What we look for
Not a credit score cutoff. A realistic path to a mortgage.
We are not a lender and we are not scoring you the way a bank does. What matters is whether the household can carry the payment today and satisfy a lender at the end of the term.
The five things we assess.
Household income against the price
Target purchase price sits at roughly 5× gross household income. A household at $100,000 is generally looking at a home around $500,000. Above that guideline the payment gets tight and a lender is unlikely to approve at the exit.
Employment and documentable income
Salaried, hourly, contract and self-employed all work. What matters is that the income can be evidenced — pay stubs, an employment letter, or two years of notices of assessment. Cash income we cannot document does not count toward the assessment.
The deposit
The starting down payment is a floor of 3% of the target price or $10,000, whichever is larger, and it is risk-adjusted upward on some files — 4% is common. It is credited to your future down payment, not a fee.
Credit that can reach bank standard
We do not turn people away on score alone. We do need a credible route to roughly 680 by the end of the term, which is what mainstream lenders look for. Where credit is not yet in line with lending guidelines, enrollment in Path to Homeownership is mandatory.
The home itself
Good repair, insurable, financeable, and not so rural that a lender or a future buyer would baulk. The investor is buying a real asset and has to be able to sell it if things go wrong.
Independent legal advice
Mandatory before signing, at your own lawyer of your own choosing. We cannot proceed without the certificate on file. It is a gate we enforce in the system, not a suggestion.
What we look for.
01
Income that fits the home
A target price at or under roughly 5× household income. Above that the payment stops being liveable.
02
Credit repairable in the term
No score cutoff. The question is whether the file can reach bank standards before the term ends.
03
The greater of 3% or $10,000
Your starting deposit, credited straight to your future down payment and returned to you at exit.
04
A property in good repair
Listed on the open market, structurally sound, and not so rural that a lender won't finance it.
05
Self-employment welcome
With eyes open — we'll need to see the real income, not just the line on the tax return.
06
Your own lawyer before you sign
Independent legal advice is mandatory and is a hard gate. Nobody signs without it.
Only two things genuinely end an application: income that can't carry the home, and credit that can't reach bank standards inside the term.
Who this does not suit.
We would rather say so now than take a deposit and waste a year of your life.
- Households where the only realistic price is well above five times income — the payment works today but the mortgage will not exist at the end.
- Income that genuinely cannot be documented in any form a lender will accept.
- No deposit at all, and no route to the 3% floor within a few months.
- An active consumer proposal or bankruptcy with no discharge date in sight, where credit cannot plausibly reach bank standard inside five years.
- A specific home already chosen that is rural, uninsurable, or in poor repair.
- Anyone who wants to skip independent legal advice.
If one of those is you today, it may not be you in twelve months. Applying is free and the answer we give you is specific rather than a polite no.
If a lender said no, that isn't the end of the conversation.
Applying costs nothing, takes about twelve minutes, and ends with a straight answer about what is realistic for your household.