Everything we know, written down.
Guides for Canadian mortgage brokers at every stage: starting out, choosing or switching brokerages, growing a book, marketing, technology, compliance, lending and commercial. Written by the brokerage, free to read, no email required.
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Upgrading from Level 1 to Level 2 in Ontario: the 12 month rule, the Private Mortgages Course, what changes in who you can work with, and the path to a broker licence.
4 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERNewThe steps to a mortgage broker licence in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta: the approved course, the exam, a sponsoring brokerage, the cost and how long it takes.
4 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERNewMost mortgage agent and broker jobs in Canada are not salaried jobs. You are licensed through a brokerage, paid commission on funded mortgages, and build your own client base. Here is how the roles work and what to compare.
3 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERNewEvery approved mortgage licensing course provider in Ontario, BC and Alberta in one place: price, format, study time and exam rules, as listed in October 2026.
3 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERNewPeople use agent and broker as if they mean the same thing. In Ontario they are separate licences with different powers, and Alberta and BC use their own titles. Here is what each one can do.
3 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREEREight questions, honest answers. Not a quiz that says yes to everyone, because the job suits some people and not others, and the two years it takes to find out are expensive.
3 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERLicensing courses teach the rules. Nobody teaches the job. Here is what it is, who it suits, and what separates the brokers who last from the ones who leave.
3 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERThere is no salary. There is a formula, and once you know it you can price any brokerage offer yourself.
12 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREEROntario is a weekend course and a $941 fee. BC is twenty assignments and one big exam. Alberta is two courses and four exams. Here they are side by side.
4 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREEROne accredited course, twenty assignments, one exam, then a licence under the new Mortgage Services Act. Here is how it runs and what it costs.
3 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERTwo RECA recognised courses, two exams, a criminal record check and a brokerage to sponsor you. Here is the whole path and what it costs.
4 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERThe cheapest and fastest licence of the three provinces, and the one with the most providers to choose from. Here is how it works.
3 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERBC moves to the Mortgage Services Act on 13 October 2026. Here is the path to a licence, in order, under the new rules.
4 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERAlberta calls new entrants mortgage associates and the Real Estate Council of Alberta licenses them. Two courses, two exams, one brokerage, then a licence.
3 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREEROntario licenses new entrants as mortgage agent level 1 through FSRA. The course is short, the application runs through your brokerage, and there is a two year clock on it.
3 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERMost brokers spend a career doing whatever walks in. The ones who earn most pick a lane, or two, and become the person that file gets referred to.
4 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERPassed the exam, got the licence, and now what. Here is a plan a new broker can follow from day one, and what a brokerage should have around you while you do.
4 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERFour months in, the savings are thinner than the pipeline. This is the year the industry loses most new brokers, and it is rarely the broker's fault.
2 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERNot the brochure version. The inbox at 7:30, the third document chase at 11, the intake call at 2, and the prospecting that only happens after dinner.
4 min readSTARTING YOUR CAREERTraining is not a welcome package. It is what happens every week, on real files, with the people who fund them.
2 min readYou already know how to fund a mortgage. What changes is who you can fund it with, how you are paid and whose licence you work under.
2 min readCOMING FROM A BANKThe bank pays you every two weeks whether the file funds or not. A brokerage pays you when it funds, and pays you for the renewal too. Here is what that trade actually looks like.
4 min readCOMING FROM A BANKYou built the relationships. The bank owns the records. The line between those two is where bankers get into trouble, and where the careful ones build a book without a letter from a lawyer.
3 min readCOMING FROM A BANKYou are not starting over. You are changing the platform you build on. Here is the order to do it in, and what is around you at each step.
3 min readCOMING FROM A BANKBusiness owners, investors, developers, DSCR, covenants, the credit memo. You have done the hard part. What changes is who you can place it with and who owns the relationship.
3 min readCOMING FROM A BANKSame clients, same credit instincts, no branch and no box. Here is what a former banker's day looks like once the first files have funded.
3 min readCOMING FROM A BANKYou already sell mortgages for a living. The difference is that from now on you sell the right one, from a hundred lenders, and the renewal belongs to you.
2 min readCOMING FROM A BANKYou have structured, underwritten and presented commercial credit for years. As a broker you do the same work for the client instead of the bank, with forty lenders instead of one policy.
3 min readCOMING FROM A BANKYou know why files are declined better than any broker. The move is learning to find the clients whose files you can make fund.
