VBNF Blog

This year boomers started turning 65. Ten million of them, representing one third of the entire Canadian population, will reach retirement age over the next 15 years. Since they are the largest and wealthiest segment of the population, what they plan to do will have a strong impact on the economy, especially in the housing market.

Studies by several major banks have looked at the trends for boomers and have found that 39 per cent of boomers who plan to retire in the next three years still have a mortgage on their home, but two-thirds of boomers say they will retire mortgage-free. Forty per cent of boomers say they plan to move and of those, 41 per cent say they won’t need a new mortgage for their new home.

This is the generation that saw the value in their homes grow exponentially and this increase in value has formed a large part of their retirement savings plans. While saving money from a weekly pay cheque is still part of an overall saving strategy, home equity has also been a part of the strategy.

This will have a definite impact in the housing market. While it’s still a good time for first time home  buyers, many of the mortgage rule changes earlier this year has made it more challenging for this segment to get into a home, especially with shorter amortizations and the end of zero down payment programs.

While economists have predicted a stable, balanced market over the next year with the Prime interest rate staying where it is until the end of 2012, variable rate discounts have disappeared and fixed rates are gradually increasing, which may impact first time buyers. The market may see a small surplus in homes resulting in more muted price appreciation as boomers down size. Prices may make it more affordable for first time home buyers and the move-up market.

A CIBC report also suggests that younger Canadians – those aged 25 to 34 – believe they will be able to retire based on savings they will accumulate over their working life. But boomers aged 55 to 64 are not so sure.

This same report suggests that many Canadians getting closer to retirement are relooking at the retirement savings goals they’ve set for themselves and are making adjustments. With interest rates low, coupled with a relatively stable economy, it may be a good time for boomers who have built equity in their homes to look at other mortgage options such as reverse mortgages.

These findings also demonstrate the importance of having a plan in place and making progress toward your goals every year, to give you the flexibility to make choices about how and when you retire.  Whether you’re reaching retirement or just starting out, speaking to a mortgage agent should be part of a family’s overall retirement planning along with a financial planner. There are a number of strategies and options for paying down a mortgage and building a retirement nest egg.

From About.com: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/consumerawareness/a/dst.htm?nl=1

“Just as sunflowers turn their heads to catch every sunbeam, so too have we discovered a simple way to get more from our sun.” — Time.gov

From Time.gov’s About Daylight Saving Time exhibit, we learn that daylight saving time:

• Lets us make better use of daylight. A poll done by the U.S. Department of Transportation indicated that Americans liked daylight saving time because “there is more light in the evenings so you can do more in the evenings.”
• Saves energy: “Studies done by the U.S. Department of Transportation show that daylight saving time trims the entire country’s electricity usage by a significant, but small amount, of less than one percent each day with daylight saving time.”
• Is good for public health: “Several studies in the U.S. and Britain have found that daylight, almost certainly because of improved visibility, substantially decreases (by four times) the likelihood of pedestrians being killed on the roads.”

The history of daylight saving time in America is interesting. As recently as the early 1960′s, the decision of whether to observe daylight saving time and when it started and ended was up to each state and even to individual cities. Very confusing! For example, the Time.gov site tells the story of the 35-mile stretch of highway (Route 2) between Moundsville, West Virginia, and Steubenville, Ohio, over which every bus driver and his passengers had to endure, “SEVEN TIME CHANGES.”

Observance of daylight saving time and its starting and ending dates are now regulated by the Uniform Time Act of 1966. Under a 1972 amendment, states in more than one time zone could choose to exempt the part of the state that was in one time zone while providing that the part of the State in a different time zone would observe daylight saving time. Just imagine the “Changes and Irregularities” that can come about.

Fortunately, for those of us who just cannot remember “Spring Ahead, fall back,” there is still no law against never resetting our clocks and opting for 100 percent accuracy 50 percent of the time.

There are many modular home manufacturers all over the world. If you type in the title at Google, you will find many postings. However, their costs are higher and methods they used are not energy ECO. Many use steel containers to build but got their hand tied up with the standard container sizes for the designs and with the Steel metal frames, which is heavy and can be heated up like an oven.  Surely, you can put insulation to it but also increases the costs, too.

Murchtech uses Composite Steel Technology that reduces the cost of steel but give the construction the same strength with the proper insulation to protect people from water, wind, fire, heat and earthquake. The best of all, it reduces the time to build and the material cost are lesser. Check out more information at the Blog from previous date and from the www.murchtech.com site. You will see what I mean.

Quick to build or rebuild a safe home from natural disasters at an affordable cost. Ask why the Chileans and Haitians are using the Murchtech technology to rebuild their housing.

Need more information, contact us. info@vbnf.com

Thanks to my web designer who set up this Blog for me so I can freely write anything I like at any time and have no need to wait for the newsletter to come out.

In the Blog, I will talk about different things that I would like to share with each others. We do get a bit good comments from the “strangers” who surf the web.  Well we do know how to work with the search engines too, so there is a little bit advantage to get people to see our stuff.

Well, what I would like to say today is that: the Entertainment book and Solid Gold is out and online Coupons are in. There are many websites are offering coupons that you can buy online for a limited time at great discount.

