Mortgage professionals are calling for an independent lender to refocus on the rental property market as frustrations mount following rule changes at several lenders – most recently at a big bank.
Mortgage professionals are calling for an independent lender to refocus on the rental property market as frustrations mount following rule changes at several lenders – most recently at a big bank.
“Scotia made a fairly big change to rental rules,” Justin Blacklock of TMG The Mortgage Group - Averbach Mortgages explained. “They used to let us do a 70 per cent offset; now it’s 50 per cent of the rent off the mortgage.”
For every $1,000 of rent, clients can only now use $500 of that income toward qualifying for a mortgage. It’s a change that has affected a number of brokers.
“There are new regulations, rules and underwriting guidelines,” Ryan Kirwan of HQ mortgages told MortgageBrokerNews.ca. “Scotia changed their rules for rental properties – before you were able to offset (more of the) rental income and now you can only include 50 per cent of the rental property when trying to qualify for a mortgage.”
The changes were implemented at the end of August. However, brokers note that the Bank of Nova Scotia isn’t the only lender to make frustrating changes to rental mortgage qualifications.
“They all do it now,” Kirwan said. “Scotia was (just) the last (to make the changes).
And some players believe this new trend will open up an opportunity for an independent lender to corner this important end of the market.
“I’m frustrated by all the rule changes for clients – lenders are getting much stricter,” Blacklock told MortgageBrokerNews.ca. “There is an opportunity for a lender to corner the niche market for rental properties.”
As for dealing with it, brokers realize it is all part of the business.
“It’s just a matter of adapting,” Blacklock said. “Accept that (the industry) is changing. We have a way of romanticizing the past.”