3 min readCOMING FROM A BANKYou have read ten thousand broker submissions. You know exactly what a good one looks like. Now you write them.
2 min readCOMING FROM A BANKYour career was built on people trusting you with their financial lives. That is the entire foundation of a broker's book.
3 min readGTA resale is slow and new condo sales are near record lows. Here is where Ontario mortgage files are coming from now, with the latest numbers, and how brokers are adjusting.
4 min readGROWING YOUR BOOKTwenty files a year to a hundred. Not five times the effort, five different levers, and a brokerage that carries its half.
2 min readGROWING YOUR BOOKYou are good at this. Clients like you. And your funded volume has not moved in three years. The ceiling is not effort.
2 min readGROWING YOUR BOOKEvery funded client is a renewal, a refinance, a referral and a next purchase waiting to be asked. Most brokers ask for none of them.
3 min readGROWING YOUR BOOKYour client renewed with the bank last month. You found out on social media. This is the most common lost file in the business, and the most avoidable.
2 min readGROWING YOUR BOOKMost brokers know their funded volume and nothing else. Nine numbers, tracked monthly, tell you exactly where the book leaks and what to fix first.
3 min readGROWING YOUR BOOKNow the week is conditions, documents, compliance forms and lender follow ups, and the clients get what is left.
2 min readGROWING YOUR BOOKA broker at $50 million is not working three times as hard as a broker at $15 million. They stopped doing most of what the $15 million broker still does.
3 min readGROWING YOUR BOOKMost brokers do not need more enquiries. They need more of the enquiries they already get to fund. Conversion is the cheapest growth lever there is, and it is mostly process.
3 min readGROWING YOUR BOOKA file takes roughly the same hours whether it is $300,000 or $1.3 million. Raising the average is the growth lever that does not cost time, and most brokers have the larger files already in their database.
2 min readMost brokers collect business cards. The ones who grow collect three partners who actually refer, and treat them like clients.
3 min readMARKETINGMost broker marketing advice is written by people selling marketing. This is the list ranked by what produces funded files per dollar and per hour, from a brokerage that does not sell leads.
3 min readMARKETINGWhen someone in your city searches for a mortgage broker, the map pack decides who gets the call. Getting into it costs nothing but an afternoon and a habit.
3 min readMARKETINGEmail is the cheapest way to stay in front of a database, and the easiest way to get a complaint if you ignore the consent rules. Here is what to send, how often, and how to stay on the right side of CASL.
3 min readA file is a set of documents, a sequence of decisions and a record of both. Brokers who manage files well fund faster, survive audits without a weekend of panic and hand off processing cleanly.
4 min readOPERATIONSA pipeline is every live file at every stage, seen at once. Brokers who review it weekly fund more of what they start, and know a month early when volume is about to drop.
4 min readOPERATIONSClients do not judge a broker on the rate. They judge on whether they heard back, whether they knew what was happening, and whether anyone called after funding. A rhythm covers all three.
3 min readOPERATIONSA broker's income is a function of hours spent with clients and referral partners. Everything else is overhead, and overhead expands to fill the day unless the client hours are protected first.
4 min readOPERATIONSThe originator's job is the client and the lender. Everything else a brokerage exists to carry. This is the list, and the line between the two.
4 min readEvery province publishes a free public search of licensed mortgage professionals. Here is where to find each one, what it shows and what to check.
2 min readCOMPLIANCEMortgage brokers, lenders and administrators became reporting entities on 11 October 2024. Here is what that actually requires, in the order you have to build it.
4 min readCOMPLIANCEMost brokers assume a past client can be emailed indefinitely. The implied-consent windows are shorter and more specific than that.
3 min readCOMPLIANCEDisclosure is not a form you file. It is a timing obligation, and the clock runs before the borrower signs anything.
3 min readCOMPLIANCEOntario regulates the investor side of a private deal as heavily as the borrower side. Two suitability assessments, not one.
3 min readCOMPLIANCEFINTRAC in 2024, the Mortgage Services Act in 2026, CE cycles and renewals in three provinces. Most brokers carry all of it alone.
2 min readCOMPLIANCEEvery Alberta licence renews on the same day. The 2026 deadline has passed, so here is what happens if yours lapsed and what to plan for 2027.
6 min readCOMPLIANCEOntario runs CE on a two-year cycle in even years, splits it into two different kinds of hours, and will not renew a licence without it.
2 min readCOMPLIANCEThe Mortgage Services Act replaces a statute that has governed the province since 1972. The shift is from registration to licensing, and the categories change with it.
