Mortgage broker

A bank can only offer its own products; a broker has access to dozens of lenders — Big-6 banks, monolines, credit unions, B lenders, and private — and submits one application to the ones that fit your file best. On standard A-lender deals the lender pays the broker, so the service is free to you.

The value is widest on anything non-vanilla: self-employed income, bruised credit, newcomers, rentals, or tight timelines, where the right lender match is the difference between approval and decline. Even on clean files, competition between lenders tends to sharpen the rate.

Brokers are licensed and regulated (FSRA in Ontario). Always confirm the brokerage and agent appear on the provincial registry before sharing documents.