We used some of those and got good results. This coupon services are more used by the companies who are in the consumer service sectors like: Spa, Restaurants, Health clubs, Cleaners, Car services, Dentist, Massage, Opticals, etc.  It is not cheap for the service providers though as they will only receive half of the money collected but still have to provide the services which have been deeply discounted. In other words, they are not making any money.

So why, they are doing it? It is just like advertising. However, this is the most effective advertising that will achieve results.

1. You get paid upfront before you provide the service. This means now you can have the cash flow to run your business You now have the money to stock up your supplies from customers who already pay for the service.

2. Getting more customers to come to your store from anywhere. People who may live far away from your location may now come to try your service since it is a good deal. You will now attract more walk in customers when they see your place is now full but did not know about the coupon the company is offering.

3. People now a day looks for bargain before they will come. that is why we have flyers and specials that come to your home everyday from the grocery stores or drug stores or the electronics store. It works. When you see a bargain you will go there. Then all a sudden, you may become their regulars.

VBNF has already got the website set up to give you all the coupons from the major department stores. Visit us or bookmark to find good deals there.

http://www.vbnfclassifieds.com/Flyers.aspx

Many visitors like our design. Well it is done by our partner at www.cmydesigns.com .

They provide excellent services at a reasonable price. Check them out and ask for a quote.

This is great news for the Canadians and others who may have good projects that need investment moneys from abroad.  There are restrictions that these money can not go to real estate or stock market.  Max. $200M per year per person. 

If you have a project that needs money to expand or complete. We can help. Contact us at: info@vbnf.com now.

Download Wenzhou Investment in English  PDF files for details.
http://www.vbnf.com/pdf/Wenzhou_Pilot_Progam.pdf
 
 
Download 温州允许个人直接境外投资  PDF files for details.
http://www.vbnf.com/pdf/Wenzhou_Pilot_Progam-Chinese.pdf

Welcome to our new Blog. VBNF Blog is built to bring you the latest information from VBNF as soon as it happens. We decide to do this so you do not need to wait for the issuance of our newsletters.

At the same time, I will talk about different topics that can affect you or your family. We will use the Blog to send you informal information like talking to you in person. This way, we do not have to be bounded by the format we used for the official newsletters.

Of course, we would also welcome your comments and suggestions. We received lots of encouragement from the audience from Facebook, Linked In, Plaxo, Twitter and YouTube when we introduced our new VBNFVideo and VBNFPhoto Sites.

Sometimes we may use articles or videos or photos that may have been published. As such, we like to thank the people who put them up in the public domain so we can use them to share with everyone we know. I believe there are many things going on that not everyone would know so by highlighting some of the stuff we know, we hope that would bring some value to you to enhance your life. After all, we do know much about what is going on in China and other places that may affect our business.

I would like to bring your attention to:
Low Cost Modular Home/building for the future

Modular is a way to build a system. By doing it modularly, we can specialize in the module and do a good job in a smaller scale. This way of work has been used in Building systems including software and hardware. Software means the programming or computer processing for a particular application. Hardware can be anything from housing, buildings, cars, packaging, logistic, transportation, airplanes, ships, machines, etc.

But modular building only just started to get popular. You can see that if you can build all the piece parts in a control environment, you should be able to do things faster with more accuracy. So the waste of material should be minimized especially when you are talking to build houses in the open that is affected by the weather.

Depending on the technology you are using, the material cost may be same but the labour cost should be lesser. If you do use the Murchtech product, then you can save the material cost for a more solid building than from using wood panels.

If we build houses like building cars, you can imagine that how quick you can build the house with standard design in a couple days. Of course, you need to do a good job on the engineering and the design. So the construction guys can just assemble each house in short time.

China just built a 15 storey building in 90 hours. See the video for yourself. It is the same idea with Murchtech.

Ark Hotel in China Construction time lapse building 15 storeys in 6 days

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps0DSihggio

How the Arabs building a modular home in a few days:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQg4QtlUwMU&NR=1&feature=fvwp

While it seems to be quick to build something very fast that meets all safety standards, let’s not forget that this can only be done with precise engineering and craft work at the control environment of the in house factory that is not affected by weather conditions. Precision installation and building methodology are the keys to a successful construction. Of course, there are many ways to build a construction. However, this sets the standard for fast construction and we can build our future homes like assembling furniture we buy from Ikea®.

Mark my word, the world of construction is going to shock the world.

Vancouver Housing is White Hot?

See the video for yourself. VBNF have Buyers from China to buy your properties. Let us help you get the buyers.

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Money/1239849460/ID=1758092890

Mortgage Rules
http://www.bnn.ca/News/2011/1/17/Flaherty-details-new-mortgage-rules.aspx

Flaherty details new mortgage rules
Bill Curry and Grant Robertson, The Globe and Mail
7:20 AM, E.T. | January 17, 2011
Canadian, Economy, Real Estate

Concern over rising consumer debt levels is prompting Ottawa to make three new changes to Canada’s mortgage rules.

Maximum Mortgage amortization periods have been reduced to 30 years from 35 years.
The maximum amount Canadians can borrow to refinance their mortgages will be lowered to 85 per cent from the current 90 per cent.

The government will withdraw its insurance backing on lines of credit secured on homes, such as home equity lines of credit. These changes are going to mainly affect first time home buyers in the large urban centers like Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary. More….