Your Calgary Mortgage Broker — Shawn Selanders

Calgary is where my career started — and I've never stopped serving this city.

I moved to Calgary in 1992. Got my mortgage licence in 1999. I lived here, built my business here, and helped hundreds of Calgary families get into homes.

25+ years later, I'm still doing it — with more experience, more lender connections, and the same straight-talk approach that got me here.

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Why Calgary in the First Place

I first came here as a kid in the eighties, visiting relatives. I loved it immediately. The city, the foothills, the mountains sitting right there on the edge of everything. Somewhere in there I decided I was going to live in Alberta.

So I did. I joined the military, served, and when that chapter closed I came to Calgary in 1992. My children were born and raised here.

What I found was a city that did not feel like other cities. Young, hungry, genuinely excited about its own growth in a way that people who have only lived elsewhere do not quite understand. I wanted to be part of that, and I got to be.

It is also where I learned this business from both sides of the table. Our family bought rental properties here. My ex-wife became a realtor. I became a mortgage broker. We were immersed in Calgary real estate for years, and this city was the bread and butter of my entire practice.

Closer Than You Think

I moved out to Okotoks a while back, and more recently to High River. That is the only part of this that changed, and it changed less than people assume.

Okotoks is about fifteen minutes from Calgary. High River is about fifteen minutes past that. Depending on where you are headed, the run into the south end is often twenty to twenty five minutes. Meanwhile, getting from one corner of Calgary to the other can take an hour on a bad day.

So I am not a broker in another city. I am a broker who is closer to most of Calgary than a lot of Calgarians are to each other, who built this practice on Calgary files, and who still has clients right across it.

🏠 Home Purchases

• Pre-approvals — know your budget before you start shopping
• First-time home buyers — I'll walk you through it. No question is too basic.
• Moving up, downsizing, or relocating within Calgary

🔄 Renewals

• Rate shopping + lender negotiation (don't just sign what they send you)
• "Should I break my mortgage early?" analysis
• Term length, prepayment options, portability — all the stuff that matters later

💰 Refinance / Equity Take-Out

• Debt consolidation (one payment, lower rate, less stress)
• Home renovations
• Life events (separation, buyouts, unexpected expenses)

📋 Self-Employed / Commission / Variable Income

• Bank and alternative lender options
• Documentation coaching so your file lands clean the first time

🏢 Rental / Revenue Properties

• Purchase and refinance strategies
• Structuring for future flexibility

🏡 Reverse Mortgages (55+)

• Supplement retirement income without monthly payments
• Stay in your home — maintain ownership and independence
• Eliminate existing mortgage payments to improve cash flow

Learn About Reverse Mortgages →

High-Value Properties in Calgary

If you're purchasing in Springbank, Bearspaw, Aspen Woods, Mount Royal, or Elbow Park, sliding scale lending affects how much you need down. Every lender has a different threshold — and the difference can be $225,000+ in required down payment on the same property. See how it works →

Updated July 2026

Calgary Condos: Where Approvals Actually Break

Condos are where I see more surprises than anywhere else in the Calgary market, and almost none of them are about the buyer.

When you buy a house, the lender assesses you and the property. When you buy a condo, the lender also assesses the building, and the building is not something you control. A perfectly qualified buyer can be declined because of a corporation's paperwork.

The things that cause trouble:

• A special assessment, current or upcoming. This is the big one. Lenders want to know the amount, the timing, and whether it is funded.
• A weak reserve fund or a reserve fund study that recommends work nobody has budgeted for.
• Litigation involving the condo corporation. Some lenders will not touch a building in active litigation regardless of how good you look.
• Building specifics such as unit size, the share of rentals or commercial space, and certain construction types. Lenders differ enormously here and none of it is published.

What to do about it: get the condo documents reviewed early, not at the last minute, and get them to me at the same time you get them to your lawyer. If there is a problem in the file, I would rather find it while your conditions are alive than have a lender find it three days before possession. And if one lender will not do the building, that does not always mean nobody will. It means we go to a lender that will.

The Calgary Flood Map Question

People associate 2013 with High River, but Calgary took it too, along the Bow and the Elbow. If you are buying anywhere near either river, this is worth ten minutes of your attention.

The good news is substantial. The City reports that Calgary's flood risk has been reduced by roughly seventy percent as of 2026. The Springbank Off-Stream Reservoir upstream on the Elbow now protects those communities from a 2013-sized event, and the Sunnyside flood barrier protects Sunnyside, Kensington and Hillhurst from a one-in-one-hundred-year flood.

The part that affects your mortgage. Alberta released updated Flood Hazard Area mapping in 2025, which sorts flood hazard land into several risk categories rather than the old two. Calgary has also completed a groundwater study and has proposed adding a Groundwater Flood Fringe to its regulatory flood map. Those designations drive insurance availability and pricing, lender appetite, and what can be built or rebuilt on the land.

So the practical order is the same as anywhere: check the specific parcel rather than the neighbourhood, get a real insurance quote on the address while your conditions are alive, and ask specifically about overland water coverage, which is a separate add-on and is not the same as sewer backup coverage. Your lender will want proof of insurance before funding, so finding a problem after you waive conditions is the worst possible sequence.

None of this makes riverside Calgary a bad buy. It makes it a buy that needs a phone call first.

If You Are Weighing Calgary Against the Foothills

Plenty of my Calgary clients stay in Calgary, and that is often the right answer. But a good share of the people who call me are doing a particular piece of arithmetic: they have outgrown the house, the neighbourhoods they want have moved out of reach, and somebody has mentioned that things are cheaper south of the city. Since I have lived on both sides of that decision, here is the honest version.

