Affordable Housing Program

As a mortgage broker, I have been licensed for almost four years. I have just begun working my second calendar year as a full-time broker and have been co-brokering mortgage applications since I was 21-years old.

This spring is the first time I have ever come across an Affordable Housing Program on a pre-sale condo development, but it is also the first time I haven’t found another mortgage broker who has done something I haven’t. No broker in my circle of almost 50 mortgage professionals has experienced an Affordable Housing Program attached to a condo development in B.C.’s lower mainland.

What is an Affordable Housing Program?

It is a grant, given by a property development company, to individuals who are looking to buy a unit in their newly built strata. You put your deposit down, prove your income is below a particular threshold, and in writing are guaranteed to receive a non-repayable grant upon the closing of your purchase that is to be used as a portion of your down payment- from the developer.

It is not a CMHC or BC Housing program, but it is only allowed if these two Crown Corporations have approved it.

These developments with this type of program are rare! So rare, that the lender we initially tried to put this mortgage with had never seen or heard of one being approved where the mortgage was structured conventionally. With two other bank reps working closely with the developer on this project, it is also the first time our knowledge on the matter has not been the greatest- something we may lose a mortgage and good client over.

Embarrassed that we were not the experts in this situation, we decided to write a post on the situation so that individual mortgage brokers who come across this type of program, know they are possible to get done (through monoline lenders and big banks) and that they can be done as high ratio mortgages or conventional mortgages.

Even though we may have lost a client, we hope that sharing this story will help other brokers be the expert if they find themselves in the same situation- something we will undoubtedly be after the month of real-life education we received.

Please contact us if you have any questions on this type of Program!