heidi40

Hi guys. As you may probably know we are moving to Vancouver in July 2010. We want to land in May and do more research. Already talked to a mortgage broker and it doesn't look good. He said we probably need 50% of the purchase price in the bank while getting 25% of that as down payment because we have no jobs and no credit history. This is not very good news. Please send your experiences of applying for mortgage and if you have any tips please share with us. Many thanks

P.S my husband is self employed and I am getting ready to be certification exam as a radiographer.

JonboyE

New arrivals with no jobs = 35% down to get a mortgage with most lenders.

the_connors76

I can second that - 35% down minimum required - hence the reason we're renting!

Lady Locket

Hey,
We looked at a mortgage with HSBC Canada regarding the fact that we would have no history and probably not even a secure job (certainly at the time of research at least ). We were advised that a 30-35% down would secure a mortgage, and if we were still without a secure job on completion we would need to provide 1 years interest payments to the bank to be held as a 'line of secure credit'. considering that we are intending to downsize our mortgage a lot from what we are paying in the UK, and we are lucky enough to have equity in the house even in the recession, it may be tight but not impossible. I think the key is to make sure we are not buying above our budget.... lol... so not a lot then! Better than a 50% deposit though!

Shop around - many banks will negotiate, and you may find that offering a years interest and a lower deposit works out more cost effective. Just a thought.

LL

mzp

well, we went through a mortgage broker here in Airdrie alberta.
10% down was fine after a year of renting.
don't just stick to the banks... if you've got your UK credit history when you come over that'll definitely help.

hope all goes well!

m

stokesey

I'm amazed you can get a mortgage with no job and no credit history, isn't that part of how we got in this global financial mess? In a similar position in the UK where would you stand mortgage wise?

Good luck anyway.

JonboyE

That is why they want 35% down. If you don't keep up the mortgage payments there is still enough equity in the house for the bank to repossess it, sell it at a fire sale price and still get their money back.

I suspect they also think that someone who has a couple of hundred thousand of their own money invested in a home is going to be very motivated to keep up the repayments.

Lady Locket

It certainly makes you think harder about your personal risk... that makes me motivated!

Keith

Quite agree. If I were moving to the UK without a job I don't think banks there would be interested in handing out anything more that a 75% mortgage, if you are lucky enough to find one.

stokesey

Without a job I don't think they'd give you the time of day. We recently sold to a doctor, a secure job you may think..... He put a deposit down of £100k (for a purchase price of £300k) and it took him ages to get the mortgage approved, I was amazed at how difficult and time consuming the process was. Sounds like the process maybe easier in Canada although I believe their banks haven't been hit by the problems seen in the UK & US (i.e. multi billion £/$ bailouts)

Kokanee

We are in Calgary and bought a house in September after arriving in October 2008.
We were told minimum of 10 months canadian credit history and employment before we could get a mortgage.
The major problem we had was CMHC. All mortgages with less than 25% down have to be insured by CMHC. CMHC have become extremely strict - our mortgage broker submitted a 60 page submission and we were rejected - accepted on appeal and that probably was down to the experience and previous history of our mortgage broker.
Without massive downpayments it will be extremely difficult to obtain a mortgage straight away.
One of the best best of advice on here is to rent for 12 months, get to know the areas.

albertabound

I have been here since July, my husband since March. We got a mortgage a month ago.
We did not bring our credit history with us but could have got an experion if asked. We were not asked.
My husband did get a car loan in April which probably helped as far as credit history..
We got a mortgage through a broker from a bank that does not offer mortgages to anyone other than PR's. We are here on TWP's
We did have an ok deposit but our mortgage broker said we were looked on favourably because my husband's cousin has a good relationship with that particular bank.
Again, not what you know but rather who!!

danfolkestone

It pays to shop around. We started looking last October, when we had been in Canada for three months and I had just started work. A broker told us that we would need at least six months' employment to get a mortgage. However, we got in touch with our branch of HSBC, and they were able to offer us a 95% mortgage. Their only conditions were that I earnt enough to afford the repayments, and that my job was permanent, and I was not under probation with my employer. My wife had actually been in work for three months and is a Canadian Citizen with excellent credit, but because her contract was temporary, it was me who was able to get the mortgage! We have all of our banking and credit cards with HSBC both here and in England, and they were able to get a UK credit report through HSBC UK. They told us that they are able to offer mortgages to people who weren't customers in the UK.

wannabecalgarypc

This seems interesting, I wonder if I came over and joined the CPS it would look good as it was been a permenant offer from a good firm so to speak. I think I will be renting for 12 months first though to learn the land. How can you build credit history again, if you can't get credit in the first place?

sharkus

It is a bit of a catch 22 isn't it!

I'd look into secure credit cards. I used CapitalOne's mastercard. They offered a secure credit card for $200. Bascially give them $200 and they'll give you a $200 credit limit. I then used the card as much as I could. I had a job and simply kept paying off the card as and when it got near it's limit via online banking, thus topping up the card. This helped build up credit, which is what you need to do.

I had an account with HSBC originally when I came over in 2003 (company opened their account with them, and advised us to do the same, so we managed to get an account) however they would not give me a credit card without it being a secure one, and they wanted $1000 as security. Company moved account to TD, so we did the same, again, they still wanted $1000 for a secure credit card. Hence this is why I went for the CapitalOne secure card as $200 was better for me than $1000.

I did encounter one interesting thing when trying to get an overdraft a few years later. I'd had a letter sent to me by a collections agency on behalf of Rogers. The name was correct, but the address and account number wasn't right, and thus it wasn't me they were after. Called collection place, told them it wasn't me, they said to phone Rogers and them about it, plus ignore the letter and they'd clear it from their system. I phoned Rogers, they said as it's not me to ignore it.

When I went to get an overdraft a few years later the above came back to haunt me. I tried to get an online/over the phone credit report from TransUnion, but there wasn't enough information in my credit file for them to be able to give it to me over the phone, however, if I faxed them they'd mail it to me. No sign of anything odd on my report. I then tried Experian and lo and behold, this collections thing was on my report. I was not impressed. Phoned Collections place, they passed the buck to Rogers, phone Rogers, they said it's not them, talk to collections. Went back to Collections, not at all happy, they said they would expunge this from my record. Which they did. Another check via Experian 2 weeks later and it was gone

Tried applying for overdraft, no problem at all this time round TD was even happy to give me an unsecured credit card and/or line of credit, thus my credit history must be fairly good.

It's interesting that I had to use two different credit checking companies to get a full report.