Strive Unleashes Wave of New Mortgage Products

With cutthroat mortgage competition, plummeting insured volumes and margins so thin they'd starve a supermodel, it's been way more challenging to make money in insured lending.

That and non-stop regulatory tightening have inspired mortgage finance companies to jump headfirst into the alternative lending pool.

Strive is no exception. It's been piloting its new "Aspire" non-prime products since summer. Now, the company has hired a sales director for alternative lending, is adding new funding partners and is opening up the product to more brokers in Alberta, B.C. and Ontario.

As traditional prime lenders turn down more borrowers due to credit and qualification constraints, "the Alt-A credit profiles we're seeing are strong," says Steve Kissuk, Chief Credit Officer and Co-Founder at Strive.