Hi guys,

we've been desperately trying to find a rented house after my near disaster this week, and have been unable. Now we are looking at the possibility of taking out a mortgage in SK. Does anyone know the criteria i.e. we will obviously have only landed and I've 4 small kids so its pretty critical for us that I get the timing right...
As we would have no credit history in Canada, what is the criteria for lending or do they just "give" you a mortgage. We'd just about scrape up the 5% down and I know we would have to take out insurance, but is this amount paid upfront in one whole go or is it spread out over the loan? We currently have a mortgage on our house here for €270,000 but we've managed to rent out our house to cover the mortgage, would this be taken into consideration or can I "hide" this fact without doing anything illegal.... Any help greatly appreciated...

Talk to a mortgage broker. You would have to qualify for a mortgage, which will take your income and expenditure into account as well as the security on the property. The rent you get will go against the mortgage you already have. Not a good idea to lie on a mortgage application, it is a legal contractonce you sign it.

Thanks... I just didn't know whether I would have to declare that we were already indebeted for that amount, because its outside of Canada... I'm afraid we might be turned down if they thought we were going to be in debt (albeit with 2 houses) for 600k!..

The mortgage default insurance fee will be added to the amount required and amortized over the mortgage period. Your "elsewhere" mortgage may cause you a problem because you have a substantial payment which the mortgagee (bank or whatever) my not permit you to offset by the rental.
No, they do not just give you a mortgage because you have a pulse. You will need to meet the criteria of the lender and important for insured mortgages meet the debt servicing requirements of the insurer.

How long would it take then to get a credit score to take out a mortgage as we would be just "newbies".. I'm not expecting to just be given a mortgage, but my husband has a good job and the mortgage here will and is being serviced

Realistically, it is not going to happen straight away. You need to keep looking at rental options.

To get a mortgage without a credit rating you need to put at least 35% down.

If you can only put 5% down then you will have to meet the lender's and CHMC's lending criteria. One of these is that your total debt service ratio must be less than 40% of your family income. Although you will be able to add some of your rental income from the UK to your other income (probably around 2/3rds of the rent) it is unlikely that the repayments of both mortgages, plus property tax and heating in Canada (plus any other debt repayments) will be less than 40% of your income.

However, it is worth talking to a mortgage broker - they may have access to other sources of funds that don't need CHMC approval.

Right, back to Kijiji again... anyone got any other ideas about where to find somewhere to rent around Saskatoon apart from Kijiji?

Try these
http://saskatoon.rentspot.com/
http://www.gottarent.com/sk/saskatoon/
http://mainst.biz/rentals/saskatoon-apartments/

greatly appreciated

http://property.trovit.ca/index.php/....saskatoon%20/

http://saskatoon.rentspot.com/listings/15/index.html

http://www.innovativeresidential.ca/

http://www.usedstoon.com/classifieds/house-rentals

http://www.saskrent2own.ca/

http://www.prop2go.com/SearchApartme...0&PriceTo=1800

http://saskatoon.rentersonline.com/