Home Renovation Mortgages in Alberta

We offer refinances or home equity Lines of Credit, at preferred rates, up to 80% of your property’s value on your residential, second homes or rentals.

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This means that if you own a home worth approximately $400,000, you should be able to access $320,000 of the equity.  If you currently still owe $200,000 on your home, you should be able to obtain a home equity line of credit for $120,000 or a new mortgage for the full 80% of the value, $320,000.  The rate for a home equity line of credit it typically Prime (3.95%) + 0.50%. This can often be structured without touching (or paying a penalty on), your current mortgage.

In addition to Home Equity Lines of Credit or Refinances, we offer secondary and private financing to complete renovations. 

Renovations can be tricky and sometimes, a quick injection of cash allows our clients to complete the project, increase the value of the property and then refinance to pay out the second or private mortgage.

If you’re interested in renovating to flip, Spire Mortgage Team offers a specialized flip product that allows you to purchase an investment property to flip with as little as $10,000 down.  Check out our “Flip” PDF and Flip Calculator below!

Renovator Resources

5 Ways To Pay For Your Renovation

  1. Use a Home Equity Line of Credit. Typically, you can access up to 80% of the equity in your home. This means that if you own a home worth approximately $400,000, you should be able to access $320,000 of the equity. If you currently still owe $200,000 on your home, you should be able to obtain a home equity line of credit for $120,000. The rate for a home equity line of credit it typically Prime (3.95%) + 0.50%. This can often be structured without touching your current mortgage.

  2. Refinance your home. As with a Line of Credit, when you are refinancing you will be able to borrow up to 80% of the value of your home. The benefit of refinancing over a secondary loan like a Home Equity Line of Credit is that the interest rate is much lower (currently under 3%) your payments will be fixed for the mortgage term. If you are planning a major renovation, we can also structure a "Refinance plus Improvements" which allows us to refinance to 80% of the AFTER renovation price of the home!

  3. Secure a second mortgage. Typically, this is the last option for a home renovation, but in certian circumstances it might be the best way to proceed. A second mortgage leaves your first mortgage in place, which may preserve your mortgage rate and terms. The second mortgage, like the Line of Credit and Refinance, is secured against the remaining equity in your home. Occasionally, second mortgages could go over 80% loan to value and help you secure those additional funds needed!

  4. Use those muscles! Sweat Equity! One of the largest costs in your renovation will be the cost of labour! To decrease the price of your overall project, consider donating some Saturdays and Sundays to help the project along. Make sure that if any permits are needed, ie: building, plumbing, electrical that you hire a professional, but if you're able, painting, changing fixtures and knobs could drastically improve the look at a small cost when done yourself!

  5. Save Money. Yup - that's right - just save and save and save. I'm talking myself out of a job here! You may have to cut back on discretionary purchases and find places to save money here and there for a few months. But when you do that, you will be able to pay for your home renovations in full without borrowing from a lender. The obvious downside to using cash is the fact that you may have to delay your project for several months.

Purchase Plus Improvements Mortgage

Why Would I Refinance?

SPIRE Flip Program

  • Purchase agreement
  • Renovation budget and details
  • a full net worth statement for applicants who are real estate investors.
  • Portfolio details (addresses, mortgages, rental income etc.).
  • For the first deal, application and credit is required, if you decide to do other deals in the same year, this is not required.
  • Is a profitable deal? Profitability is our first underwriting filter, we want our borrower make money?
  • We value the property as if completed with the renovations planned, which is why we require the budget and description of renovations.
  • We ask for a minimum of $10,000 down. On a rare occasion where we think the profit margin is slim, we may ask for more money down, but we are more likely to discuss with the client why they think the profit is higher than we do, and ensure it is the right investment decision. We would prefer not to help investors do poor deals and risk them losing money as well as ourselves as no one wins and we both lose.
  • Max LTV is 80% of the after-repaired value, and minimum down payment is $10,000.
  • Clients cover the cost of renovations on their own. In cases where the renovations costs are high, we may consider a draw mortgage for part of the renovation. Usually this is secured by other real estate, or it may be structured more akin to a construction mortgage.
  • Client must make monthly interest only payments.

SPIRE Flip Analyzer