Home loan advisors are there to help you take the next step on your journey to home ownership – but how can you make the meeting a productive one?

Anyone who’s been on a date knows having something to talk about or even doing some research on their prospective partner’s interests helps to keep the conversation flowing.

Likewise, when you sit down with your home loan specialist for the first time, it’s a good idea to know what you’re there to speak about. Surprisingly, a lot of people come totally unprepared. Awkward.

Ken Wilson, Home Loan Specialist at RAMS Sydney South East, says there are two types of people who come to him to speak about taking out a home loan: the ones who’ve done their homework and the ones who are clearly diving into the conversation with no background.

For Ken, the people in group A are vastly preferable to those in group B.

“If someone comes in with a list of questions and has done some homework, the home buying journey will generally flow more smoothly,” Ken says.

Clueless or researched – which kind of home loan customer are you? Picture: Kate Hunter

---

So how do you become one of these desirable home loan customers?

We asked Ken to break down the basics so you can come to your home loan discussion fully prepared.

Here’s an idea of the information you’ll be expected to provide – as well as the knowledge it’s useful to have – when you first go to meet with your home loan expert.

Situation

What is the current status of your property journey? Are you just window shopping or do you have a particular property in mind?

In order to gauge the urgency of your required service, the home loan specialist will need to know this information to better help you get to the next point. If you are thinking of making an offer on a specific property, bring those details to the discussion, including the property listing.

It is also vital to share whether or not you’re purchasing your first home. (If you’ve landed here, we’re guessing it’s your first time!)

How is a home loan approved?

Most lenders will focus the discussion on four important criteria – which it helps to know and understand before meeting with your home loan specialist. These are:

Borrowing capacity

Lenders will judge borrowing capacity on how much you earn and your costs of living. So be prepared to share information regarding your salary and lifestyle habits!

Ken says it’s easy to work this out as most lenders have online calculators that you can punch this information into to work out roughly how much they may allow you to borrow.

“The customers that come in organised have some idea about what they’re going to pay. Many lenders have online calculators that you can use – use one of these to find out how much you could potentially borrow and then you’ll at least know what ball park you’re in,” Ken says.

Understanding your borrowing capacity is key to getting you to the next stage in your hunt for ‘the one’ aka your dream home.  Picture: Kate Hunter

---

Genuine savings

Are you contributing real savings to the transaction?

The lender will expect that you have something in the bank to prove that you’ve got a consistent pattern of saving – which will in turn put you in good stead to pay loan repayments. Most lenders will require savings of at least 5% of the total purchase price of the property.

“What lenders are not looking for is just a lump-sum deposit, but rather something that’s being regularly added to,” Ken says.

Loan amount – Loan to Value Ratio

The amount that the lender is prepared to lend you is expressed as a percentage of the value of the property being used as security for the loan (usually the property you are buying).  This is called the Loan to Value Ratio or “LVR”. The value of the security property is determined by the lender’s valuer, and it may be different to the price you actually pay for the property. 

For example, if your property is valued at $250,000 and you need to borrow $200,000, the LVR would be 80% (200000 / 250000 x 100 = 80).

When calculating your LVR, your lender will use the amount you need to borrow which will take into account costs associated with your purchase (including Lender’s Mortgage Insurance, which is explained in detail later along with other costs associated with purchasing a property) and your contribution to the purchase.

Other costs

The cost to purchase a property is more than the price you pay the owner for it, Ken explains.

The total price is calculated as:

• Stamp duty
• Conveyancing fees
• Application fee payable to the lender
• Any other government fees (which differ by state)

Stamp duty is a tax on a property transaction that is charged by each state and territory, and the amounts can and do vary. The stamp duty rate will depend on factors such as the value of the property, if it is your primary residence and your residency status.

You may also be eligible for stamp duty concessions, depending on a range of factors such as whether or not you’re a first home buyer, as well as if you’re purchasing a home off-the-plan or building a new home yourself.

Working out the amount of stamp duty you will have to pay is easy to calculate ahead of your discussion with your home loan specialist using an online stamp duty calculator.

Conveyancing fees for a property purchase will vary but the average is around $1,500, Ken says, and can cover a range of steps from reviewing the contract to preparing for settlement day.

On top of this you will be looking at fees for building and strata reports – around $350.

