Mortgage solutions, across Canada
Twenty-five situations, each with the real numbers, four worked scenarios and the questions people actually ask. Find yours, or call and we will find it with you.
Placed with Canada's banks, monolines, credit unions and alternative lenders
Lender names shown for reference. Availability, pricing and guidelines vary by province, property and borrower profile.
Refinance & Equity
Refinance
You have equity you cannot spend and a payment that no longer fits. A refinance turns one into the other — but only if the penalty, the stress test and the closing c…
Read moreMortgage Renewal
The letter arrives, the new payment is hundreds of dollars higher, and there is a box to initial at the bottom. You have more room than that box suggests — and rough…
Read moreHome Equity & HELOC
Your house has been quietly earning while your credit cards have been quietly charging. Getting at that equity is straightforward — choosing the cheapest of the four…
Read moreDebt Consolidation
You are not bad with money. You are paying 22.99% on balances your house could carry at 4.29%, and the minimum payments are designed to keep you exactly where you ar…
Read moreHome Renovation Loan
You have the quotes. You have the drawings. What you do not have is a clear way to pay for it without putting $60,000 on a credit line at 12%. There are five real ro…
Read moreSecond & Third Mortgage
You have equity and you have been declined anyway, usually on debt ratios rather than on the house. A second mortgage is the release valve. It is also expensive mone…
Read moreReverse Mortgage
A reverse mortgage can take real pressure off a fixed income. It also costs roughly 1.5 to 2.5 percentage points more than a HELOC and the balance compounds while yo…
Read moreBuying a Home
Home Purchase Mortgage
You have the down payment saved, or nearly. What nobody told you is how much more you need on closing day, and how a $1 difference in price can change your down paym…
Read moreMortgage Pre-Approval
A pre-approval is not a promise to lend. It is a rate hold plus a conditional underwriting opinion, and it can evaporate over a car lease or a moved closing date. He…
Read morePre-Approval Checklist
Almost no mortgage is declined for want of a document. It is delayed, then re-priced, then lost to another buyer. Gather these before you apply and a pre-approval ta…
Read moreFirst-Time Home Buyer
The rules changed twice in eighteen months and most advice online is out of date. Here is the current list of what a first-time buyer can claim, what it is worth in …
Read moreNew to Canada
You do not need permanent residency, five years of history or 35% down. What you need is the right lender and the right insurer, and there are eight programs built s…
Read moreBridge Loans
You bought on the 18th and you sell on the 9th. Your down payment is sitting inside a house you still own. A bridge loan covers the days in between, and at today's p…
Read moreSpecialty & Private
Self-Employed Mortgage
Your accountant did exactly what you paid them to do — lower your taxable income. Your lender reads that same number as your salary. That gap is the whole problem, a…
Read moreBad Credit Mortgage
A low score is a snapshot of a hard stretch, not a verdict on you. Lenders read it as one input among several, and there are lenders whose entire business is reading…
Read moreSub-Prime Mortgage
Sub-prime is a word borrowed from a different country's crisis. In Canada the market is called alternative or B lending, it is regulated, it is bought through broker…
Read moreEmergency Mortgage
If a Notice of Sale or a court document is sitting on your table, the most useful thing right now is an accurate calendar. Almost everyone in this situation believes…
Read morePrivate Mortgage
Private lenders decide on the house, not on your pay stubs. That is why they can say yes when a bank says no, and it is also why the money is expensive. Used for twe…
Read morePrivate First Mortgage
When a bank will not renew, will not finance the property, or cannot move fast enough, a private first mortgage replaces the bank's charge entirely. It is the cheape…
Read morePrivate Second Mortgage
A private second leaves your first mortgage completely alone and takes equity from behind it. That protects a low rate on the first and it is the most expensive comm…
Read moreCommercial & Development
Commercial Mortgages
Your building does not qualify on your income. It qualifies on its net operating income, tested against a debt service coverage ratio the lender picks. Understand th…
Read moreDevelopment Mortgages
A development mortgage is not one loan. It is a land facility, a servicing facility and a construction facility that have to hand off cleanly to a takeout, and the h…
Read moreCMHC MLI Select
MLI Select can take a rental building to 95% loan-to-cost and a 50-year amortization. It can also come back at 80%, because the coverage test bites long before the l…
Read moreLand Mortgages
Land has no roof, no tenant and no income. That is the whole reason banks avoid it and the whole reason the terms look the way they do. Zoning, servicing and a credi…
Read moreFarm Mortgages
A residential lender will finance your farmhouse and five acres and value the rest at nothing. An agricultural lender finances the operation. Knowing which one you n…
Read moreRun the numbers yourself
Four calculators built on Canadian semi-annual compounding — the same math your lender uses.
Let's talk about your file
One call, a real broker, and a straight answer about what you qualify for and what it will cost. If we cannot beat what you already have, we will tell you that too.