First published in Business Edge Media on May 15, 2020; by Miklos A. Nagy;
I wrote my first article about “The Smith Manoeuvre” in November, 2019. Since than the world went through (still going) the COVID-19 pandemic with significant implications for every single country’s economy and its future.
In this article, I present the updated calculation for the Smith Manoeuvre using the marginal 2020 tax rates and assumptions based on my findings for the average long term rate of returns for equities and house prices (in the GTA).
The Smith Manoeuvre is a relatively simple idea, that is to convert a mortgage to an investment loan over time and so doing transform your non-tax deductable mortgage interest payments to tax-deductible investment loan interest payments.
To implement this strategy, you need a readvanceable mortgage, consisting of your regular traditional mortgage and a Home Equity Line of Credit (“HELOC”). At any one point of time the sum of the remaining balance of your mortgage and the limit of your HELOC is constant, typically 60% or 65% of your home’s value at the start. In other words, this type of arrangement allows your HELOC’s limit to be a certain percentage of your home’s value, in the beginning, less the current mortgage balance on your property. As you make your mortgage payments, your principal is paid down on your mortgage. Your HELOC’s limit will be increased by the same amount of principal you are paying off at each mortgage payment. The strategy is to invest these increases in your HELOC in dividend and/or interest-earning investments and so doing making the interest payments on your HELOC tax-deductible.
By doing this repeatedly until your mortgage is paid off, you will eventually fully convert your non-tax-deductible mortgage interest payments to tax-deductible interest payments on your HELOC. For this strategy to work, you need to invest in investments that have a reasonable expectation of earning interest or dividend income. If you invest to make capital gains and no interest or dividends, your interest payments will not be tax-deductible. The investments can be managed portfolios invested in stocks that will pay you a dividend, dividend mutual funds, income-producing rental properties or private first, second (or third) mortgages.
With the Smith Manoeuvre, you will be able to pay off your mortgage much sooner and could build substantial net equity, in addition to the value of your initially mortgaged property, at the point of time of your mortgage original end (most of the mortgages are for either 25 or 30 years long at the start).
Based on my finding published in my blogs: “What is a Realistic Return Expectation in Equity Investing”: dated August 31, 2019 and also in: “The COVID-19 Virus’ likely Effect on Investing” http://fin-plan.ca//the-covid-19-virus’-likely-effect-on-investing/ (April 20, 2020) for a realistic long term projection on the effect of the Smith Manoeuvre I used the following assumptions for the next 25 year for the following variables for my Smith Manoeuvre projections:
Real Estate in Covid-19 is Not a Bad Idea
There are several variations on the Smith Manoeuvre. The main, and in my opinion, the best strategy to follow is to use tax refunds and dividend payments to reduce your mortgage principal. Then reborrow, using your HELOC, the total of these principal reductions. These principal reductions will reduce your mortgage balance in excess of your regular monthly mortgage principal reductions attributed to your regular mortgage payments. If the tax refunds turn into tax payables, due to crystallization on capital gains and dividend taxes, use your dividend payments to the extent that your cash flow will not increase beyond the original monthly mortgage payments calculated on the length of the amortization period (either 20 or 25 years). Following this strategy, the effect of the Smith Manoeuvre on your future net worth can be substantial as Table 2. demonstrates. Based on averages calculated on over almost the past 60 years in a “realistic” scenario, the positive effect of the Smith Manoeuvre could amount to $626,000 and $417,000 in cases applying the “Manoeuvre” to a $1.5 million and $1 million houses, respectively
As per Table 2. Below, employing the Smith Manoeuvre could make you close to $1,100,000 richer over a 25 years period, assuming that you convert, over time, your initial mortgage of 65% ($975,000) of the current house value ($1.5 million) to a tax-deductible interest on your HELOC. The exact amount of how much you will benefit from this strategy is dependent on several factors. Keep in mind, your benefit could be significantly less should interest rates substantially rise or stocks perform considerably poorer than that in the past. Also, your benefit could be more. For a full set of the assumptions related to the above table, please contact Fin-Plan.
