Mortgage Helper | Money
How Lenders Count Rental Income
This is the part of the plan most likely to be wrong in your head, and the one that decides which homes you can actually make an offer on.
The short answer
Lenders do not add suite rent to your income pound for pound. They count a portion, and how much varies by lender, by whether the suite is legal, and by your wider file. It is a conversation about a specific property, not a rule you can look up.
Homes that state a suite
274 active listings
- Median list price
- $1,477,500
- Median price per sq ft
- $583
- Median size
- 2,445 sq ft
- Median strata fee
- $292
- Median annual property tax
- $4,985
typical range $1,108,630 to $2,289,700
typical range $412 to $1,054
typical range 1,769 sq ft to 3,542 sq ft
typical range $74 to $400
13 of 274 listings state one
typical range $2,708 to $9,750
107 of 274 listings state one
Measured across 274 active listings on .
Where these homes are
Click a pin for the photo, the price, and a Street View link.
257 of 274 homes plotted. 17 listings have no coordinates in the feed and cannot be placed. Click a pin for the photo, the price, and a Street View link. Zoom with the plus and minus buttons or by pinching.
Homes behind these numbers
$599,000B 2020 VIEWMOUNT COURT
FVREB Out of Town · 3 bed · 1,648 sq ft
$819,9002 8745 ASHWELL ROAD
Lower Landing · 4 bed · 2,417 sq ft
$859,900
Freehold
8576 DUNBAR WAY
Mission · 4 bed · 2,233 sq ft
$859,900
Freehold
8548 DUNBAR WAY
Mission · 4 bed · 2,233 sq ft
$879,9004 8745 ASHWELL ROAD
Lower Landing · 5 bed · 2,413 sq ft
$899,000
Freehold
1 46018 BONNY AVENUE
Chilliwack Proper East · 5 bed · 2,201 sq ft
$899,0006 6165 144 AVENUE
Sullivan Station · 4 bed · 2,005 sq ft
$899,0005 6165 144 AVENUE
Sullivan Station · 4 bed · 2,005 sq ft
$899,0008 14391 61A AVENUE
Sullivan Station · 4 bed · 2,128 sq ft
$899,000
Freehold
32529 HIGGINBOTTOM COURT
Mission · 6 bed · 3,149 sq ft
$899,000
Freehold
32531 HIGGINBOTTOM COURT
Mission · 6 bed · 3,145 sq ft
$919,9001 8745 ASHWELL ROAD
Lower Landing · 5 bed · 2,480 sq ft
262 more active listings are not shown here. Search every active listing . Prices are the list price. Most new homes have GST added on top.
Why it is not a simple addition
Lenders are underwriting the risk that the rent stops. They discount it accordingly, and different lenders discount it differently, which is why two brokers can give you two different maximum prices for the same household.
Some approaches add a portion of the rent to income. Others subtract a portion from the expense side. The arithmetic differs and so does the outcome.
What changes the answer
Whether the suite is legal is the big one. A permitted, inspected unit is treated more favourably than one that is not, and some lenders will not count an unauthorized suite at all.
Documentation matters too. An existing tenancy with a written agreement and a payment history is stronger evidence than a projection.
- → Whether the suite is legal, which some lenders treat as a threshold question
- → Whether there is an existing tenancy agreement and rent history
- → The lender's own policy, which varies more than most buyers expect
- → Your overall file, since this interacts with everything else in it
What to do about it
Get a pre-approval that reflects the property type you are actually pursuing, and tell your broker you are looking at homes with suites so the question surfaces before you are in a subject period.
If the plan only works with rental income counted, confirm the specific treatment before you write an offer rather than after.
Read next
Common questions
Do lenders add suite rent to my income?
Not pound for pound. They count a portion, and the method and the amount vary by lender. Some add a share to income, others offset a share against the expense side, and the resulting maximum price differs.
Will a lender count rent from an unauthorized suite?
Some will not count it at all, and others will count less of it. This is one of the main practical consequences of the legal versus unauthorized distinction, and it is worth establishing before you rely on the income.
What should I ask my broker?
How much of the rent this specific lender will count on this specific property, whether the suite's legal status changes that, and what documentation they need. Get it before you write an offer.
Where these figures come from
- VanPlex active listings, MLS® data
Active townhouses, half duplexes, and row houses built in the last two years across Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.
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- CMHC, mortgage loan insurance for consumers
Insurance is unavailable at a purchase price of $1.5M or more, where 20% down is required.
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Find homes with a suite
Every figure in this hub comes from listings you can open. Search the full set and combine a suite with price, bedrooms, parking, and distance to a station.