Effort Trust Mortgage Lender Profile
Generally for Southern Ontario borrowers with imperfect credit, self-employment income or a complicated file that a bank will not accommodate.
Who they are
The Effort Trust Company is a federally regulated trust company established in 1978. Its head office is at 50 King Street East in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, and it has a second office on Yonge Street in Toronto. It is a member of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, and it specializes in financial services, real estate and asset management. Effort Trust funds its lending through retail deposits, offering GICs, short-term deposits, RRSPs, RRIFs and daily-interest accounts, and it publishes the regulatory disclosures expected of a federally regulated deposit-taking institution. Its two offices have served the same core market for more than four decades.
What they lend on, and who for
Effort Trust has a reputation as a flexible lender for complicated files. Its residential lending covers conventional and high-ratio mortgages, including CMHC-insured deals, and it explicitly markets to borrowers with imperfect credit, recent immigrants, discharged bankrupts, self-employed applicants and homeowners consolidating debt, up to high-value properties. It also writes construction financing for single-family homes and infill projects, and commercial mortgages on retail plazas, mixed-use buildings and multi-family properties. Lending is concentrated in southern Ontario, from London and Kitchener-Waterloo through the Golden Horseshoe to Ottawa, so location suitability is worth checking early.
How to approach Effort Trust
You can contact Effort Trust yourself; nothing stops you. What you cannot easily find out is what they will actually accept. How they read self-employed income, which add-backs they allow, how they treat rental income, and what they will accept in place of the documents you cannot produce — none of that is published in full anywhere, and it moves.
A licensed broker who places files with lenders like this every week knows those criteria, and more usefully knows how to structure a file so it lands inside them rather than just outside. On anything that is not a straightforward salaried purchase, that structuring is most of the difference between an approval and a decline. It costs you nothing on a prime mortgage — the lender pays the broker when it funds.
| Lender type | Monoline · Trust company |
| Registered as | The Effort Trust Company |
| Head office | 50 King Street East, Hamilton, ON L8N 1A6 |
| Website | efforttrust.com |
| Phone | 905-528-8956 |
Get notified 90 days before your renewal
Your lender contacts you at 30 days, when you have no time to shop. We reach you at 90 — early enough to lock a hold and personalize your offers.
Borrower ratings for Effort Trust
In today’s world, reviews dictate the service industry. Brokers have taken the hit for bad lenders. We bring the consumer experience to light to help borrowers decide.
How quickly did they issue a commitment and get to funding?
Was the rate you got competitive for the product you qualified for?
Could you reach someone, and did they resolve things?
Portal, e-signing, document upload, online account — did it work?
Were the terms, fees and penalties clear before you signed?
Worked with Effort Trust?
Score them on the five things above. We confirm every review by email before it publishes, and we publish the bad ones too.
Questions about Effort Trust
Is Effort Trust a real mortgage lender?
Yes. Effort Trust is a monoline (trust company) based in Ontario. Its own site is efforttrust.com.
What kind of lender is Effort Trust?
Monoline — categorised in our directory as Trust Company. Mortgages and nothing else, sold through brokers. Best pricing in the market and usually the fairest penalty formulas. Most Canadians have never heard of them, which is exactly what this directory is for.
Should I go to Effort Trust directly or through a broker?
You can approach them yourself. The reason most people do not is that a lender's real criteria — how income is read, what is accepted as documentation, what will be allowed as an exception — are not published, and they change. A broker who works with Effort Trust regularly knows them and knows how to present a file to fit them, which on anything other than a simple salaried purchase is usually what decides the answer. On a prime mortgage it costs you nothing either way, because the lender pays the broker when it funds.
Would Effort Trust approve me?
No profile page can answer that, and any site that tries is guessing. It turns on how your income is earned and how much of it a lender will count, your credit history, the property itself, and how much you need against what it is worth. Those are the questions a licensed broker asks before naming a lender — and they will tell you which ones realistically fit, this one included, and which would price it better.
Where does Effort Trust lend?
Its head office is in Ontario. Lending areas change and are not always the same as where the lender is based — confirm current coverage with the lender or a broker before planning around it.
Would Effort Trust take your file?
Send us the details and a licensed broker will tell you which lenders fit — this one included, and the ones that would price it better.
Send us the file