Mortgage broker serving Glace Bay, Nova Scotia

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• Most of the stock dates from the coal era — the last mine closed in 1984 — so pre-1960 housing is the norm rather than the exception. Wiring, oil tanks and wood heat are the questions that decide whether a house can be insured, and insurance is what decides whether it can be mortgaged.
• At low purchase prices a lender’s minimum loan amount can become the binding constraint: some lenders will not write a mortgage below a floor, and a few will not lend at all under it. That is a lender-selection problem rather than a borrower problem, and it is exactly what a broker is for.
• Where a house needs work to be insurable, a purchase-plus-improvements mortgage can fund the repairs as part of the purchase rather than leaving you to find cash after closing. It has to be set up before the offer is firm.

• CBRM, the health authority and the school board supply the steady salaried employment, which qualifies on a letter of employment and two pay stubs.
• Rotational and out-of-province work is a defining feature of Cape Breton income. Lenders treat a two-year pattern of rotational employment very differently from one another, and the right lender matters more here than the rate does.
• Seasonal, fishery and trades income is averaged over two years of returns. Where the taxable figure understates real cash flow, an alternative lender reading bank statements is the route, at a cost.

• Everything is remote — application, uploads, e-signing — and you use your own Glace Bay or Sydney lawyer.
• Deed transfer tax is 1.5% across Cape Breton Regional Municipality, including Glace Bay, Sydney, New Waterford and North Sydney. At Cape Breton prices that is the smallest closing cost line on this site in dollar terms.
• Appraisals take longer here than in Halifax and comparable sales can be thin street by street, so allow more time in the financing condition than a Halifax timeline would suggest.