Innovation has fast-forwarded energy-efficient technology to the point where you can by prefabricated, modular homes that are made from recycled lumber and outfitted with solar panels, energy-efficient heating/cooling systems, and energy-retaining insulation.  If homes delivered on wheels isn’t your thing, not to worry.  Eco-renovations can be done by installing a solar panel on the roof, replacing windows with insulated glass to regulate the temperature of your home, or simply switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs.  These modifications will require a significant investment initially, but the long-term energy savings will more than outweigh the initial costs- not to mention all the heart-wrenchingly adorable polar cubs you’ll be saving.

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Move out or Renovate?

It’s hard to get feng shui when you’ve got peeling linoleum flooring and a rusty faucet in your kitchen and the last thing you see before you fall asleep is a water-stained ceiling.  At that point, you have two options: You could sell the house and move out or you could renovate.  The first option may seem like the easier choice when you’re faced with taking installing a new sink and the only thing you know is righty tighty lefty loosy, but when you realize the going rate of a defunct house, you’ll be first in line at Home Depot. By renovating your house, you can add significant market value to your house at a relatively low cost. And with home equity loans at your fingertips, you too can channel your inner Mike Holmes, or you could hire someone else to.   http://www.hgtv.com/holmes-on-homes/show/index.html

BC Homeowners Club

There was the Friendship Bracelet club. Then there was Leaf Collectors club, followed by the We Hate Mrs. Reid club, and the ever-exclusive Pog Slammers club.  It’s hard to get through childhood without having been a member of a club, even if you were the founder and sole member of it.  Those clubs, now defunct, groomed us to be members of the most prestigious club yet, the BC Homeowners Club.

And as a member of the BC Homeowners Club, I vow to love my home because it loves me.  If a pipe needs fixing, if the wallpaper needs removing, or if the walls need repainting, I’ll be there.  If my empty basement wants to be an entertainment complex, if my son’s room is more suitable to be my new gym, and if my backyard craves a patio, I will be the first to support.  Fellow brothers and sisters of BCHC, we shall uphold the major tenets of our creed and for that, I salute you.

Mrs. Reid

I’ll never forget the dread I felt that day, walking into the library with my shoelaces, perpetually undone, dragging behind me along the speckled turquoise carpet as I tried to discretely return my book, 10 days past due. The librarian was Mrs. Reid, a daunting lady whose tight chignon was a constant fixture on the nape of her neck and I was trying my very best to avoid her cold, steely eyes.

I still feel that way sometimes. It happens when I tackle the growing pile of bills on my desk, and realize, that buried somewhere within that pile is a late bill. But instead of a verbal slap on my wrist courtesy of Mrs. Reid, I get bombarded with very expensive late fees.

It’s hard enough to pay the bills for your cable, electricity, gas, and phone, let alone keep up with multiple lines of credit, all of which charge very high interest rates. This is why it’s a good idea to consolidate your debt by reducing the number of sources from which you borrow money. Home equity gives you access to the liquid assets that you have invested in your home and helps you reduce the number of bills you receive, making your debt that much more manageable. I bet Mrs. Reid would approve.

Olympics: the Aftermath

The Olympics are over and as our Olympic gold-medal-induced high fades away, we’re left to contemplate the impact that the winter games have had on Vancouver. Left are the Canadian flags painted in the windows of stores and an unlit cauldron. Downtown streets look eerily deserted in comparison to the crowds that packed them just a couple weeks before. Advertisers are letting out a sighs of relief as their billboards are unearthed from beneath those of the official Olympic sponsors. Claustrophobes are also letting out a sighs of relief as they are able to navigate the streets and make use of the Canada Line once again. Our closets are groaning under the added pressure of Olympic paraphernalia that we purchased with abandon from the Olympic store. Miga, Quatchi, and Sumi are caught meandering the streets of East Van, contemplating their impending future.