The cost of a property is not just the price advertised on the listing page. Picture: Kate Hunter

---

Another cost that may be involved in your property purchase is Lender’s Mortgage Insurance (LMI). To find out more about LMI and whether you are likely to incur this additional cost, speak to your home loan specialist.

Credit rating

The lender will examine your credit report when you apply for a loan.

Ken’s advice? “When looking for a suitable home loan, it is worth giving some thought to how many lenders you apply for a loan with. The more activity on your credit file, the lower your credit rating may be. If you’re going to shop around for a home loan, consider how many loan applications you wish to make. You can enquire with multiple lenders, but apply for one loan,” he says.

Family guarantee

Family guarantees (sometimes known as parental guarantees) can be useful when trying to buy your first home and could potentially help you avoid having to pay LMI. They work by allowing your parents to use the equity in their home to guarantee part of your loan.

Talk to your parents ahead of your meeting with your home loan specialist so that you know whether a family guarantee could be on the cards. And something for your parents to bear in mind in considering whether to provide a parental guarantee is that they would need to get their own legal advice about doing so.

Information in this material is general and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs and you should consider whether it is appropriate for you.  You should also obtain independent professional advice relevant to your financial circumstances. While such material is published with permission, RAMS is not responsible for its accuracy or completeness.

This article was originally published on
15 Jan 2018 at 9:00am
but has been regularly updated to keep the information current.

Canada’s housing push is running up against a basic problem: some communities’ water and sewer systems just can’t handle all the growth governments want.

Municipalities and developers are confronting wastewater plants nearing capacity, sewers that need expansion and aging water systems that already require billions of dollars in investment. The result is that developments are being delayed, phased or stopped even though provincial and federal governments are pushing cities to approve housing faster.

More than 11 per cent of Canada’s water and wastewater-related infrastructure was in poor or very poor condition in 2022, representing an estimated $107 billion in replacement value, according to the 2025 National Infrastructure Assessment.

Tim Tierney, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities , which represents more than 2,200 municipalities, said water and wastewater infrastructure ranks at the top of the obstacles his members face.

“Top. Top. Top,” he said. “ It’s infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure .”

Governments can accelerate approvals and set ambitious construction targets , but the pipes, treatment plants and other infrastructure needed to service that growth can cost billions of dollars and take years to plan and build, he said.

That tension is playing out in Winnipeg.

The city’s North End Sewage Treatment Plant is undergoing a multibillion-dollar upgrade, but the existing system only has about four years of additional capacity remaining. The plant has enough capacity to serve about 40,000 more people, although new industrial development could use up some of that capacity.

The problem is timing, according to Lanny McInnes, chief executive of the Manitoba Home Builders’ Association. Parts of the plant’s upgrade are already coming online, but the work needed to expand its wastewater capacity is not expected to be completed until 2032.

McInnes said Winnipeg is getting dangerously close to running out of room.

“We’re flashing the signal that we’re getting very, very close to reaching that point,” he said, adding that if that happens, “we will not be able to build any new housing.”

McInnes said development has effectively been restricted in some municipalities surrounding Winnipeg, including East St. Paul, because of limited wastewater capacity, so much so that some builders have finished one phase of development, but can’t move on to the next.

Similar constraints are appearing in different forms elsewhere.

Tierney pointed to infrastructure delays affecting Toronto’s Black Creek trunk sewer, which is associated with the development of about 63,000 homes. Waterloo Region in Ontario now requires developers to compete for limited wastewater capacity before their projects can move ahead.

North of Calgary, rapid growth is forcing the city of Airdrie to decide how its remaining servicing capacity should be used.

Airdrie is already using about 97 per cent of the water and wastewater capacity allocated to it by Calgary for 2026. The city has said that if housing continues to grow faster than other developments, there may not be enough capacity left for major employers, schools, health care facilities and other essential services.

Airdrie is now developing a system to decide who gets access to the remaining capacity. Schools, health care and emergency services would get first priority, followed by industrial and commercial development and major employers. Housing would rank third.

At the same time, work is moving ahead on a $114-million wastewater pipeline expansion connecting Airdrie to Calgary’s treatment system, which the province said could support up to 45,000 new homes.

Aime Blanchette, chief executive of BILD Calgary Region, said housing construction and infrastructure investment need to remain synchronized. She isn’t aware of an area in Calgary itself where development is currently on hold solely because of water and wastewater capacity, but said the issue needs to be viewed regionally.

