Brampton files are usually more than one income and more than one household
Brampton's buyer base is heavily newcomer and multi-generational, and the typical local application reflects that: several earners, sometimes across two generations, often with a registered or planned second unit in the home. Canadian debt-service rules handle this, but with conditions worth knowing before you budget. Adding a co-applicant raises the household income the ratios are measured against — but it also brings that person's car loan, credit cards and student debt onto the file, and everyone on title is tested at the stress-test rate, the greater of the contract rate plus two points or 5.25%. A co-applicant with strong income and heavy existing debt can move a file in either direction, and which way is arithmetic, not judgement. On second-suite rental income, lenders take one of two approaches: a rental add-back that adds roughly half the gross rent to your income, or a rental offset that nets a larger share directly against the property's carrying cost. The offset method is usually the one that carries a tight Brampton file. But the unit generally has to be a legal, retrofit-compliant second suite for a lender to count the rent at all — cash that is entirely real to the owner can be worth nothing on the application. Establish what the suite legally is before you build a budget around its income.
