Bridge Financing and Mortgage Porting in Ontario

It comes down to which risk you can actually live with. Sell first and you know your exact budget, but you may be renting or leaning on family if the right place does not appear. Buy first and you have certainty about where you are going, but you are carrying two properties if your sale is slow.

In a balanced market we usually lean toward selling first with a longer closing. The right answer is the one that does not keep you up at night.

Not necessarily, but without a firm sale you have to qualify carrying both mortgages at once. If you cannot carry both, a lender will want a firm, unconditional offer on your current home before approving the mortgage on the new one.

That is a qualifying question rather than a strategy question, and it is worth answering early because it sets what you can go looking at.

It covers the gap when your new home closes before your current one, using the equity in the home you are leaving to fund the down payment on the next. It requires a firm, unconditional sale on the property you are selling, and it is repaid the day that sale closes.

You pay interest at a premium over prime for the days you actually use it, plus a set-up fee. For a short overlap that is usually somewhere between a few hundred and a couple of thousand dollars all in. One of the cheapest problems to solve in a move, and one of the most stressful if nobody arranged it in advance.

Often, yes. Porting carries your existing rate and terms across to the new property, which is worth real money if your rate sits below today’s. If the new home costs more, you can blend and extend: your old rate stays on the original balance and current rates apply to the new money.

Porting comes with rules, including timelines between the sale and the purchase and re-qualifying on the new property. Check before you list, not after you have an accepted offer.

Less than the sale price suggests. From the sale, subtract the mortgage payout, the real estate commission, legal fees, and any penalty if you are not porting. What is left is your real down payment on the next place.

Most people are working from the gross number in their head and are surprised by the net. We run that calculation first, because it sets everything else.