“This isn’t just about the City of Calgary,” she said. “This is about the city, its surrounding municipalities, understanding where growth is and how to accommodate it.”

Tierney said many municipalities under intense pressure to accelerate approvals and accommodate more housing have responded only to encounter a constraint that can’t be eliminated by simply changing a zoning bylaw or speeding up an approval.

“We’ve sped up our processes,” he said. “But now we can’t get the infrastructure.”

Robert Haller, executive director of the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association, said the housing push is arriving at an awkward time for municipal water systems.

He said many communities already face substantial repair and replacement issues for the infrastructure serving their existing populations.

“We’re starting behind, regardless of new housing. Yet we’re throwing that on top of an existing system that’s failing,” he said. “We need to make sure we have a solid existing system before we can add too much onto it,” Haller said.

Finding the money needed creates another problem since supporting each new home requires an average of about $107,000 in municipally owned capital assets, including roughly $39,000 in potable water and wastewater infrastructure, according to a Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimate in 2023. The actual cost varies significantly depending on the type and location of development.

Municipalities have traditionally partly relied on development charges to finance infrastructure required by new growth. Those charges allow some of the cost of new sewers, water systems and roads to be incorporated into the cost of new development rather than being borne entirely by existing property taxpayers and utility customers.

But development charges have come under scrutiny as governments look for ways to reduce the cost of new housing.

Haller said eliminating or reducing those charges doesn’t eliminate the infrastructure cost.

“So, who’s going to pay upfront for the water and sewer?” he said.

Tierney said if governments want municipalities to reduce development charges while simultaneously accommodating much more housing, another source of infrastructure financing has to replace the lost revenue.

“Somebody pays at the end of the day,” he said.

Ottawa has responded with billions of dollars for housing-related infrastructure, including the $6-billion Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund and the $51-billion, 10-year Build Communities Strong Fund.

But some of that funding comes with conditions aimed at reducing development charges, one of the tools municipalities use to pay for infrastructure required by growth.

Municipalities also say the way infrastructure is financed makes long-term planning difficult.

Haller said communities often rely on competitive federal and provincial programs that open periodically, rather than predictable funding they can incorporate into long-term capital plans.

As a result, smaller municipalities can find themselves at a particular disadvantage because they may lack the money and engineering staff required to prepare projects before funding becomes available.

For example, Moose Jaw, Sask., is seeking funding for a $70-million lift station project needed to expand storm and sewer capacity, but the project has twice been rejected for funding through the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund.

Haller said predictable funding over 10 or 20 years would allow municipalities to plan infrastructure investments around expected population and housing growth rather than repeatedly competing for individual programs.

• Housing projects are piling up across Canada as the pipes underneath can’t keep up
• A 900-home project was ready to go — then it hit a sewer problem

Long-term planning can also extend beyond municipal boundaries. McInnes said communities south of Winnipeg have worked together on water and wastewater infrastructure rather than building separate systems, an approach that has helped support significant development.

Haller said cities can reduce costs by building more housing in existing neighbourhoods, where water and sewer systems are already in place, but even that can require expensive upgrades if existing pipes and treatment systems lack the required capacity.

The problem for many, though, is that the governments’ housing ambitions increasingly depend on infrastructure most people will never see and don’t want to pay for.

“We’re not looking for community centres,” Tierney said. “Those are all great things. But we want the non-sexy underground stuff.”

• Email: arankin@postmedia.com

Source link

Mortgage lender Rate is stepping further into digital asset territory with the launch of RateFi, a nationwide mortgage product that allows borrowers to use verified cryptocurrency holdings toward mortgage qualification without liquidating those assets.

The Chicago-based lender announced Tuesday that RateFi is fully operational within its digital mortgage platform and available under its non-QM (non-qualified mortgage) guidelines.

The move reflects a broader shift in financial services as lenders experiment with integrating digital assets into traditional underwriting while remaining within established compliance frameworks.

How RateFi works

Under the program, qualified borrowers can use verified cryptocurrency as reserves and, in some cases, as qualifying income. Down payments and closing costs must still be paid in U.S. dollars, though borrowers may convert crypto to meet those requirements.

