Mortgage Broker in Toronto

The tax that catches almost everyone

Every buyer in Ontario pays provincial land transfer tax. Buy inside the City of Toronto and you pay a second, municipal one as well, which has applied since 2008. Since April 2026 the municipal rates on the portion of a price above $3 million step up beyond the provincial ones, so at the top of the market the second tax is now the larger of the two. Toronto is the only municipality in the province with this power, so the comparison people make in their heads between a Toronto purchase and one in the 905 is usually missing a real number.

It matters because land transfer tax is paid in cash at closing and cannot be added to the mortgage. Two buyers with identical approvals, one buying in Toronto and one in Vaughan, need materially different amounts in the bank on closing day for the same price of home.

First-time buyers get some of it back: up to $4,000 on the provincial tax and up to $4,475 on the municipal one. Your lawyer claims both at closing. Tell them you are a first-time buyer early, because the credit applied at closing is far simpler than a refund applied for afterwards.

When we run your numbers, land transfer tax goes in from the start, along with legal fees, the title insurance and the adjustments. A budget that only covers the down payment is not a budget.

Financing a condo, where the building matters too

A large share of what sells in Toronto is condominium, and a condo application has a second subject: the corporation itself.

The lender will want the status certificate, which sets out the reserve fund, the budget, any special assessment and any litigation the corporation is involved in. A corporation with a thin reserve or an active lawsuit can make a lender decline a unit they would otherwise have approved. That is not a reflection on you, and it is not something you find out by reading the listing.

Unit size is the other one. Many lenders apply a minimum square footage, commonly around 500 square feet, and the smallest studios sit below it. Those units are still financeable, but the pool of lenders shrinks and the down payment requirement can rise. If you are looking at anything compact, it is worth knowing where you stand before the offer, not during the conditional period.

Maintenance fees count too. Lenders include a portion of the monthly fee in your debt service ratios, so a high fee reduces how much you can borrow even when the purchase price is the same.

Pre-construction, and the gap nobody plans for

Buying pre-construction in Toronto means signing now and closing years later, and the mortgage is the part most people assume is already sorted.

It usually is not. Whatever the builder put in front of you at the sales centre is not a firm commitment that survives to occupancy. Lenders requalify you close to the final closing on your income, credit and debts as they are then, under the qualifying rules in force at that time. Anything that changed in between, a job move, a new car loan, a business that had a slow year, gets looked at fresh.

Appraisal is the other risk. If the unit appraises below what you agreed to pay years earlier, the lender funds against the lower figure and you cover the difference in cash. It is the single most common way a pre-construction closing goes wrong.

Start six to nine months before your final closing date. There is usually a solution when there is time, and far less often when there are three weeks left.

The rebates that now come with a new build. On a pre-construction condominium this is the part of the purchase most people never hear about. The federal government refunds all of the GST to first-time buyers on a newly built home priced up to $1 million, up to $50,000, on agreements signed from 20 March 2025. Ontario has added a temporary rebate of the full provincial HST, up to $80,000, for agreements signed between 1 April 2026 and 31 March 2027, and that one is open to any buyer making it their principal residence. Up to $130,000 back for a first-time buyer, none of it available on a resale, and it should be in the numbers before you compare a new build against a used one.

Buying your first place in this city

Toronto is a hard first purchase and pretending otherwise helps nobody. What we can do is make sure nothing on the financing side is left on the table.

• Both land transfer tax rebates. Up to $8,475 together, and both go through your lawyer.
• The Home Buyers Plan. Withdrawing from an RRSP toward a first home, repaid over time.
• The First Home Savings Account. Contributions are deductible and qualifying withdrawals are not taxed, which is the best of both registered accounts.
• A gifted down payment. Common here and entirely acceptable to lenders, with a signed gift letter and the money seasoned in your account.

Get a proper pre-approval before you start looking rather than after you fall for something. In a city where offer nights still happen, knowing your genuine ceiling is what keeps you out of a purchase that does not fund. Our first-time buyer page covers the programs in full.

If you already own in Toronto

Owners here have generally built substantial equity, which opens options that did not exist when you bought.

A refinance or a home equity line of credit can fund a renovation, a second property or the clearing of higher cost debt. A consolidation often frees up more monthly cash flow than people expect, because it replaces several expensive payments with one secured against the home.

And if your term is ending, do not simply sign the renewal letter. The offer a lender mails out is rarely the best thing available to you, and switching is a straightforward process. Our renewals page explains what to do and when to start.

How we work

You apply online, upload documents securely, sign electronically and speak to us by phone or video at a time that suits you, with no appointment to travel to. For people working downtown, that is usually the difference between getting it done and putting it off.

Because we are a brokerage rather than a bank, one application reaches the whole market: chartered banks, credit unions, monoline lenders, alternative lenders and private funds. That matters most when a file is not straightforward, which in a city full of self-employed people, commission earners and newcomers is a great deal of the time.