Ottawa · First-time buyer · Self-employed
First home. Self-employed. Not straightforward.
- The situation
A first purchase in the west end. Solid credit, a down payment saved the slow way, and a clear idea of the street they wanted to live on. One of the two buyers had been self-employed for several years, running a small business that was doing well.
- The problem
Traditional income verification didn’t reflect what the household actually earned. Self-employed income arrives on a tax return after expenses and legitimate write-offs, so the line a lender reads is well below the money the business genuinely brings in. Judged on that line alone, the file looked thin for the price range they were shopping in — and a straight decline on a first application is a discouraging place to start.
- The approach
We read the business before we read the tax return. That meant assembling the file so it showed earning capacity rather than just taxable income: business statements over a meaningful stretch, work already contracted, and the add-backs an underwriter is entitled to consider.
Then we placed it deliberately. Not every lender reads a self-employed return the same way, and the difference isn’t rate — it’s whether the underwriter has seen a file like this one before. We matched it to a lender whose people work with self-employed borrowers regularly and know how to assess the income properly.
- The outcome
Financing arranged on terms that suited the file: a mainstream lender, a rate and term appropriate to their situation, and prepayment privileges left intact. Nobody was pushed into an alternative product or a shorter term to make the application easier to approve. They closed on schedule and bought the house on the street they wanted.