Self-Employed Mortgages
in Toronto.

Under $1 million — most condos, many towns — insured lending exists, and with it the insured business-for-self programs: roughly 10% down, two years of tenure, strong credit, near-prime pricing with flexible documentation. For a freelancer or new-ish incorporated professional buying a first condo, this is frequently the winning route and people simply don’t know it exists.

Over $1 million, insurance is off the table for everyone: 20% minimum down, conventional lending, and the whole contest becomes income recognition. That’s where the statement machinery earns its keep — 6 to 12 months of deposits or corporate cash flow, netted sensibly, standing in for a T1 engineered to be small.

On the B side expect roughly 0.5% to 1% above the lowest prime rates. The recurring counterweight is the tax your structure saves every year — plus Toronto’s specific kicker: getting into the market matters more here than optimizing year one’s rate, because the refinance toward prime (our standard one-to-three-year exit plan) happens against a property that historically does the appreciating for you. We still put both columns in writing before you choose.

The core set: 6-12 months of statements (business/corporate and personal), two years of T1s and NOAs with no balance owing, registration or articles, HST returns where applicable, and corporate financials for incorporated files. Toronto adds one habit worth adopting early: in competitive offers, a fully-packaged file behaves like a pre-approval with teeth — sellers’ agents can smell financing risk, and statement files that arrive organized close like T4 files.

Since 1988 we’ve financed Toronto’s self-employed through every market mood. The constant: no single bank reads all four profiles above well, but across 40+ lenders someone reads each one very well. Our job is that match — plus the honest arithmetic between insured, statement, and prime routes — before you’re emotionally committed to an address.