The figures in Table 2. are based on investing in dividend earning Canadian equities. You could also invest in dividend earning US equities or in 1st, 2nd and 3rd private mortgages instead of equities or a combination of all these mentioned. In the long term, US equities outperformed Canadian equities by a large enough margin to consider them as potential investments implementing your Smith Manoeuvre. This is despite the less favourable tax treatment on US dividends and the foreign exchange risk these investments would entail.
Currently, investing in 1st, 2nd and 3rd private mortgages could give you a yield of between 6.00% and 14.00%. These yields are high enough that, despite that interest income is being taxed at the highest rate and without any ability to defer taxes on any portion of them, they could also be considered as options. I will analyze the Smith Manoeuvre’s performance assuming investment in US dividend earning equities and/or Canadian mortgages instead of Canadian dividend earning equities in one or more of my future blogs.
Your gain (or loss) from the Smith Manoeuvre is dependent on your mortgage rate, HELOC interest rate, rate of return on your investments excluding dividends, and dividend yield or interest.
The drawback of this strategy is that your overall debt level will stay the same and therefore, you will generally carry a higher level of risk. This increased risk is mitigated by the fact that instead of relying on real estate prices to increase, your portfolio will be diversified into a mix of real estate and equity investments. Keep in mind that regardless of the Canadian real estate price boom in the past 25 years, especially in the GTA and Vancouver, there is a risk of significantly lower growth rates in real estate for the next decades. Toronto and Vancouver have been consistently in the 10 most expensive cities in the world.
In my blog titled “The COVID-19 Virus’ likely Effect on Investing” http://fin-plan.ca//the-covid-19-virus’-likely-effect-on-investing/ I analysed how different asset classes historically performed in inflationary periods in the past since 1961. Due to the enormous amount of “printed” monies that are being pumped to the major economies, I see high likelihood in higher inflationary periods ahead of us in the coming years. My finding is that in inflationary periods real estate investment (at least in the GTA) has done quite well while equities do not keep up with inflation nearly as well and mid and long term bonds do quite badly.
In view of these finding it is quite justifiable for investors to increase their real investment (at least if you live in the GTA or perhaps in the VTA area). If so, I think the best way to boost your real estate exposure is to buy a more expensive principal residence and also follow the Smith Manoeuvre at the same time to maximize your long term net worth.
To illustrate this strategy consider the case of a couple who wants to purchase a $1 million home in the GTA and has up to $525,000 for downpayment and also suppose they have substantial additional non-registered and registered investments. Now compare this strategy to the one for them to buy a $1.5 million principal residence instead. Table 3. depicts the result of the three strategies:
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- Buy a $1 million principal residence and do not implement the Smith Manoeuvre; or
- Buy a $1 million principal residence and implement the Smith Manoeuvre; or
- Buy a $1.5 million principal residence and implement the Smith Manoeuvre.
Given the set of assumptions set out previously your total after tax non-registered investment will increase by 25% by applying the Smith Manoeuvre on your $1 million house. The total after tax net worth would be increased by 21% should you opt to buy a $1.5 million home and implement the Smith Manoeuvre compared to purchasing a $1 million without embarking on Manoeuvre. The calculation of the value of the non-registered investment in 25 years assumes that the differential in mortgage payments ($1,497 per month) is added to your non-registered investment.
Fin-Plan can help you with advice whether to implement the Smith Manouevre and can help implementing this potentially useful strategy for you. To ask any question about this article or to book an appointment to look at your particular case, please contact Miklos at nagy@fin-plan.ca. Miklos is a fee-only financial planner, best selling author, finance-related educational course writer, statistician and former Chair of the Canadian Institute of Financial Planners with over 25 years of experience in financial planning for high net-worth and middle-class Canadians. His Fee-Only financial planning website is at www.fin-plan.ca and his Linkedin page is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/miklos-nagy-fee-only-financial-planner/.
Copyright © 2020 by: Miklos A. Nagy
The views expressed in this material are the opinions of Miklos A. Nagy through the period ended April 22, 2020 and are subject to change based on market and/or other conditions. This document contains certain statements that may be deemed forward-looking statements. Please note that any such statements are not guarantees of any future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected.
Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss of principal. All information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy is not guaranteed.
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