A mortgage tool to help sell a troubled home

Higher interest rates have resurrected an old form of private lending that can be an especially useful financial tool for hard-to-sell properties.

A couple of Vancouver realtors say the vendor take-back mortgage has come in handy in cases where the property didn’t qualify for conventional lending because it wasn’t the standard habitable residential property. A house at 3542 Copley St., near Trout Lake Park, had been occupied by a hoarder who’d packed the place to the ceilings. The assessed value was $1.6-million, but there was no way that the man’s widow, who was living in a room on the property, would be able to sell for market rate. Buyers had to make cash offers because banks wouldn’t finance a house that couldn’t be lived in and rented out, says listing agent Mark Hammer.