Commercial Mortgages in Halifax & Nova Scotia: The Complete Guide
Whether you're buying your first apartment building in Dartmouth, refinancing a plaza in Bedford, or breaking ground on a multi-unit project in Halifax, a commercial mortgage is a different animal from the home loan you're used to. This guide walks through how commercial financing actually works in Nova Scotia — what lenders look at, how much you can borrow, what it costs to get in, and where the common deals fit.
General information from the Indi Mortgage Commercial Division team — not financial advice.
In short: a commercial mortgage in Nova Scotia is financing secured against income-producing or business-use property. Lenders size it on two tests — the property's income (debt-service coverage ratio, usually a 1.20–1.25 minimum) and its value (loan-to-value, commonly 65–75% conventional) — and the deal is placed with the lender that best fits the asset: a bank, a credit union, a CMHC-approved lender, or private capital.
What counts as a commercial mortgage?
A commercial mortgage is financing secured against income-producing or business-use property rather than an owner-occupied home. In Nova Scotia that typically means:
- Multi-unit residential (apartment buildings, 5+ units)
- Retail (plazas, storefronts, mixed-use main-street buildings)
- Office
- Industrial (warehouses, flex space)
- Land and development sites
- Special-purpose properties (self-storage, hospitality, and more)
The key difference: the lender qualifies the property's income first, and your personal covenant second.
How lenders decide how much you can borrow
Two numbers do most of the work:
- DSCR (debt service coverage ratio) — the property's net operating income divided by its mortgage payments. Most lenders want at least 1.20–1.25. This often caps your loan before anything else. → How lenders size a commercial mortgage with DSCR
- Loan-to-value (LTV) — the loan as a percentage of the property's value. Conventional commercial financing commonly tops out around 65–75% LTV, which is why down payments run higher than residential. → Commercial mortgage down payments in Canada
Whichever produces the smaller loan usually wins. You can model both on your own deal with our commercial mortgage feasibility calculator.
Conventional vs. CMHC-insured
For multi-unit residential (5+ units), you often have two paths:
- Conventional — faster, fewer strings, but lower leverage and higher rates.
- CMHC-insured — programs like MLI Select offer higher leverage, longer amortizations, and lower rates in exchange for meeting affordability, energy-efficiency, or accessibility criteria. → CMHC MLI Select explained
For apartment buyers and developers in a tight rental market like Halifax's, CMHC financing is frequently the difference between a deal that works and one that doesn't. → Apartment building financing in Nova Scotia
Building something? Construction and bridge financing
New construction and value-add projects use their own structures:
- Construction financing is advanced in stages (draws) as the project progresses, with a takeout plan to refinance into a term mortgage at completion. → How construction draws work
- Bridge / interim financing covers short gaps — a purchase before a refinance, or a repositioning before stabilization.
What the process looks like
- Model the deal — NOI, DSCR, LTV, and a realistic loan amount (start with the calculator).
- Package it — rent roll, financials, property details, and your experience and covenant.
- Place it with the right lender — banks, credit unions, CMHC-approved lenders, and private capital all price and structure differently. This is where a broker earns their keep.
- Diligence and close — appraisal, environmental, legal, and lender conditions.
Why a local commercial broker matters
Rates and programs change constantly, and the "right" lender for a Halifax multifamily deal is rarely the right one for a South Shore retail plaza or a Cape Breton industrial building. A commercial mortgage broker shops the whole market on your behalf, structures the deal so it clears DSCR and LTV, and manages the lender process end to end. Indi Mortgage's Commercial Division does exactly this across Halifax, Bedford, and all of Nova Scotia.
Serving communities across Nova Scotia
We arrange commercial financing province-wide — not only in Halifax. That includes Dartmouth, Bedford, Sackville, Cole Harbour and Fall River across the Halifax region, plus Truro, New Glasgow and Pictou County, Antigonish, Sydney and Glace Bay in Cape Breton, Yarmouth, Bridgewater and Chester on the South Shore, the Annapolis Valley around Kentville, New Minas, Windsor and Wolfville, and Amherst — along with the smaller towns in between. Because a commercial deal is placed with the lender that fits it rather than tied to a local branch, where the property sits in Nova Scotia rarely limits the financing; it mainly changes which lender is the right one.
Start here
- Model your deal in two minutes: commercial mortgage feasibility calculator
- Talk it through with our Halifax-based commercial team: (902) 298-0218
Sources
- Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) — mortgage loan insurance and multi-unit programs
- CMHC MLI Select — program criteria and tiers
Indi Mortgage Commercial Division — commercial mortgages, construction financing, and CMHC MLI Select across Halifax and Nova Scotia. General information only; every deal is different and this is not financial advice.