Well, there are a few financing tasks that you will do if you purchase a home.  Below are the three most common tasks:

1. Mortgage Loan

   This one should be considered the most obvious one.  Mortgage loans are the loans you get to buy your house.  Usually you have 20+ years to pay the loan back and usually you go back every five years or so to renew the term on your mortgage.

2. Home Refinance

   If you bought your home in Canada in the early 1980s, you may be familiar with this.  You see in the early 80s, the interest rates on mortgages soared.  It wasn’t until the early 1990s where interest rates stabilized and most did a home refinance to take advantage of the cheaper mortgage rates.  Basically you just renew the term on your mortgage here – if it is before it is up, typically you will pay a penalty, but in the case of saving  a large amount of interest – it may be worth it.

3. Home Equity Loans

   If you have had a hankering to renovate your home, or perhaps add a garage, chances are you have gotten a home equity loan to do it.  A home equity loan lets you effectively take out a second mortgage on your home based on the amount of equity you have in your home.  Also, a lot of people use home equity loans to take money out of their home, tax free, in the case the market has gone up.