Craig Austin Mortgage Group - Ontario Mortgage Broker Comparing 50+ LendersI want to

For most standard residential mortgages, nothing out of pocket. The lender pays the broker when the mortgage funds. If a specific situation requires a borrower fee, it must be explained and agreed to before you proceed.

Your bank can only offer you its own products. A broker compares many lenders at once, including banks, credit unions and lenders that do not have branches and only work through brokers. That matters most when your file is not perfectly standard, because the question stops being who has the lowest rate and becomes who will actually approve this.

One credit check does not meaningfully hurt your score. The point of a broker is that a single pull can be presented to several lenders, instead of you applying separately at four places and collecting four inquiries. What does damage a file is applying repeatedly over months, which is exactly what going lender to lender on your own tends to cause.

More than 50 Canadian lenders, spanning the big banks, credit unions and monoline lenders that only distribute through brokers. Not every lender fits every file, and the useful part is not the size of the list, it is knowing which handful will treat your specific income and property the way you need them to.

No. Calls, document collection and signing can all be handled remotely, and most files run that way now. If you would rather sit down in person, that can be arranged, but nothing about the process requires it.

No. The minimum is 5% on the first $500,000 of the purchase price, 10% on the portion between $500,000 and $1.5 million, and 20% once the price is above $1.5 million. Under 20% down, the mortgage has to carry default insurance, which is an added cost but is also what makes buying possible far sooner for most people.

It protects the lender if you stop paying, and you pay for it. It applies whenever your down payment is under 20%. The premium is a percentage of the mortgage amount and rises as your down payment shrinks: roughly 2.80% with 15% to 19.99% down, 3.10% with 10% to 14.99%, and 4.00% with 5% to 9.99%. It is normally added onto the mortgage rather than paid up front.

You have to prove you could still afford the payment at a higher rate than the one you are signing. The qualifying rate is your contract rate plus two per cent, or 5.25 per cent, whichever is higher. It applies to insured and uninsured mortgages at federally regulated lenders, and it is the single biggest reason people qualify for less than they expect.

Yes, through the Home Buyers’ Plan, which lets a first-time buyer withdraw up to $60,000 from an RRSP without tax, and a couple to do so individually. You repay it to your RRSP over time. The money has to have been in the account for at least 90 days before withdrawal, so this needs planning ahead of an offer, not during one.

A common planning range is 1.5% to 4% of the purchase price. The largest single item in Ontario is usually land transfer tax, and Toronto charges a second municipal land transfer tax on top of the provincial one, which meaningfully changes the number inside the city. The rest is legal fees, title insurance, adjustments and an inspection or appraisal.

Not without comparing. A renewal offer is a starting position, and it is priced on the assumption that you will take the easy option. You are free to move the mortgage to another lender at the end of a term, and doing that comparison is the single highest-value hour most homeowners will spend on their mortgage.

Three to four months before maturity. That is long enough to hold a rate, to move the mortgage if it makes sense, and to have any paperwork done well before the deadline. Starting two weeks out leaves you with whatever your current lender happens to be offering.

Yes. At the end of a term there is no prepayment penalty for moving. There can still be small administrative or discharge costs, and some lenders cover them to win the business, which is worth asking about rather than assuming.

You can, but there is a penalty, and the size of it is what decides whether it is worth doing. The right way to approach it is to price the penalty first and compare it against what you would save, rather than deciding based on the rate alone.

On a variable rate it is usually three months of interest. On a fixed rate it is the greater of three months of interest or the interest rate differential, which is a calculation based on the rate you signed versus the rate the lender would charge today for the time you have left. Lenders calculate the differential differently from one another, and the gap between two lenders on the identical mortgage can run into thousands of dollars.

A home equity line of credit is revolving, so you draw what you need, pay interest only on what you have drawn, and can pay it back down and use it again. A second mortgage is a fixed lump sum registered behind your first mortgage, with a set term and set payments. A line of credit suits ongoing or uncertain costs. A second mortgage suits one known amount, and is often the route when a line of credit is not available.

