Recently Erica Johnson, a CBC Investigative Reporter for their Marketplace segment has been investigating and looking into the claims of the Big 5 Banks in Canada.  She has written three articles in the last month that all clearly indicate that the banks only look out for themselves. 

7 March she published a piece on banks pressuring their employees to meet sales targets and the employees doing anything to meet these goals.

29 March she put out an article describing the terms Advisor vs Adviser and how the banks are misleading us with deceptive job titles.

17 April she interviews two bank employees that no longer work at the banks because of the situation the bank placed them in and the way that the bank wanted...

A Look at my Predictions from 2016 and a March/April Market Update

The month of March saw the Calgary and surrounding area begin to move back into balanced territory but only in specific product types.  For the most part the news is good and the trend is up unless you are trying to sell an apartment style condo.

The number of sales in March city wide was down 10% over long term trends but is up compared to the last couple of years at this time.  I think two things are coming together to support this.

1) A decrease in listings. Over the last couple of years fear and loss of jobs have been the strongest drivers in the listings I have been seeing. Either someone was let go from their work and they were selling their...

Last week I saw a report on CBC about a common trick used by the big banks which misleads customers by using the term "Financial Advisor", spelled with an "o" vs the industry regulated term "Financial Adviser".  There's a difference between a financial adviser and a financial advisor. "Advisers" are regulated and have a legal responsibility to act in YOUR best interest. "Advisors" are not the same, they are employees of the bank who are paid to look out for the bank but lure you in with a similar name.

Not only are the titles misleading with "Advisers" looking out for your interests and "Advisors" looking out for the banks, there is also a large gap in the knowledge and education between the two titles too.  "Advisers" are trained...