Lending giant shakes up the market
A rapidly growing sector of the Canadian mortgage market has a new entrant, with Home Trust announcing at the weekend that it’s rolling out a suite of reverse mortgage products for brokers.
The lending giant quietly introduced that range a few weeks back to select Ontario brokers but is now launching it across the province – with plans to expand it to British Columbia by year-end, followed by Alberta in the first half of 2026 and the rest of Canada in the second.
That marks big news for a mortgage type once seen as an ultra-niche product, but whose popularity has soared in recent years.
It also injects new competition into a sector where only a handful of prominent lenders have traditionally competed for market share – and adds a new broker-exclusive product to the market.
Reverse mortgage uptake across the country has spiked this decade, with the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) estimating Canadians carried over $8.2 billion in reverse mortgage debt at the end of June 2024.
And Brian Leland, executive vice president, mortgage lending at Home Trust, told Canadian Mortgage Professional shifting demographics suggest that growth will only continue.
“The data is evident. Canada is aging, and aging quickly,” he said. “The 55-plus [segment] is disproportionately growing… faster than other age cohorts in Canada. A staggering statistic: the 70-plus cohort of the population is going to grow 45% in the next decade.
“We know that many people in that cohort do not believe they have the financial means to retire comfortably so to us, it makes sense: you’ve got an aging population, you’ve got a demographic that indexes high in homeownership, and the same cohort is struggling to meet their retirement needs.”
Reverse mortgage business increasingly crucial to brokers
The company unveiled the product suite – titled EquityAccess – at the ongoing Mortgage Professionals Canada (MPC) national conference in Ottawa.
A prominent discussion point among brokers over the weekend was the sluggish current market, and ways to eke out business growth even in a challenging environment.
Leland said those challenges had also brought the benefits of reverse mortgage business into sharper focus.
“What really put this product more on the radar of mortgage brokers was when the market slowed in the last couple of years,” he said.
“Certainly, into this year things are picking up a bit, but I think when they were challenged with their own businesses, and the revenue was challenged, reverse mortgages provided an opportunity to subsidize some of what they’d lost. So I think that really helped grow the product, and I think that’s why the time is right for us.”
What a new entrant means for Canada’s reverse mortgage space
The move sets up an intriguing few years ahead for the sector, with the arrival of a major institution – one of Canada’s largest alternative lenders – likely to spur renewed competition for brokers’ business.
Leland said that’s a positive development for the mortgage market as a whole. “Competition is something that’s very healthy for mortgage consumers and really beneficial for mortgage brokers,” he said.
“Ask any mortgage broker and they’ll tell you having more lenders is better for a sustainable and healthy ecosystem.”
The reputation of reverse mortgages has steadily improved across Canada over the past decade, although it goes without saying that brokers shouldn’t recommend the product to just anyone.
But Canada still reportedly lags other markets such as the United Kingdom and Australia for reverse mortgage uptake – and Leland said the growth of the product elsewhere suggests huge untapped potential in the Canadian mortgage sector.
“I think [the UK] is a great proxy for us here in Canada,” he said. “Drawing on that UK example, they’re 10 times more penetrated than that product here in Canada, which would suggest if we’re a $10 billion market today, give or take, we’re more a potentially $100 billion market – which means there’s an incredible amount of opportunity for lenders and brokers.”
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