They usually are. High River, Okotoks, Diamond Valley, Nanton and the smaller towns have generally sat below comparable Calgary pricing, and the gap is often the difference between the house you have and the house you want.

The objection is always the commute, and it is usually overstated. People compare a commute from outside Calgary against living in Calgary as though living in Calgary means no commute. It does not. Plenty of Calgarians spend thirty to forty five minutes crossing the city in traffic. Highway kilometres at a constant speed are easier kilometres than the same distance through lights, merges and construction season.

Two things worth knowing before you get excited. If the move means adding a vehicle, that payment lands on your debt servicing ratios and reduces what you qualify for, so run the numbers with it included. And if what you actually want is an acreage rather than a house in a town, that is an entirely different financing conversation with its own lender rules on land size, water, septic and outbuildings.

I have lived in Calgary, Okotoks and High River, and I finance in all three every week. Whether you stay or go, I can tell you what the numbers actually look like rather than what the daydream looks like.

Calgary Mortgage Questions

Q: Do you work with clients across Calgary?
Yes. Calgary is where I built this practice and I still have clients throughout the city. I am Alberta licensed and work the whole region, and the office is about twenty to twenty five minutes from the south end of the city. In practice most of a mortgage happens electronically anyway, so you are welcome to meet in person or to never leave your kitchen table, whichever suits you.

Q: Why would a condo purchase get declined when I qualify?
Because the lender assesses the building as well as the buyer. A special assessment, a weak reserve fund, active litigation involving the condo corporation, or certain building characteristics can all cause a decline that has nothing to do with your income or credit. Lenders differ significantly in what they will accept, so a no from one is not always a no from all. Get the condo documents reviewed early.

Q: I am self-employed in Calgary. Will I qualify for less?
Possibly, because most lenders assess self-employed borrowers on net income after write-offs rather than gross revenue, which surprises many business owners. There are lender programs built specifically for self-employed borrowers that look at the business more sensibly. The important part is putting the file in front of the right lender from the start rather than being declined and starting over.

Q: Does buying near the Bow or the Elbow affect my mortgage?
It can. Flood hazard designations affect insurance availability and cost, and some lenders have rules about certain designations. Calgary has made major mitigation investments and reports flood risk down roughly seventy percent as of 2026, but lenders and insurers work from mapping rather than infrastructure. Check the specific property, and get an insurance quote before your conditions expire.

Q: Should I renew with my current Calgary lender?
Compare before you sign. Renewal offers that arrive in the mail are frequently not the lender's best available rate, and switching lenders at renewal is far simpler than most people assume. Since late 2024, uninsured borrowers doing a straight switch at renewal, with no change to the loan amount or amortization, are not re-stress-tested, which made shopping a renewal considerably easier.

Q: I want to sell in Calgary and buy outside the city. Can you handle both sides?
Yes, and it is a common file for me. The financing questions differ depending on whether you are buying in a town or on an acreage, and the timing between selling and buying often needs some structuring. Worth a conversation before you list, because the order of operations matters.

Where to Start

Get a real pre-approval before you shop, so you are working with a number instead of a hope. If you are looking at a condo, get the documents reviewed early. If you are looking near the rivers, check the mapping and the insurance before conditions come off. And if the plan is to leave the city, run the numbers with the commute costs included.

All of that is one conversation, and it costs nothing.

Buying, renewing or refinancing in Calgary?
Call or text 403-703-6847. To move quickly, have these handy: the price range or address you are considering, your rough annual income, your monthly debt payments, and what you have saved for a down payment.

Shawn Selanders is a RECA-licensed mortgage broker with Mortgage Architects, serving Calgary, High River, Okotoks, Foothills County, Diamond Valley and Southern Alberta since 1999. Calgary flood mitigation figures from the City of Calgary. Flood designations, condo lender requirements and insurance availability vary by property - confirm specifics for any address you are considering.

Banks work for shareholders. I work for you. Big difference.

My Process Is Simple:

1. Quick fact-find call (10–15 minutes) — I'll ask a few questions, figure out what you qualify for, and give you a realistic picture.
2. Match you to the right lender + product — I work with 20+ lenders. Options the banks don't have — and leverage they don't want you to know about.
3. Negotiate rate + approvals — I handle the back-and-forth so you don't have to.
4. Keep it moving — tight communication, no ghosting. You'll always know where your file stands.
5. Close clean (and stay available after) — Questions years from now? Call me.

"Shawn was a pleasure to deal with. He did things in a timely and professional manner. He responded to texts and emails almost instantaneously. He answered all my questions and concerns. I highly recommend Shawn for your future mortgage needs."

— Peter Lor, Calgary

"Shawn has helped us with our last 4 mortgages and has worked very hard to get us the most competitive rates possible. I would highly recommend Shawn to my family and friends as he will go above and beyond to get the best rate out there."

— Michelle & Richard Straat, Calgary

"Shawn has been excellent with securing two mortgages for us and I have no hesitation with recommending him."

— Derek McIntyre, Calgary

I also serve clients across the Foothills and Southern Alberta:

Let's Talk (No Pressure)

Whether you're buying, renewing, refinancing, or just have questions — I'm here.

Call/Text: 403-703-6847

Email: Shawn@ShawnSelanders.ca

Office: 614 High View Park NW, High River, AB T1V 1E5

Hours: Monday to Friday: 9:00 – 5:00  |  Saturday: 12:00 – 5:00 | Sunday: Closed

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