Best mortgage lenders for first-time buyers
2026 quietly became the best year in a decade to be a first-time buyer — the new-build GST rebate is now law (up to $50,000), the FHSA is mature, and 30-year insured amortizations exist. Here's the full stack, and the lenders whose contracts fit a first mortgage.
The 2026 first-time stack
The shared-equity First-Time Home Buyer Incentive is dead (closed March 2024) — anything recommending it is stale. Run the stack's effect through the affordability and land-transfer-tax calculators.
The lender short list
Consistently the sharpest insured pricing on our daily-scraped table, and the 150-day rate hold with a float-down is four months of protection while you house-hunt.
Rate-first buyers with clean files
Read the full review →The Low Rate Mortgage is built precisely for insured high-ratio purchases — the first-time profile — and regularly tops our rate table. Fair fixed-penalty math, published in a PDF.
Ontario buyers with less than 20% down
Read the full review →The strongest big-bank prepayment package (15% lump + 100% payment increase) — exactly what turns a starter mortgage into a short one as your income grows.
Buyers who want a branch and plan to prepay aggressively
Read the full review →The only big bank whose standalone mortgages default to a standard charge — cheap to leave at your first renewal, when first-timers most often discover a better deal.
Buyers keeping their switching options open
Read the full review →Frequently asked questions
What does the new GST rebate actually give me?
A lot, if you're buying new construction: Bill C-4 received Royal Assent on March 12, 2026, eliminating GST for first-time buyers on new homes up to $1 million and phasing the relief out to $1.5 million — worth up to $50,000, on purchase agreements signed on or after March 20, 2025 (through 2030). CRA is processing claims now. Resale homes carry no GST, so this changes the new-vs-resale math materially — many sites still describe it as "proposed"; it is law.
FHSA or Home Buyers' Plan — or both?
Both, and in that order. The FHSA is the best account in Canadian tax law: $8,000/year of room to a $40,000 lifetime cap, deductible going in like an RRSP, tax-free coming out for a first home, no repayment ever. The HBP lets you pull up to $60,000 from your RRSP, but it's a loan from yourself — repayable over 15 years, and for withdrawals from 2026 onward repayment starts in the second year (the pandemic-era five-year grace only covered first withdrawals through December 31, 2025). Stack them: a couple can field $80,000 of FHSA plus $120,000 of HBP. The FHSA calculator runs the contribution math.
Can I get a 30-year amortization with less than 20% down?
Yes — that's a first-time-buyer (and new-build) exclusive since December 15, 2024. The trade: a 0.20-point insurance-premium surcharge, and more lifetime interest in exchange for the lower payment. CMHC's first-time definition is broader than people think: never owned, or not occupied a home you owned in the current and four preceding calendar years, or recently separated. The affordability calculator models the 30-year insured path with the surcharge applied.
What about the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive?
Dead — CMHC closed the shared-equity program to new applications in March 2024. The live stack in 2026 is: FHSA + HBP for the down payment, the $1,500 Home Buyers' Tax Credit at tax time, the GST rebate on new builds, 30-year insured amortization, and the provincial/municipal land-transfer rebates (Ontario $4,000, Toronto $4,475, BC's exemption, PEI's waiver) — our land transfer tax calculator applies those automatically.
What matters most in the lender choice itself?
Three things first-timers systematically underweight: the rate hold while you shop (Nesto 150 days with a float-down, BMO 130, most others 120), the prepayment room that lets the mortgage shrink as your career grows (Tangerine 25/25, TD 15/100), and the exit terms for your first renewal — penalty method and charge type — because the data says you'll know far more about mortgages in five years than you do today. All three are scored lender-by-lender in our reviews.
Educational content, not mortgage or tax advice. Programs verified June 12, 2026 at CRA (FHSA, HBP, HBTC), the Department of Finance (Bill C-4 Royal Assent, March 12, 2026), and CMHC (30-year insured rules, FTHBI closure); lender characteristics from our reviews, verified at each lender's own pages. Program parameters change at budget time — confirm before relying on them.