MLN NewsStream

For "Canada's Challenger Bank," insured single-family mortgage lending was apparently too much of a challenge.

Equitable Bank is following in competitor Home Trust's footsteps by tossing in the towel on insured mortgage originations through brokers.
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The government just unfurled guidelines for its newest mortgage policy brainchild, 30-year insured amortizations. These extended repayment periods are earmarked for first-time purchasers of newly-built residences and kick off this August.

Here's what mortgage pros need to know:

Toronto-based mortgage broker 8Twelve Mortgage Corporation has just scored a lucrative long-term revenue-sharing pact with NerdWallet (Nasdaq: NRDS).

San Francisco-based NerdWallet is a global financial information juggernaut. In Canada, it competes against Ratehub, Wowa, and countless others to deliver rate comparisons and advice to mortgage consumers. Its global revenue last year reached almost $600 million USD.

Since touching down in Canada in 2021, NerdWallet has been climbing Google’s mortgage search ranks faster than a squirrel climbs a tree. And that's just the beginning, the company promises.

To unpack this strategic alliance, MLN talked with 8Twelve CEO and Co-Founder Gary Fooks, who dished out several business plan nuggets.

When the public thinks about where to get a mortgage, MCAN doesn’t pop up on most radars. However, for status brokers in the know, MCAN is sometimes invaluable for ultra-rate-sensitive insured clients. It also fills some quirky non-prime niches.

And then there's its stock. Investors know MCAN Financial for its irresistible dividend (almost 10%), payout track record and 12.39% ten-year compound annual growth rate. MCAN is also Canada's largest Mortgage Investment Corporation ("MIC") and the only federally regulated MIC.

MCAN Home, the company's residential lending arm, squeezed out $940 million in originations last year. That's small fries in the grand scheme of things. Yet, given its 10% annual growth ambition, the company seems poised to climb the lender rankings.

MLN recently grabbed a moment with MCAN Financial CEO Don Coulter and COO Avish Buck. We asked a bunch of questions we thought brokers and investors might want to know (including about that fat dividend.)

In the video chat below, the two unpack:

• How falling rates juice up mortgage demand
• OSFI's new LTI limits
• Sustainability of MCAN's low-rate model
• How MCAN's direct-to-consumer deposit model is faring
• Don Coulter's thoughts on going direct-to-consumer with mortgages
• MCAN mortgage niches
• Securing uninsured prime funding
• Why MCAN's dividend yield is stuck in the juicy 9% to 10% range.

Catch the full interview here...

CMHC has massively undercut private default insurers on 30-year insured amortizations.

Effective August 1, Canada's housing agency will be charging just 20 bps extra for insured first-time buyers who want a 30-year am. That's dialling all the way back to what CMHC charged in 2012, the last time it offered insured 30-year amortizations on residential loans.