Dominion Lending Centres
Great rates. No nonsense.
Clear guidance from a broker who shops the whole lender market. Calgary, Edmonton, Sherwood Park, Fort Saskatchewan and Alberta-wide.
Which path are you on?
Four situations, four different sets of rules. Start where you actually are and the options get a lot clearer.
Buying a home
First place, next place, or a build. Getting the pre-approval right up front is what makes an offer stick, and it decides how much house you are actually shopping for.
Buying optionsRenewing or refinancing
Signing the renewal letter your lender mailed you is the most expensive thirty seconds in personal finance. There is almost always a better offer on the table.
Renewal optionsSelf-employed or bruised credit
A bank sees a write-off or a late payment and stops reading. Alternative and B lenders read the whole file, and there is usually a route back to an A lender from there.
Your situationInvestment property
Rental offset, portfolio limits, and the wall most investors hit at the fourth or fifth door. Financing strategy matters more than the rate here.
Investor financingMeet the Ninja
Chad Degenhardt is a mortgage associate with Dominion Lending Centres, working with clients across Calgary, Edmonton, Sherwood Park, Fort Saskatchewan and the rest of Alberta.
The people he works with are usually not chasing the lowest number they can find. They want to understand what they are signing, what it costs if life changes, and why one lender said yes when another said no. That is the conversation he is built for.
The ninja is not a gimmick. Chad coaches Brazilian jiu-jitsu in Edmonton, and the habits carry over: know the position you are in, know the options from there, and do not panic when it gets uncomfortable.
One lender, or the whole market
This is the part most people never get told. Your bank is not shopping for you. It cannot.
Going straight to your bank
A bank sells its own products. One lender, one rate sheet, one risk appetite. If your file does not fit that box, the answer is no, and nobody there is looking for a second opinion.
- One institution's rate sheet, take it or leave it
- One set of lending rules, so an unusual file gets declined rather than placed
- The posted rate is the starting point, and you have to know to negotiate
- A decline is the end of the conversation, not the start of a plan
- Renewal arrives as a letter with a number on it and a signature line
Working with a broker
Chad works for you, not for a lender. He takes your file to banks, credit unions and monoline lenders, and puts the structures side by side so you can see what the differences actually cost.
- Access to a wide lender panel, so one decline is not the end of the file
- The rate, the penalty, the prepayment privileges and the renewal terms compared together
- Alternative and B lenders available when an A lender does not fit, with a plan to move back
- On most residential deals the lender pays the broker, so the advice costs you nothing
- Someone who tells you when staying put is the right answer
A mortgage is not just a rate. It is flexibility, penalties, prepayment privileges, renewal options and long-term cost. The right structure regularly saves more over a term than a slightly lower rate does, and the difference only shows up when something changes.
The approval path
Three stages, in this order. Most of the work happens before you ever look at a house.
Step 1 Talk it through
A conversation before any paperwork. What you earn, what you owe, what you are trying to do, and what would make you uncomfortable. This is where the strategy gets set, and it is free.
Step 2 Get pre-approved
Documents in, credit pulled once, file placed with the lender that fits it. You walk away knowing your real number and holding a rate, so an offer can be written with confidence.
Step 3 Close with confidence
Conditions cleared, lawyer instructed, funds where they need to be on the day they need to be there. Chad stays on the file through to funding rather than handing it off.
What would the payment actually be?
Move the numbers and watch what happens. Canadian fixed rates compound semi-annually, and this calculates them that way, so the figure is closer to real than most online tools give you.
Estimate only. Not an approval or a rate offer. Some conditions may apply. Rates may vary from province to province and are subject to change without notice. Posted rates may be high-ratio and/or quick-close, which can differ from conventional rates. O.A.C. E.&O.E. Default insurance is estimated using standard CMHC premium bands and applies only when the down payment is under 20%. Property tax, condo fees and heating are not included.
What the posted rate hides
Posted rates are the sticker price. They exist so there is something to discount from, and they are also what most penalties get calculated against. Broker rates change often and depend on your file, so ask Chad for today's rates.
Some conditions may apply. Rates may vary from province to province and are subject to change without notice. Posted rates may be high-ratio and/or quick-close, which can differ from conventional rates. O.A.C. E.&O.E.
