What is Perch?

When it comes to buying a home, getting a mortgage or financing your next real estate investment, it can feel pretty overwhelming. At Perch, our mission is to empower Canadians to make more informed decisions about their real estate to build wealth. We use technology and automation to give users in-depth, personalized insights throughout all aspects of homeownership, from buying, to mortgage renewals and refinancing. Whether you’re a first-time home buyer or seasoned real estate investor, through advanced analytics, we help people manage their home investments, wherever they are in their real estate journey.

Why did Mortgauge rebrand to Perch?

Since launching in 2018, we’ve spent the past few years getting feedback on the products we offer. Our new name better aligns with the products we offer today, and what we’ll be offering in future as we continue building the best digital platform to help people manage their real estate investments. In a nutshell, we do much more than just mortgages and want our name to reflect that.

What happens to my old Mortgauge account now that you’ve rebranded?

To keep things simple, you can login to your Perch account using the same credentials you previously used for your Mortgauge account. All of your information will still be accessible by you in our new platform. If you have any questions, feel free to drop us a line at support@myperch.io.

How does Perch help first-time home buyers or those thinking about buying?

For most of us, buying a home is a really big deal. It can be hard to figure out what you have to do and in what order. If you’re a first-time home buyer, we’ve created a free Guide to Buying A Home so you can learn the step-by-step process to get you across the finish line and into your first property. You can read the guide from start-to-finish or you can set up a Perch Home Buying Plan to keep track of when you can afford to buy as your savings grow over time, and see how much you can spend. We also have other planning tools to help you decide if it’s better to Rent vs. Buy or to calculate if the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive Benefit makes sense for you. Instead of wasting time trying to build your own calculators in Excel, our quantitative experts built tools anyone can use so you can clearly understand your purchasing power.

How does Perch help home buyers?

If you’re actively shopping for a property or close to putting in an offer, we can get you pre-approved online in less than an hour. After submitting your details, you’ll be able to instantly view the mortgage offers available to you. You can sort through all available mortgage offers by lowest rates, prepayment flexibility, term length, lender, or other criteria. The entire application process can be done online. Complete your pre-approval and get your mortgage approved in less than 48 hours. If you need additional support, you’ll have access to a dedicated mortgage advisor by phone or email.

Use our online Mortgage Payment Calculator or figure out how much you’ll need in Closing Costs to help with your budgeting.

How does Perch help current home owners?

Thinking about selling a property or changing lenders? Use our Mortgage Penalty Calculator to find out what your prepayment charges will be.

When you set up an account with Perch, we’ll automatically monitor the mortgage market and let you know when there’s an opportunity to save money by switching mortgages. By having monthly property value and mortgage balance updates, we’ll show you exactly how much home equity you could unlock by refinancing and view your property returns as easily as you’d track your stock portfolio.

I already have an established relationship with my bank. What’s the point of using a service like Perch?

Let’s compare getting a mortgage to buying a car. You can go to a car dealership, and they’ll show you all kinds of cars from one manufacturer. If you really love that manufacturer, this is a great one-stop shop, but your options are limited. To increase your odds of getting the best deal, and a car that is the right fit, you’ll want to look at other manufacturers as well. Similarly, if you had a specific car in mind you’d likely also want to compare prices across different suppliers to make sure you’re getting a great deal.

When you’re looking for a mortgage, a bank can only offer their mortgage products. They will not show you mortgage products from other lenders. When you use a service like Perch, we’ll show you all of the mortgage offers available to you (including offers from banks, credit unions, and mortgage investment companies) and help you get the most value through some of the lowest mortgage rates in Canada. From there, you can sort through mortgage offers by what’s important to you, including:

Unlike online rate comparison sites, Perch does not rank mortgages based on which lender is willing to pay the most. We solely optimize your offers based on the value to you to ensure you get the mortgage offer that best suits you. If you’re not sure what to look for in a mortgage, you can always consult with your dedicated mortgage advisor, who can help narrow down your choices based on what you plan on doing with your property.

When you set up a Perch account and submit your information, we’ll automatically assign you a mortgage advisor who will be your point of contact from start to finish. You won’t have to wait in a phone queue or explain your situation to a different agent each time, since your account will be handled by your dedicated mortgage professional – available seven days a week.

How does Perch make money? Do you charge any fees?

No, Perch does not charge fees.

A bank or traditional mortgage company pays a lot of money in overhead and operational costs. By leveraging technology and automation, we’re able to respond faster, reduce the risk of human errors when processing documents, and keep our overall costs low. This enables us to lower our mortgage commissions and pass these savings on to you by offering lower mortgage rates. Perch receives a commission from the lender when any of our borrowers get a mortgage using our platform. Our services are completely free to use.

We’re really excited for this next chapter. Stay tuned for more updates as we keep focused on our mission to help Canadians make more informed real estate decisions to build wealth.