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The headlines are everywhere. Mortgage renewal crisis. Payment shock. Homeowners forced to sell.

I’ve been a mortgage broker since 2013. I’ve worked with over 500 clients and helped them borrow more than $250 million. And I’m telling you the story you’re hearing is overblown.

Yes, rates have doubled from their 2020 lows. Yes, 60% of Canadian mortgages will renew by the end of 2026. But here’s what the media gets wrong.

A doubling in interest rates doesn’t mean a doubling in payments.

When your rate goes from 2% to 4%, your payment increases by about 25%. Not 100%.

That’s still a meaningful jump. And here’s what makes it harder to absorb: every other expense has already increased. Groceries, gas, childcare, insurance. Your budget has been squeezed for five years straight. That’s what makes people sensitive to even a 25% mortgage payment increase.

Your mortgage payment is a function of three variables. How much you owe. How long you’re taking to repay it. What your interest rate is.

Most borrowers fixate on the rate because it’s the number in the headlines. But you have almost no control over it beyond choosing a different term that might carry more or less risk, and therefor offer a different rate.

The borrowing amount is hard to reduce unless you’ve got liquid cash sitting around. But you can increase it to consolidate higher-interest debt, which often improves cash flow.

The biggest lever you have is amortization.

If you’ve been in your mortgage for five years, your amortization has dropped by five years. By extending it back out, you can significantly reduce your monthly payment.

The math is straightforward. Extending a $500,000 mortgage with 20 years remaining to 30 years at 4.50% drops your payment from roughly $3,152 to $2,521. That’s over $600 per month in breathing room.

You’re building less equity in the short term. But you can always dial your amortization back down at your next renewal or make lump-sum payments when your financial situation improves.

You can’t reduce your payment later if you lock yourself into an unmanageable one now.

Here’s a move that sounds counterintuitive but works. Increasing your mortgage balance to pay off other debt.

Car loans typically have 4 to 8 year amortizations. Credit cards carry brutal interest rates. Personal loans, student loans, RRSP loans, they all have higher payments relative to the balance than your mortgage does.

By moving those balances into your mortgage, you’re pushing the amortization out to 25 or 30 years and cutting the interest rate significantly. Your overall monthly financial burden drops even though your mortgage balance goes up.

This requires a refinance, which means legal costs, appraisal, and income verification. But for someone juggling multiple high-interest debts alongside a mortgage renewal, it can be the difference between manageable and unmanageable.

The media narrative suggests everyone renewing faces catastrophe. The reality is most people won’t like it, but will adjust fine.

The rates we’re seeing in 2025 and 2026 are back to 2019 levels. They’re in line with the 20 to 30 year average. They’re not historically high.

The people I’m concerned about are those already on the edge. Job loss due to a slowing economy. Existing debt burdens from difficult financial times. Major life expenses like a kid starting university or a baby going into daycare hitting at the same time as a 25% payment increase.

There’s another segment that’s struggling emotionally more than financially. People who bought at the tail end of the real estate run-up in early 2022.

They locked in low rates but their home values have dropped 15% to 20% in many regions. They can probably manage the higher payment. But they’re carrying the psychological weight of a property that’s worth less than they paid while their interest costs just doubled.

For these borrowers, most lenders have policies to work with people facing financial difficulty. The last thing they want is defaults or foreclosures. Conversations about re-extending amortization or other accommodations are possible if you get ahead of the problem.

The standard renewal advice is to stick with your existing lender because it’s easy. No verification, no legal costs, just sign and go.

That advice is outdated.

You need to start the process early. Explore your options. Make sure your lender is offering competitive rates because they don’t inherently offer their best ones. You have to push back or shop around.

Renewal is the perfect time to reassess your entire mortgage strategy. Not just the rate.

Should you add access to a home equity line of credit for future expenses? Renovations, kids’ education, emergency funds. Should you consolidate debt? Should you extend amortization to create short-term cash flow relief?

A lot changes over five years. The biggest mistake is locking into another five-year term only to realize six months in that you really needed to make changes.

I monitor my clients’ mortgages actively because this environment is volatile. I’m watching for opportunities to break out of high rates early if the penalty math makes sense. I’m tracking renewal dates six months out because many lenders let you lock in early.

Most brokers don’t do this because they treat mortgages as transactions. I treat them as ongoing strategy.

Here’s my prediction. There’s been volatility in every angle of life over the last few years. But things normalize. They always do.

Activity will pick up in the housing market again. The new payment becomes the norm and you adjust other areas of your life. People reprioritize.

As we get through the trade negotiations, as we get through this renewal wave, as we work through the excessive condo inventory and the slowdown in new construction, the Canadian housing market will take off again.

But between now and then, the difference between struggling and thriving comes down to whether you get ahead of your renewal or just sign the paper they send you.

Actually, close to a quarter of mortgage holders will see payment decreases by the end of 2026. Those with short-term fixed rates or certain variable rate products.

The cliff the media keeps talking about? It’s situational. It’s not universal.

And for those who do face increases, the tools to manage them exist. You just need to know they’re there and use them before you’re backed into a corner.