Yes, and it is common. The complication is that good tax planning lowers the income showing on your return, which is exactly the number a lender wants to use. Some lenders will add back certain write-offs or work from business deposits instead, so the file needs to go somewhere that reads self-employment properly rather than somewhere that just reads line 15000.

Twenty per cent minimum for a rental property you will not live in, because default insurance is not available on it. If you are buying a property with two to four units and living in one of them, the rules are different and the required down payment can be lower.

Usually yes, but how much of it counts varies a lot. Some lenders use a percentage of the rent as income, others subtract it from the property’s expenses instead, and the two approaches produce very different qualifying numbers on the same property. On an investment purchase this single difference decides more approvals than the rate does.

Sometimes. Healthcare income changes shape between training, residency, fellowship and practice, and a standard read of a pay stub does not capture that. The right application may use an employment contract, projected income, incorporated income, or documentation that reflects the real career stage. There is a fuller answer on the healthcare financing page.

Yes, in time. Most mainstream lenders want to see you discharged with re-established credit behind you, commonly around two years, before treating the file normally. Before that point there are lenders who will work with you at a higher rate, which is often used as a bridge to get back into a standard mortgage at the next renewal rather than as a permanent home.

Fixed buys certainty, variable buys flexibility and usually a much cheaper penalty if you break early. Neither is automatically right, and picking one based on a rate forecast is the weakest reason to choose. What matters more is how much room your budget has if the payment moves, and how likely you are to break the mortgage before the term ends.

The bond market, not the Bank of Canada. Lenders price fixed mortgages off Government of Canada bond yields, which is why a fixed rate can move in a week when the Bank has not met at all. The Bank of Canada sets the overnight rate, which drives prime, which is what variable rates follow. The rates and outlook page tracks both.

A rate hold locks a rate for you while you shop, commonly 90 to 120 days depending on the lender. If rates rise you keep the held rate, and if they fall you can usually be repriced down. It costs nothing, which makes starting the conversation early close to risk-free.

No, it is just the most common. A longer term buys stability and a larger penalty if you break it. A shorter term costs more in rate but leaves you free sooner. If there is a real chance you will move, sell or refinance inside five years, the penalty on a long fixed term can wipe out everything the lower rate saved you.

The amortization is how long it takes to pay the mortgage off entirely, commonly 25 or 30 years. The term is the length of your current contract with the lender, commonly five years, after which you renew. A longer amortization lowers the monthly payment and increases total interest paid. A shorter one does the reverse.

Yes, and it is common when closing dates do not line up. The problem it creates is that your down payment is still tied up in the home you are selling on the day you have to pay for the new one. That gap is what bridge financing exists to cover.

Short-term financing that covers the gap between taking possession of your new home and closing the sale of your old one. You pay interest on the bridged amount for the number of days between the two closings, plus a lender fee. There are no monthly payments; the whole thing is repaid in one piece from your sale proceeds. The bridge calculator on this site works out the actual number.

Yes. Lenders want the sale of your current home unconditional before they will commit to a bridge, because the sale proceeds are what repays it. You can estimate the cost before your sale goes firm, but the financing itself stays conditional on it.

A licensed Ontario mortgage agent, Level 2, FSRA #M19001164, and founder of Craig Austin Mortgage Group, which operates under Tango Ontario, FSRA #13691. He hosts The Mortgage Secrets Podcast and his practice concentrates on healthcare professionals, self-employed borrowers, investors and renewals.

Melissa Forbes is the senior underwriter and Crystal Weese handles client support. They are the people who move your file through the lender and keep the documents on track, so you are not relying on one person being free.

Clients across Ontario, with a strong focus on Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton, Halton, the Golden Horseshoe, Niagara and Kitchener-Waterloo. Most calls, document collection and signatures can be handled remotely, so being outside those areas is not a barrier.

A pre-approval can usually be turned around within a day or two once your documents are in. A real pre-approval means a lender has reviewed your income and credit, not just that a calculator produced a number. The difference matters the moment you write an offer.

For most employed applicants: recent pay stubs, a letter of employment, two years of tax documents, and statements for the accounts holding your down payment. Self-employed applicants add business financials and notices of assessment. Sending everything at once at the start is the difference between a smooth file and a slow one.