How We Source and Check Rates
What gets published, how it is verified, and what we will not do. Written down so it can be held against us.
Rates
Rates come from lender rate sheets, refreshed every two to three business days and stamped with the collection date. They sort by rate. No lender pays for placement or ordering.
We separate insured, insurable and uninsured pricing rather than publishing one headline number, because the single number misleads most people — the advertised rate is usually the insured one, which requires less than 20% down.
Tax and government figures
Land transfer tax, property tax and closing cost figures come from the responsible government or municipality, and every page carries the source and the date checked. Where a figure cannot be confirmed against a primary source, the page says so plainly instead of publishing it as settled.
Math
Every payment uses semi-annual compounding, not in advance — the Canadian convention. The formula is published on the payment calculator, and the figures are checked against published lender values by an automated test suite that fails the build if they drift.
Lender assessments
Where we characterise a lender — that big-bank penalties calculated off posted rates run far above a monoline's, for instance — that is drawn from published policy, and it stays up whether or not it flatters the lender. We correct factual errors on request. We do not remove accurate assessments.
Corrections
Email hello@rateshop.ca. Rates move, budgets pass, provinces index their thresholds every January. Telling us is the fastest way to fix it.
Questions
Can a lender pay to appear higher in your rate tables?
No. Rate tables sort by rate, ascending. There is no paid placement, sponsored row or promoted lender anywhere on this site.
Where do the rates come from?
Lender rate sheets, refreshed every two to three business days and stamped with the date collected. A bad row fails the import rather than publishing quietly — the build refuses any upload that moves the average rate more than a full point in one go, because that is almost always a units error.
Where do the tax figures come from?
The responsible government or municipality, with the source URL and the date checked shown on the page. Provincial thresholds move every January and municipal rates move with budgets, so these are re-checked annually.
What happens when something is wrong?
We fix it. Email hello@rateshop.ca with the page and the problem.
Is any of this financial advice?
No. It is published information and arithmetic, and it cannot know your circumstances. For advice about your own situation, speak to a licensed broker.