3 min readEvery conference has a hall of software for mortgage brokers. A working broker needs about seven things, some of which the brokerage should provide. Here is the list, what each does, and what to ignore.
3 min readTECHNOLOGYEvery brokerage says it has a portal. Some are a shared drive with a login. Here is what a portal should actually do for a working broker, so you can tell the difference on a discovery call.
3 min readTECHNOLOGYThe CRM holds your book. Every renewal date, every consent, every conversation. It is the one tool that should move with you, so choose it for the next five years, not the next demo.
3 min readNo statute defines an A lender. The tiers are market shorthand, and knowing where the real lines fall is what lets you place a file first time.
3 min readLENDINGA MIC is a tax structure before it is a lender. The conditions that define one also shape what it can and cannot do with your deal.
7 min readLENDINGThe moment a mortgage becomes an investment product sold to investors, a second regulator is involved. Mortgage licensing does not cover it.
2 min readWhether you have placed fifty commercial files or none, the question is the same: when a hard one lands, who structures it with you.
4 min readBUILDING A NICHEB and private lending is where a broker who can explain a hard truth kindly, and think in exits, earns a reputation fast.
4 min readBUILDING A NICHEProgress draws, quantity surveyor reports, interest reserves and a takeout plan. Nobody learns this from a course. You learn it beside an underwriter.
4 min readBUILDING A NICHEOne investor client is five files over a decade. A rental portfolio schedule, the right lender for property number four, and a route to multi family when they outgrow residential.
4 min readBUILDING A NICHEOne in eight working Canadians is self employed and most of them have been declined by a bank. The broker who can read a set of financials keeps them for life.
4 min readBUILDING A NICHEA broker who speaks the language, knows the newcomer programs and can document a down payment from overseas becomes the only broker a whole community calls.
4 min readCommercial mortgage work does not need a separate licence in Ontario, BC or Alberta. What it needs is different skills, different lenders and usually help on the first files.
2 min readCOMMERCIALOne $3 million commercial file pays what six residential files pay. Most residential brokers refer them out. Here is how to keep them.
4 min readCOMMERCIALYou do not need to become a commercial broker. You need to stop referring commercial clients away.
2 min readCOMMERCIALThe client mentioned a building. You said yes. Here is exactly what happens between that yes and funding, and what you need to do at each step.
5 min readCOMMERCIALCommercial is not one product. Each deal type has its own lenders, ratios and documents. Here is the map.
3 min readCOMMERCIALResidential pays you from the lender. Commercial mostly pays you from the borrower. Everything about the file changes because of that one difference.
3 min readCOMMERCIALCommercial lenders ask for documents residential brokers have never heard of. Collect them before you submit and the file moves. Collect them after and it dies.
3 min readCOMMERCIALBrokers argue for hours over a five point split difference and then refer out a $3 million commercial file because it looks hard.
2 min readCOMMERCIALResidential is thirty files and a hundred conditions. Commercial is six files and a hundred questions. The day looks calmer and is not.
3 min readMost new agents leave the industry inside two years, and the brokerage they picked is usually the reason. Here is what to check before you sign.
3 min readCHOOSING A BROKERAGETen brand names. Three parent companies. Knowing who owns what changes how you read a recruiting pitch.
3 min readCHOOSING A BROKERAGEMost recruiting pitches compete on one number. The number that matters is what lands in your account after everything else.
3 min readCHOOSING A BROKERAGEA recruiting conversation tells you what a brokerage wants to say. These fifteen questions tell you the rest.
2 min readCHOOSING A BROKERAGEThe split is the number every recruiter leads with. It is also the number that tells you the least on its own.
3 min readCHOOSING A BROKERAGETwo brokerages offer 85 and 90. The 85 nets more. Here is the worksheet that shows why, and how to run every offer you get through it.
4 min readCHOOSING A BROKERAGEAny brokerage can be approved with a lender. Status is what decides whether your file funds this week or next month.
2 min readCHOOSING A BROKERAGESend us the file you were about to decline. A dedicated underwriter structures it, places it and keeps you as the client's broker.
2 min readThey leave because the 9pm call went unanswered, the file sat in a bottom tier queue, or the marketing support turned out to be a logo file. Here are the eight reasons, and what to ask next time.
4 min readSWITCHING BROKERAGESDeciding to move is the easy part. The licence transfer, the live pipeline and the timing are what actually need planning.
3 min read