But the end of the Olympics will hit the restaurants, bars, and small retail businesses the hardest as they readjust from the surge in business from tourists and celebrating Vancouverites during the games. Although the Olympics were slated to improve the presence of Vancouver and British Columbia on the global stage, we will have to wait and see in the coming year whether the Winter Games have done anything to attract more tourists, and in turn, boost our local economy.

Where to now?

Beautiful British Columbia

You’ve heard it all before. Or at least you’ve read it in the travel brochures. Beautiful BC is nestled between the majestic Rocky Mountains and stretches of coastline along the Pacific Ocean. Breathtaking landscapes and a temperate climate are just a couple of the reasons why people are clamouring to live here. And if you’re one of the lucky few who own a home in British Columbia, then you can probably think of a couple more reasons why BC’s the place to be.

Living steps away from towering temperate rainforests and having the Rocky Mountains in your backyard may be impossible to put a price tag on, but home equity is not. It is a tangible product that lets you invest in what you value the most, whether that be navigating the slopes of Whistler, combing the beaches along the Sunshine Coast, picking cherries in Kelowna, or hiking through the Northern Interior Forests.

What we look like after we go cherry picking

Bad Credit Befalls the Best of Us – Some Famous Cases of Bad Debt.

If you suffer from bad credit, no credit or crazy debt, you aren’t the only one. Many famous people have taken a walk in your threadbare shoes.

Here are a few famous characters that have also faced bankruptcy and hardship in their lives, but made up for it with a life lived gloriously.

1. Dismissed most of his life as a failure, Rembrandt was an eccentric artist, a heavy drinker, a gambler, always saddled with enormous debts. He truly outlived his means, because perhaps somehow he knew that his destiny was greater than that of his time. Today, four hundred years later, he is regarded as one of the greatest romantic artists. His paintings sell for tens of millions of dollars, and whole cities celebrate in his honour

2. Thomas Edison was not always a noble inventor. For the first years of his life was a die-hard optimist, with no doubt in his mind, that one day, someway, he would catch his break. He worked tirelessly on his inventions until they bankrupted him. He was deep into debt, to the point that no one wanted to lend him another dime. Had he given up, he would have been forgotten, and some other wild-eyed entrepreneur would have taken credit for his lightbulb, and hundreds of other inventions. But he didn’t, and today he has over 1093 US Patents in his name.

3. Extraordinary writer Henry Miller lived most of his life with a smile on his face, no matter how hopeless his situation may have been. He lived with beggars and bohemians, drunks, and lovers and ladies of the night in a wild whirlwind that saw him scraping by from one borrowed dime to the next, with never so much of a care as to where the next meal was coming from. He lived his passion, and enjoyed every second of this wonderful world in a state of perpetual bad debt and worse credit. Today, he is regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, judged more from how he lived his life than the actual words he put on paper.

The moral of the story is: Before you start beating yourself up for a mistake here, or a bad investment there, it’s important to look back at all of the great heroes, and how they sometimes started from being in debt as well. Anything is possible with a little help when it’s needed. Especially from Alpine Credits, that will take the once-hidden equity of your home, and loan you what you need, to set you on the path to a life well lived.

Home Equity, What’s It Good For?

If you live in Vancouver, Surrey, or just about anywhere in the Lower Mainland, BC, or Alberta, chances are, you’ve heard of Alpine Credits’ home equity loans. They have the ads where the man discovers the value of his home, and opens his front door to show you how his life has changed for the better.

Here are some suggestions for things that you can do with a home equity loan from Alpine Credits.

1. Turn your old kitchen, into a new kitchen.

2. Turn your old office, into a new office.

3. All your debts, taken care of!

If you own a home, Alpine Credits will lend you the money you need to make your financial dreams a reality. The doorway to financial security begins with you own front door, so go on, open it, and take a closer look at the money you have invested into your home all of these years and you will realize that whether you have no credit, low credit, bad credit or credit card problems up the wazoo, Alpine Credits can step in and take care of them for you – if you own your home, you are good to go.