• Prepaid services. Where the sellers have prepaid property taxes or certain utilities, the buyers can be charged for the amount of prepayment on a pro-rata basis, depending on the date of occupancy. For example, if the sellers have paid the property taxes to the end of the year, and the sale closes on October 15th, the purchasers will be charged with an adjustment of 77/365'ths (the number of days remaining in the year) of the total paid for the year.

 
• Interest. This is the amount of interest required to be prepaid up to the Interest Adjustment Date (IAD). IAD is the point at which the mortgage interest starts accumulating "in arrears". In Canada all mortgage interest is calculated and paid after the period to which it applies. This differs from the way in which rental and lease payments are calculated, which is "in advance". The good news on this one is that if you prepay for say 3 weeks you won't have to make your first payment for almost two months. Also, if you take a biweekly payment term, the longest interest adjustment period is less than two weeks, by definition.

• Market value comparison approach: The majority of residential appraisals use this technique, comparing recent sales of similar properties ('comparables' or 'comps' in real estate jargon) and adding and subtracting the differences in value of the same features in the subject property. For example, if a house of the same size on the same street and in the same condition as the subject property recently sold for $200,000, but this 'comparable' had a triple garage and a finished basement and the 'subject' does not; the appraiser calculates the market value of these features (say, $12,000 in total) and deducts this amount from $200,000, giving an 'adjusted value' of $188,000. This is usually done with at least three 'comparables' and either averaged or the middle ('median') value used.

 
• Depreciated cost approach: This technique is a supporting measurement of value used by many appraisers, whereby the land value is estimated and added to an estimate of the depreciated building value. Where there are few comparables available, relatively more weight might be given to this method.

• Switch situations, where the costs of transferring lenders would otherwise be very high. 
• Second mortgage situations where a postponement may be difficult to obtain.

 
• $100,000 mortgage at 9% with 24 months remaining. 
• Current 2 year rate is 6.5%. 
• Differential is 2.5% per annum. 
• IRD is $100,000 * 2 years * 2.5% p.a. = $5,000.

 
• Fixed rate mortgages; the term is usually fairly short (6 months to a year) and the interest rate will be higher than on a closed mortgage. 

 
• Variable Rate Mortgages (VRM's) are usually open (and are "collateral" type mortgages) but recently, several institutions have introduced closed versions.

Since RRSP's can be caught up retroactively, this facility and the large cash refunds it can generate are central to numerous Realtor-driven programs designed for first time buyers. 

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