Kamloops Mortgage Broker

Can a Kamloops mortgage be handled remotely?

Yes. A mortgage broker licence in BC is provincial (mine is #MB609900), not city by city.

The process was never built around meeting in person — the application is online, documents go by email or a secure upload link, and most paperwork can be e-signed remotely. The few documents that need a witness get signed with a local lawyer or notary near you, no trip required.

Plenty of clients finish the whole process without meeting in person. Kamloops works the same way.

Kamloops, specifically

Kamloops counted 97,902 residents in the 2021 Census, up 8.4% from 2016, and the City's December 2024 Housing Needs Report cites a BC Stats estimate of 107,941 for 2024. The same report counts 51,030 workers in 2021, with health care and social assistance, retail trade, construction, accommodation and food services, and educational services as the five largest industry groups. One more thing to sort out before buying here: property tax on leased Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc reserve land is administered by the Nation itself — more below.

My mortgage and real estate licences both cover all of BC, so for a home in Kamloops you can come to me for the mortgage and for buying or selling. Mortgage documents go digital, and we can work out a plan by phone and video.

Kamloops specifics: four units on an urban lot, three transit exchanges, and leasehold homes on reserve land

In June and July 2024, Kamloops amended its Official Community Plan and Zoning Bylaw and replaced its single-detached zones with new zones that permit small-scale multi-unit housing. Most urban parcels now allow four units — triplexes, fourplexes, a duplex with secondary suites, or two single-detached houses with one secondary suite — while suburban and rural lots allow a single-detached home with one residential suite (secondary, garden or carriage), and a carriage suite no longer needs rezoning. The maximum on any lot depends on its size, location, municipal water and sewer, and specified exemptions.

The Transit-Oriented Areas cover land within 400 metres of the Lansdowne, North Shore and Thompson Rivers University transit exchanges: up to 10 storeys and a 3.5 floor area ratio within 200 metres, and up to 6 storeys and 2.5 from 201 to 400 metres. Using the provincial method, the City's Housing Needs Report estimates 7,856 new units are needed between 2021 and 2026 and 23,228 by 2041, and the 2025 update of the Official Community Plan, KAMPLAN, focuses on aligning growth with those 20-year needs.

Homes on Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc reserve land are leasehold interests, and the Nation administers its own property tax — it is one of approximately 88 bands in BC that do, and it first collected property tax from leasehold interests in 1991. BC Assessment still issues the notices by December 31, but the payment deadline is August 2, and the Nation runs its own grant program, similar to the provincial one: up to $570, or up to $845 for owners over 65 or with a disability. The power traces back to Bill C-115 in 1988, known as the "Kamloops Amendment," which changed Section 83 of the Indian Act to let First Nations levy taxes on designated lands.

The speculation and vacancy tax applies in the City of Kamloops, though not on reserve or treaty lands, while the foreign buyers' additional property transfer tax does not: it is levied only in five regional districts, and Kamloops is not in any of them. The City also notes that suites can act as mortgage helpers, and that suites built to BC Building Code standards under a building permit help protect the health and safety of homeowners and tenants.

Common questions