Mortgage Broker in Vaughan

One land transfer tax

Vaughan sits in York Region and charges no land transfer tax of its own. Toronto is the only municipality in Ontario with that power, so a purchase here attracts the provincial tax alone. First-time buyers can claim up to $4,000 of it back through their lawyer at closing.

On a new build there are other closing costs that catch people out, and they are not municipal taxes. Builder adjustments, development charge levies passed along under the agreement, utility enrolment fees and the cost of any upgrades ordered along the way all land on the same day. Read the adjustments clause in your agreement of purchase and sale, ideally with your lawyer, well before closing rather than the week of it.

New builds and the gap nobody plans for

Buying pre-construction means signing today and closing years from now. The mortgage is the part people assume is already dealt with, and it almost never is.

Whatever the builder arranged when you signed is not a firm commitment that survives to closing. Shortly before your final closing date the lender will assess you again: your income as it is then, your credit as it is then, your debts as they are then, and the qualifying rules in force at that moment. None of those are guaranteed to match the day you signed.

The things that most often change the answer are ordinary life events. A job move, even a promotion, if it shifts you from salary to commission. A vehicle financed in the interim. A business that had a soft year. A separation. A co-buyer whose circumstances changed.

Six to nine months before closing is the right time to start. That is long enough to fix a credit issue, restructure a debt, or find a lender who sees the file differently. Three weeks out, the options are whatever happens to be available.

The rebates that now come with a new build. Vaughan builds more than almost anywhere in the region, which makes this worth more here than most places. 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.

When the appraisal comes in below the price

This is the specific risk of buying years ahead, and it deserves to be understood rather than hoped away.

Lenders lend against the appraised value, not the contract price. If a home you agreed to buy some time ago appraises for less today, the mortgage is sized to the appraisal and the shortfall becomes cash you need at closing, in addition to the down payment you had already planned for.

There are usually ways through it. A larger down payment if funds can be found, a different lender whose appraisal process reaches a different number, help from family, or in some cases secondary financing to bridge the gap. Every one of those takes time to arrange. None of them can be arranged in a fortnight.

If you are holding a purchase that closes this year, that conversation is worth having now rather than when the appraisal report lands.

The VMC, and what interim occupancy really means

The towers around the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre have added a genuine condominium market to a city that used to be almost entirely low rise, and condominium closings work differently from freehold ones.

When the building is habitable but the corporation is not yet registered, you take interim occupancy. You live there and pay the builder a monthly occupancy fee. That fee is not a mortgage payment and none of it reduces a balance, because there is no mortgage yet. Your mortgage starts at final closing, once the corporation is registered and title can transfer.

Interim occupancy can run for months. Budget for it as a separate cost rather than assuming your housing payment simply begins when you move in.

On the underwriting side, a condominium brings the corporation into the picture. The lender reviews the reserve fund, the budget and any special assessment or litigation, and counts part of your maintenance fee in your debt service ratios, which reduces what you can borrow.

Established homes, and the equity in them

Woodbridge, Thornhill, Kleinburg and the older parts of Maple are full of owners who have held property for a long time and hold considerable equity in it.

That equity has uses. A refinance or a home equity line of credit can fund a substantial renovation, help a child into their first purchase, or clear debt that is costing far more than a mortgage does. Where a renovation is large enough to be a rebuild, our construction and renovation page covers how draw based financing works.

And if you are buying before your current home sells, which is common when a new build closing date is fixed, bridge financing covers the overlap.

How we work

Entirely online. You apply from home, upload documents securely, sign electronically and speak to us by phone or video whenever suits.

One application reaches the whole lender market: banks, credit unions, monoline lenders, alternative lenders and private funds. On a new build closing where one lender's appraisal or policy is the obstacle, having somewhere else to take the file is not a convenience. It is the difference between closing and not.