Where Chad can help
Six clusters, each with pages written for the specific situation rather than one general article with the keyword swapped in.
Local
Edmonton, Sherwood Park and Fort Saskatchewan, with the market context that actually applies here.
All local pagesHome buyers
Pre-approval, first-time buyer programs, new builds and buying with renovations rolled in.
All home buyers pagesRenewals and refinancing
Renewals, refinances, equity take-outs, debt consolidation, switches and penalty maths.
All renewals and refinancing pagesSelf-employed and unique situations
Business owners, variable income, newcomers, credit repair, proposals and private lending.
All self-employed and unique situations pagesInvestment properties
Rentals, duplexes, portfolio financing and pulling equity out to buy the next one.
All investment properties pagesSpecialty
Debt consolidation, spousal buyouts, bridge financing, porting, reverse mortgages and commercial deals.
All specialty pagesWhere Chad works
Based in Fort Saskatchewan, working across the Edmonton region and licensed throughout Alberta.
Local, and licensed Alberta-wide
Edmonton, Sherwood Park and Fort Saskatchewan are where most of the files come from, and local knowledge matters more than people expect. An appraiser who understands the Fort Saskatchewan market prices a home differently than one parachuting in from elsewhere, and lenders read industrial-corridor employment income differently than they read a salary in the core.
Outside the region, an Alberta licence covers the whole province. Calgary, Red Deer, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge and everywhere between are all workable, and most of a file moves electronically now anyway.
The lenders Chad can shop
A sample of the panel. Which of them will look at your file depends entirely on what is in it.
Lenders on the panel include Scotiabank, TD, First National, MCAP, RFA, Equitable Bank, Home Trust, B2B Bank, CMLS Financial, Community Trust, Manulife Bank, Haventree Bank, Fisgard, CWB Optimum, ATB Financial, Servus Credit Union, Radius Financial, Merix Financial.
Questions people actually ask
The ones that come up on nearly every first call.
What does a mortgage broker cost me?
On most residential deals, nothing. The lender pays the broker a finder's fee when the mortgage funds, and that fee does not change your rate. Where a fee does apply, which is mainly private lending and some alternative deals, it is disclosed in writing before you commit to anything.
Will shopping around wreck my credit score?
No. Chad pulls your credit once and uses that single report across the lender panel. Multiple mortgage enquiries inside a short window are also treated as one event by the scoring models, because the system expects people to shop for a mortgage.
How much down payment do I actually need?
Five percent on the first $500,000, ten percent on the portion between $500,000 and $1.5 million, and twenty percent on anything above that. Under twenty percent down, default insurance is required and gets added to the mortgage. The payment calculator works this out as you type.
What is the stress test and does it still apply?
You have to qualify at the higher of your contract rate plus two percent, or 5.25 percent. It applies to insured mortgages and to most uninsured ones at federally regulated lenders. It is the single biggest reason the amount you qualify for is lower than the amount the payment calculator says you could carry.
My bank already said no. Is that it?
Not usually. A decline tells you that one lender's rules did not fit your file, and nothing more. Credit unions, monoline lenders and alternative lenders all underwrite differently. The useful question is which specific thing caused the decline, because that determines where the file goes next.
Should I take fixed or variable?
It depends on how much rate movement you can absorb without losing sleep, and on how likely you are to break the term early. Variable penalties are usually three months interest. Fixed penalties can be an interest rate differential, which is a much larger number. That difference matters more than most rate comparisons admit.
Can I get a mortgage if I am self-employed?
Yes, though the paperwork is different. Lenders want to see two years of filed returns and, for incorporated owners, the corporate financials as well. Where write-offs have pushed the reported income down, some lenders will add back a portion of it. Options are available; it is a matter of matching the file to a lender that reads it properly.
How long does the whole thing take?
A pre-approval can be turned around in a day or two once documents are in. From accepted offer to funding is usually two to four weeks, depending on the lender and how quickly conditions get cleared. Rush closings are workable, but they leave less room when something needs fixing.
Let's look at your situation
A first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Worst case you find out you are already in the right spot.
Applications go directly to Chad. No call centre, no lead broker, no handoff.