A Vancouver Mortgage Broker Who Shops the Whole Market
I am Sydney Young, licensed with BRX Mortgage and working with clients right across British Columbia. I am based up the coast in Powell River rather than downtown, which turns out to matter less than people expect: your file is read by an underwriter in another province either way, and what decides it is how it is put together and where it is sent.
One Bank Has One Shelf
Vancouver prices make the difference between lenders larger than anywhere else in the province. A rule about how much suite income counts, or how long an amortisation may run on an uninsured purchase, moves what you can buy by a figure with six digits in it. Your own bank has one set of those rules and no reason to mention anybody else's.
What I do is put the same file in front of a wide panel of them and come back with what each one would actually do, along with what it would mean for you. It costs you nothing on a normal residential mortgage, because the lender pays the broker, and it is a conversation rather than a commitment.
What Decides a Vancouver File
Four things come up on nearly every file in this city, and each of them is a place where lenders disagree with one another.
Strata and Condo Files
Most of what sells in this city is a strata, and the building comes with the file: the depreciation report, the contingency fund, a special levy on the horizon, a rental restriction. Lenders read those documents very differently from one another.
Above the Insured Ceiling
A great many purchases here sit past the point where mortgage insurance is possible, which changes the minimum down payment and hands the file to a different set of lenders with their own rules on amortisation and on where a down payment may come from.
Suite and Laneway Income
A basement suite or a laneway house can be what makes the payment work, and lenders differ wildly on how much of that rent they will count. On a file this size that one difference often decides the answer.
Presales and Assignments
A presale bought three years ago completes under today's rules with today's income, and the approval given at signing is not the mortgage that funds. That is its own piece of work and it wants starting early.
By Phone, Text and E-Sign
We Talk, However Suits You
A fifteen minute call, a text thread, or email, whichever fits around your day.
Documents Go Digital
Everything uploads securely and signs electronically. The one step in person is signing with a lawyer or a notary, near you.
Your File Gets Shopped
One application, compared across a wide panel of lenders, and you get back what is genuinely available and what each option would mean.
The Files Known Inside Out
First-Time Buyers
What you can actually afford at these prices, and the incentives most buyers never hear about.
Learn more →Investment Properties
Rental financing and equity strategy, from a broker who owns rentals herself.
Learn more →Self-Employed
Consultants, contractors and business owners, with your returns read the way a lender reads them.
Learn more →Renewals, refinances and commercial files are all here too, under every service.
Questions Vancouver Clients Ask
Do you need to be in Vancouver to arrange a Vancouver mortgage?
No, and neither does your lender. Almost every mortgage in the country is decided by an underwriter who will never see the property, working from an appraisal and a set of numbers. What changes the outcome is how the file is put together and which lender it goes to, and both of those happen wherever the broker is sitting.
Most places here are over the insured limit. What does that change?
Once a purchase passes the ceiling for mortgage insurance the deal is uninsured, which means a larger minimum down payment and a different set of lenders with their own rules on amortisation, on rental income and on what they will accept as a down payment source. It is a different file rather than a bigger version of the same one.
Will a lender count the rent from my suite or laneway house?
Often, and how much varies enormously between lenders: some count half the rent, some most of it, and some want it on a signed lease and a notice of assessment before they count any. On a Vancouver file that single difference can decide whether it works, which is the argument for shopping it rather than asking one bank.
Can you help with a presale I bought a few years ago?
Yes. Completion financing on a presale is its own errand, because the approval you were given at signing is not the mortgage you complete on, and what changed in between is your income, the market and the rules. It wants starting well before the completion notice arrives.
I am self-employed. Is that harder in an expensive market?
It is the same work, and there is simply more of it at Vancouver prices. Two years of tax returns rarely describe a consulting or contracting business fairly, so the job is presenting your income the way a lender reads it and knowing the lenders that read it generously.
Find Out Where You Stand
Answer a few questions about what you are planning and I will come back with your real options, worked out for your situation. It takes a few minutes, and it is yours to keep.
