Commercial mortgage broker in Vancouver.
Vancouver is the most capital intensive commercial market in Canada. It has the highest land values, the tightest industrial supply, and a rental development pipeline bigger than anything the city has attempted before. Deals here are rarely lost on the asset. They are lost on structure: too little leverage, the wrong lender for the deal phase, or a timeline the bank's committee calendar cannot meet.
We arrange commercial financing across Metro Vancouver from our office in Surrey. Multifamily acquisitions and CMHC insured refinances, construction facilities, land and bridge positions, industrial and retail, placed across 50 plus lenders from the major banks and BC's credit unions through to private capital.
What's actually moving in Vancouver.
As of mid 2026. We update this quarterly.
The Broadway Plan bottleneck.
The rezoned corridors carry a pipeline of roughly 25,000 residential units, and about 97 percent of them have not yet reached building permit. That gap between entitlement and shovels is exactly where financing decides outcomes: land carry through approvals, construction facilities structured to start moving, and CMHC takeouts that make rental pro formas work.
Industrial stays scarce.
Metro Vancouver industrial vacancy is holding around 4 percent, new supply is minimal and roughly three quarters of it leases before completion. For owner occupiers and investors, that scarcity supports strong financing cases. Buildings that lease this reliably underwrite well.
Office is two markets.
Headline vacancy sits above 11 percent, but premium space is tightening while older stock struggles. Financing follows the same split: strong terms for quality assets with solid tenancies, structured and private solutions for repositioning plays.
Vancouver deals we work every week.
- Apartment building acquisitions and refinances, conventional and CMHC insured
- Land assembly and carry in the Broadway corridors and transit oriented areas
- Ground up rental construction and takeout financing
- Industrial purchases, owner occupied and investment
- Retail and mixed use along the city's main corridors
- Equity take outs against stabilized Vancouver assets
The same building finances differently here.
Vancouver's numbers break the rules of thumb. Cap rates run lower than anywhere else in the country, which squeezes debt service coverage and makes the choice of lender, amortization and insured versus conventional path worth more than it is in any other market. A structure that works in Calgary can leave seven figures of proceeds on the table here.
The lender map is local too. BC's credit unions are aggressive on commercial deals the national banks pass on, insured programs change the math entirely on rental housing, and private capital here is deep enough to close large positions in days. Knowing who actually wants your deal type this quarter is most of the job. Run your own numbers first if you like. The calculator sizes a Vancouver building the way an underwriter would.
What actually gets financed, block by block.
Mount Pleasant and the False Creek Flats.
Creative office and light industrial conversions. Older warehouse stock re tenanted to studios, breweries and technology users, where the underwriting turns on how easily the space re lets if the current tenant leaves. Industrial financing in British Columbia covers how those files are read.
The Broadway Plan corridor.
Density and purpose built rental. Land here has repriced on what the plan permits rather than on what the buildings currently earn, so acquisitions are financed on land value with the carry through approvals budgeted honestly, then refinanced into construction and an insured takeout.
Downtown and Gastown.
Office and heritage buildings. Quality space with solid covenants finances well, older stock does not, and heritage designation limits what can be changed and what a repositioning plan can promise. Lenders price that constraint into both value and term.
The Cambie and Marpole corridors.
Mixed use and rental development along the transit spine. Ground floor commercial over residential rental, where the income split decides whether the file is underwritten as multifamily or as mixed use, and that decision moves the proceeds.
East Vancouver industrial.
Scarcity is the whole story. Almost no new supply, vacancy that stays tight, and owner occupiers competing with investors for the same bays. Lenders like the asset. The work is environmental history and title, not appetite.
Ranges we see, not promises.
Multifamily acquisitions and refinances.
Commonly 3 to 30 million. Older walk ups through to newer purpose built rental, run on both the conventional and insured paths before we recommend one.
Land and assembly positions.
Priced per buildable foot against the density the plan supports, with the approval period and the exit underwritten from the first day.
Industrial and owner occupied.
From around 2 million. Tight vacancy and strong covenants make these among the cleanest files in the city.
Retail, mixed use and office.
Typically 3 to 40 million, sized off the lease covenant and the weighted average lease term rather than off the asking price.
One thing to be honest about: Vancouver land values mean debt service coverage constrains proceeds here more often than anywhere else in the province. A building quoted at 75 percent leverage frequently funds well below that once coverage is applied, so buyers routinely need more equity than the headline number suggests. Check the current benchmark rates and the lender requirements before you set the offer.
Four reasons deals die here.
The appraisal will not support the price.
Vancouver prices move ahead of comparables. The lender funds against appraised value, and the gap is covered by the buyer in cash or the deal dies at the funding table.
Heritage and character constraints.
A repositioning plan that assumes a facade change, added floor area or a use the designation does not allow is not a plan a lender will underwrite. Confirm what is permitted before you price the upside.
Environmental history.
Older industrial sites in East Vancouver and the Flats carry genuine contamination risk. A Phase 1 that recommends a Phase 2 stops most conventional lenders until the work is finished.
Rezoning priced in before approval.
Buyers pay for the density they expect and ask a lender to fund against it. Conventional lenders value current zoning. The upside belongs on the land and bridge side of the market.
How long a Vancouver file actually takes.
Conventional commercial financing commonly runs 45 to 90 days from application to funding, and the variable is rarely the lender. It is how fast the appraisal, the environmental work and your own documents arrive.
Insured multifamily runs longer, because the insurer reviews the file after the lender does. Budget months, not weeks, and start before the subject removal date rather than after it.
Bridge and private financing closes in one to two weeks when the timeline demands it, at a cost that reflects the speed, then refinances into term debt once the pressure is off. Sending the submission checklist complete is the single biggest thing that shortens any of these.
Vancouver questions we hear most.
Nearby markets we also cover
Let's talk about your Vancouver deal.
Tell us the property and the plan. A senior broker will tell you what the market will lend against it, usually the same day.
Canadian Commercial Mortgages is a licensed mortgage brokerage operating in British Columbia.