Rate said the program includes standard anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer checks. It operates within the company’s existing non-QM infrastructure rather than through conforming channels backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which do not currently provide broad guidance allowing cryptocurrency to count as qualifying income in standard agency loans.

“Digital assets are real assets, yet mortgage lending has treated them as invisible,” Kate Amor, EVP and head of enterprise products at Rate, said in a statement. “RateFi changes that. We built this product to apply common-sense underwriting to a modern financial reality, allowing qualified borrowers to use their crypto without selling it, without gimmicks, and without stepping outside established lending standards.”

Amor continued that RateFi represents the first phase of a broader digital asset lending strategy that the company plans to expand over time.

Rate President Shant Banosian emphasized that the product runs within Rate’s existing underwriting and pricing systems rather than creating a separate crypto lending channel.

“Crypto lending gets a lot of headlines,” said Banosian. “But this business is about closing loans consistently, compliantly and at scale.”

A response to growing crypto wealth

Industry research cited by Rate suggests more than 10 percent of Americans hold digital assets, with some maintaining six- and seven-figure portfolios. As digital wealth grows, lenders are beginning to adapt to borrowers who may prefer not to liquidate long-term holdings to qualify for a mortgage.

Historically, most lenders have required borrowers to convert cryptocurrency into cash before it can be counted toward mortgage qualification. That process can trigger capital gains taxes, lock in losses during market downturns or reduce exposure to assets borrowers believe will appreciate.

RateFi seeks to reduce that friction by recognizing verified digital holdings as part of a borrower’s financial profile without requiring full liquidation.

The product is not entirely without precedent. Other lenders, including Newrez, have introduced programs that allow cryptocurrency to factor into qualification, though most remain limited to non-QM or portfolio channels rather than conforming agency loans.

Why non-QM matters

The non-QM designation is key.

Because government-sponsored enterprises do not broadly recognize crypto as qualifying income, lenders offering these programs must operate outside conforming guidelines. Non-QM loans allow more flexible underwriting but are typically funded through private capital markets rather than sold to the GSEs.

That structure limits scale compared to agency lending, but it also provides a testing ground for innovation.

For Rate, the strategy appears incremental rather than disruptive.

Borrowers still make down payments in dollars. Loans are underwritten using traditional risk frameworks. Crypto is treated primarily as reserves or supplemental income, not as a new payment rail.

Why lenders are cautious about stablecoins

RateFi’s eligibility includes certain stablecoins, which are digital assets designed to maintain a 1:1 value with the U.S. dollar. Stablecoins such as USDC or USDT aim to reduce volatility compared to assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Even so, lenders remain cautious.

Stablecoins can “de-peg” during periods of market stress. Liquidity depends on issuer reserves and the mechanisms for redeeming tokens, and exchanges can halt withdrawals. Regulatory oversight of digital assets continues to evolve at both the federal and state levels.

Mortgage underwriting also requires clear documentation of the source of funds and asset seasoning. Blockchain-based holdings may introduce additional verification steps, including confirming wallet ownership, validating exchange accounts and reviewing transaction history.

Those realities help explain why programs like RateFi require that funds for down payments and closing costs be converted into U.S. dollars before settlement.

What this means for agents and brokers

For now, RateFi appears to target a specific borrower segment: crypto-heavy, self-employed or nontraditional applicants who may not fit neatly within agency underwriting boxes.

But the symbolic significance may be larger.

As digital assets move deeper into mainstream finance — and as younger, crypto-forward buyers age into peak homebuying years — lenders face increasing pressure to modernize balance sheet analysis that was built around W-2 income and brokerage statements.

The larger strategic question is whether products like RateFi remain niche offerings within non-QM channels or represent early steps toward broader normalization of digital assets in housing finance.

Meaningful expansion would likely require clearer guidance from federal regulators or eventual recognition by the GSEs. Until then, crypto-recognition programs will remain largely within portfolio and private-market structures.

For agents and brokers, the immediate impact may be limited but noteworthy. 

Buyers with significant digital holdings may have more options to qualify without restructuring their portfolios. At the same time, these loans remain specialized and subject to stricter documentation and pricing dynamics than conventional mortgages.

For Rate, the bet is that a growing cohort of borrowers wants to build real estate wealth without exiting digital asset positions, and that providing a compliant bridge between those two worlds creates both competitive differentiation and new loan volume.

Email Nick Pipitone