Ways to Get the Best Exchange Rate

When you convert large sums of Canadian dollars into American dollars for the purchase of your Phoenix home, it is always a good idea to go through a foreign exchange company, rather than your local bank. A foreign exchange company will be able to get you a better rate 99% of the time. As a result, you can save thousands of dollars. We work closely with a global foreign exchange company with headquarters in Edmonton. They have several ways to get a great rate:

Spot Contracts

This is buying currency immediately, or ‘on the spot’. If you need your currency as soon as possible a Spot Contract is the answer. You can agree to a price over the telephone, and they purchase the currency on your behalf that day. They watch the currency fluctuations throughout the day and attempt to get you the best rate of the day (banks simply exchange all funds at the same time every day, regardless of the fluctuations within the day).

Forward Contracts

This is essentially a ‘buy now, pay later’ contract where a client can fix a rate based on today’s price for a future date. For example, if you have decided to purchase a house within a few weeks or months you may not want to watch the value of the payment changing each day as the currency rates fluctuate. If you want to know exactly what it is going to cost when you need it, you could simply enter into a Forward Contract until the date you needed the US funds, and fix it at today’s price. You need to put down a 10% deposit to secure the rate. When you want the funds delivered, you pay the remaining 90%. In the meantime you can rest assured that you know exactly what the payment will be and you are not at the mercy of the markets.

Market Orders