Before you can buy a house, you need to make sure you can afford it and that there will be financing options available to you. This is where a pre-approval comes in. As mortgage lending criteria has become more strict over the years, the pre-approval and the increased certainty and confidence that goes with it has become an essential first step for the would-be-home-buyer.

In this blog, we are going to talk about how a client of mine was able to rearrange her finances such that she and her partner could mortgage qualify for a $400K target house in their neighborhood.

My phone rings, chat bubble bubbles, or my email dings ... "what's your best interest rate?" asks the caller. I scratch my head, as at this point I know nothing about my caller, the property or their needs. This article's aim is to shine a light on this question from the mortgage-lending side of the fence and delve into what it takes for a mortgage professional to be able to accurately answer your question.

The current law in Canada requires that any residential mortgage where the borrower has less than 20% down payment be insured against borrower default. The main insurer to the banks is CMHC (Canadian Mortgage & Housing Corporation) followed by Genworth, and Canada Guaranty. The insurance premiums are all the same among the three and depend on a few variables. In any regard, they can be a significant amount of money, in the tens of thousands of dollars added to the loan balance. The question often asked is how to avoid CMHC fees / can I avoid CMHC fees? Conversely, I hear prospective buyers say they are waiting to purchase until they have saved 20% in order to avoid CMHC fees. This article looks at the costs and benefits of CMHC ‘mortgage default insurance’ and whether or not it is a big deal.

Prospective homeowners may get excited by the market or the prospect of home ownership and decide that now is the right time to look into buying a home...but sometimes they get the cart before the horse and start house shopping before the have been pre-approved for a mortgage. The pre-approval process is a way for buyers to get insight on potential obstacles and learn more about what mortgage lenders want from applicants. Preparing for a mortgage loan in advance will help avoid surprises and speed a buyer's final mortgage approval when the right house is found. You'll also be taken more seriously.

New housing mortgage policies are coming into effect (again) and leaving many Canadians unclear about how their finances have been affected. The Government of Canada is introducing these new rules in two phases. This article is a quick summation of how you may have been affected. First, however, to understand the new rules it is important to understand the classification of mortgages and the previous rules.