BMO Eco Smart Mortgage Blog Tour (with giveaway!)

April 20, 2011

Tenille

I’m kind of jealous of people who house-hunt once, get a mortgage financed once, and settle in their home for 20 years or so.

In my husband’s line of work, we move every 5 years on average so I joke that we live like gypsies and also say the perk is that we get to flip/renovate a house every so often as well which is fun (after I’m done the freak-out stage of course).

Because a lot of our friends are also in the same career, we’re often discussing things like mortgage rates and all the fun things that come with buying a new house.

Right now, for example, BMO (Bank of Montreal) has a special mortgage rate for homeowners looking to make energy efficient upgrades to their home. Did you know that 50% of Canadian homeowners site utility costs as the biggest surprise of home ownership? It’s no surprise with our bitterly cold winters that the energy bill goes up higher than most anticipate.

For Canadians who meet BMO’s energy efficiency criteria, The BMO Eco Smart Mortgage is a new mortgage product with market-leading five-year fixed rate of 3.89 per cent – a rate significantly lower than comparable green mortgage products.

So what’s the process? A homeowner downloads the appropriate checklist (house or condo) from the BMO website. The check-list includes things such as: High-efficiency heating and cooling systems, Solar, tank-less or ENERGY STAR qualified hot water system and ENERGY STAR qualified windows, doors and major appliances. If after reviewing the checklist, the homeowner feels their home qualifies; they then contact a BMO branch to talk to a mortgage specialist. BMO will send an appraiser into the home of the consumer to confirm the house qualification.

I downloaded the BMO Eco Smart Mortgage checklist from the BMO website. Single family homes need to have the required energy features from 6 of the 7 categories listed in order to qualify. After going through the list I think our house qualifies, so if I wanted to I could then contact a BMO branch and talk to a mortgage specialist about our next step – it’s that easy.

Are you planning any energy-efficient upgrades to your house this year? I am crossing my fingers that the energy-efficient tax credit from our government comes back soon because that will help make the decision easier (suppose we will have to wait until after the election for that huh?) We just purchased a new energy-efficient dishwasher (not by choice, our old one died!) and I suppose the next step would be to replace the fridge and stove.

I have a great giveaway for my Canadian readers! Simply leave me a comment here telling me what you are currently doing or plan to do to help make your own home more energy efficient and you will be entered to win a $50 Gift Card from RONA!

For additional entries:
~ Follow me (join this site with Google Friend Connect)
~ Subscribe via email or Reader
~ Grab my button
~ Blog about this giveaway and leave me the link
~ Follow @FeistyFrugal on Twitter and Tweet this giveaway (RT 1x per day) Share your plans to make your home more energy efficient and enter to win a $50 RONA Gift Card @FeistyFrugal http://bit.ly/fw9JFo (CDN only)
~ Like Feisty Frugal and Fabulous on Facebook (please leave your first name and last initial so I can find you as a fan)

This giveaway will end on May 15th at 9PM CT . Giveaway is open to Canadian addresses only.

Disclosure – I am participating in the BMO Eco Smart Mortgage program by Mom Central Canada on behalf of BMO – Bank of Montreal. I received a gift card as a thank you for my participation. The opinions on this blog are my own.