Renewals, refinancing, self-employed income, credit that's still healing, commercial deals...
The 5 Force Mortgage Team works with buyers and owners across Edmonton, Sherwood Park, St. Albert and surrounding communities. Whatever stage you're at, there's a version of this that works for you.
Your lender sent you a letter. You don't have to just sign it.
Most people sign the renewal offer that shows up in the mail and never think about it again. That's the easiest thing to do — it's rarely the best thing to do. Renewal is one of the few moments you get to renegotiate everything, and it costs you nothing to look
Your renewal letter usually arrives about four months before your term ends. That window is yours — you can shop it, and switching lenders at renewal typically doesn't trigger a penalty.
Here's what we actually look at: whether your current lender's offer is competitive, whether a different lender fits you better now, whether your life has changed enough that the mortgage should change too. Maybe you want to shorten your amortization because you're earning more. Maybe you want to lengthen it because you just had a kid. Maybe you want to pull out equity while you're at it — see refinancing below.
The one thing we'd ask: don't wait until week three of month four. Give us a few weeks and we can do this properly instead of scrambling.
Your home is worth something. Sometimes it makes sense to use that.
Refinancing means replacing your existing mortgage with a new one — usually to access equity, consolidate higher-interest debt, or restructure the whole thing to fit the life you have now instead of the one you had five years ago.
The reasons people come to us for this:
Debt consolidation. Credit cards and lines of credit are expensive. Rolling them into your mortgage can dramatically reduce what you pay monthly. It's not free money — you're securing that debt against your home and stretching it over a longer period — but for a lot of families it's the difference between treading water and getting ahead.
Renovations. Kitchen, basement, garage, the thing your spouse has been mentioning for three years.
A big expense. Tuition, a business, an investment property, a family situation.
Restructuring. Sometimes the mortgage you signed up for just doesn't fit anymore.
Worth knowing: refinancing mid-term can mean a prepayment penalty, and you can generally borrow up to 80% of your home's value. Whether the math works depends entirely on your numbers — which is exactly the kind of thing we'll walk through with you before you commit to anything.
You built the business. That shouldn't make you a harder sell.
If you're self-employed, commissioned, contract, seasonal, or paid in a way that doesn't fit neatly on a T4, the big banks can make you feel like a problem to be solved. You're not. You just need someone who knows which lenders actually understand your situation.
The core tension: you're incentivized to write off as much as you legally can, which lowers your taxable income, which is exactly the number a lender looks at. Smart tax planning can look like weak income on paper.
There are lenders who get this. Some will work from your gross business income rather than your net. Some have programs built specifically for business-for-self clients. Some will consider bank statements and a track record instead of just two years of notices of assessment. They exist — they're just not the ones advertising on the side of a bus.
What helps: two years of business history if you have it, your last two Notices of Assessment, and financials that tell an honest story.
This is a big part of what we do. If you've been told no before, that was one lender's answer — not the answer.
A rough patch isn't a permanent verdict.
Divorce, a business that didn't work, a stretch of illness, a few years of being young and bad with a credit card. It happens to good people with good incomes. It doesn't automatically mean no.
Lenders aren't just looking at your score — they're looking at the story. A 620 caused by one bad year that's since been cleaned up reads very differently than a 620 that's been sliding for three years. Recent history matters more than ancient history.
Depending on the situation, options can include lenders with more flexible criteria, a larger down payment to offset the risk, a co-signer, or a shorter-term plan that gets you into a home now and repositions you at renewal once your credit has recovered.
And sometimes the honest answer is: not yet. But not yet isn't nothing — it's a plan. We'll tell you what to fix, roughly how long it'll take, and we'll be here when you're ready. See "Not quite ready yet" below.
Yes, we do commercial too.
Chad and Maria have been doing commercial deals for years — and they've taught the rest of us. Whether it's a mixed-use building, a multi-unit residential property, or the space your business has been renting and would rather own, we can help you explore it.
Commercial is a different animal than residential. The lender cares less about your personal income and more about the property itself — what it earns, what it costs to run, and whether the numbers hold up. Timelines are longer, the documentation is heavier, and there's a lot more negotiation involved. That's not a reason to avoid it. It's a reason to have someone in your corner who's done it before.
What we can help you with:
Multi-unit residential — duplexes, fourplexes, and apartment buildings, whether you're buying your first rental or adding to a portfolio
Mixed-use properties — retail or commercial on the main floor, residential above
Owner-occupied commercial — the space your business has been renting and would rather own
Construction financing — draw-based lending for builds and major projects
Land — raw or serviced, held for development or resale
Equipment financing — the machinery and assets your business runs on
Every one of these has its own lenders, its own criteria, and its own quirks. A lender who's great on a fourplex might be useless on a construction draw. Knowing who does what — and who's actually lending this month versus who's just saying they are — is most of the job.
Chad and Maria have been doing these deals for years. The rest of us learned commercial from them, and we work these files as a team, same as everything else. If you've got a deal you're weighing up, bring us the numbers. We'll tell you straight whether it works, and if it doesn't, we'll tell you why.
Then let's get you ready.
Maybe the down payment isn't there. Maybe the credit needs six months. Maybe you just want to know what you're walking into before you start walking. That's not a waste of our time — that's the most useful conversation we have all week.
Nobody at this office is going to pressure you into a mortgage you're not ready for. Frankly, a client who buys too early and struggles is worse for us than a client who waits a year and buys well.
So here's what "not ready" actually looks like with us: we'll go through where you're at, tell you specifically what's standing between you and a pre-approval, and give you a realistic timeline. Sometimes it's twelve months of consistent payments. Sometimes it's a savings target. Sometimes it's a program you didn't know existed and you're readier than you think.
Then you go do the thing, and we check in when it makes sense.
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