Turning housing dreams into reality with a co-op loan.

“I had never planned on homeownership,” shares Suzanne Ward. “I just thought, especially in Vancouver, it’s completely impossible.”  

Both Suzanne and her husband, Brendan Tang (pictured above), work in the creative industry. Suzanne is a photographer and interior designer, and Brendan is a visual artist and professor at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design.  

Having been a self-employed artist for years, Brendan used to tell his students that “a bank is the last place you should get a loan from; they won’t give it to you.”  

That is until they found an unconventional property, and a creative lender. 

A different type of homeownership.  

“The property we were looking at had been in the market for 2 or 3 months,” says Suzanne. “All the flags were there. [We thought] – why isn’t this selling? Why is it listed so low?”  

The apartment they liked wasn’t a regular strata apartment; it was a unit within a housing co-operative, or co-op. A housing co-op is a corporation that owns a residential property and focuses on covering expenses rather than generating profit – which helps keep housing costs more affordable.

Unlike a condominium, where the residents own their units, co-op residents own shares of their building like they’d own shares of a company. So instead of a mortgage, Brendan and Suzanne needed a loan to buy the amount of co-op shares that would allow them to live in that unit.  

 “But you really have to find someone to work with you to make it happen,” adds Suzanne.  

Through Vancity’s Co-op Home Loan, they found an answer.  

Creating hope for first-time homebuyers. 

“Our Co-op Home Loan is one of the only options in BC designed to help people purchase shares to own a home in an equity housing co-op” says Ryan Mckinley, Senior Mortgage Development Manager at Vancity.  

Part of the reason, he explains, is because most of the housing co-ops in BC are rental co-ops, whereas Brendan and Suzanne found a lesser known “equity” co-op, where the residents can purchase shares to permanently live in one of the units.  

On top of that, there are very few lenders willing to provide them since share loans tend to be less profitable, and riskier, than strata mortgages.  

“Typically, when a homebuyer gets financing for their purchase, the property itself is considered collateral for the mortgage,” Ryan explains. “But when someone buys into co-op housing, the shares – instead of the actual property – become the collateral. This makes share loans risky because they make it harder for lenders to foreclose in the event of default.”  

A progressive vision for housing.

Although co-ops haven’t been widely promoted in Canada, co-operative housing is considered an important part of the housing policy in Scandinavian countries like Sweden, where co-ops make up about 22% of the city's housing stock.

By promoting shared ownership and governance, co-ops foster trust and collaboration between residents – often creating tight-knit, supportive communities.

As a financial co-operative, Vancity was founded to be an open-minded financial institution – one that is actively trying to find ways to improve access to finance and provide different avenues to home buying.  

“Homeownership doesn’t have to be a distant dream,” says Ryan. “No matter your career or background, we're committed to working with individuals from all walks of life to find the solution that works best for them."