u/Special-Ad-1682

Hey everyone,

I’m trying to understand how builder incentives interact with CMHC qualification and wanted to see if anyone here has dealt with this before.

Scenario:

* Pre-construction purchase price is around $500K

* I have an incentive in the APS for a 24 month no condo fees. I would still have to pay condo fees during that duration but it will be applied as purchase price adjustment at final closing ( total value will be around 10k so purchase price would be reduced by that in Final SOA)

My question is about how this is treated at closing / underwriting :

If the Statement of Adjustments (SOA) reflects a lower effective purchase price due to incentives, does the lender / CMHC actually use that lower amount for final ratios (GDS/TDS)? Or Do they still qualify you based on the original purchase price in the APS, regardless of incentives?

I’m getting mixed answers, so trying to sanity check with people who’ve actually gone through this.

Appreciate any insight

Hello everyone,

As the title says, the broker of one of the A line mono lenders I’m speaking with is asking for a deposit before working on my file. He’s offering a rate of prime -1.25% (or 1.15%), but wants a $1,000 deposit upfront, which he says is refundable after closing and if I get him a better offer and he can’t honour it. He said this will be in the paper work.

Is this normal? Has anyone else experienced this? Just trying to figure out if this is standard practice or something I should be cautious about.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

EDIT: The broker is with True North, not an independent broker and the lender is THINK financials