If you are searching for a way to outsource mortgage underwriting or hire an underwriter, here is the straight answer first: Treadstone does not staff human underwriters for hire. We built the alternative to doing either — an AI underwriter that reads the file, applies Canadian lender and B-20 logic, and hands back a decision-ready assessment. You review, adjust and submit every deal.
Looking for the product itself? That is Engage AI Underwriting. Looking for someone to process and package the deal? That is Fulfillment & Operations.
Most brokerages reach the same ceiling: the principal broker is the bottleneck on every file. There are three realistic ways out of it, and it is worth being blunt about the trade-offs of each.
You get someone who learns your lenders and your style. You also get a salary, benefits, training time, and a single point of failure the moment they take vacation. Volume has to be steady enough to justify the seat all twelve months — not just in the spring market.
No salary, and capacity you can turn on. But your turnaround is now a position in someone else's queue, quality moves with whoever is on shift, and every file you send is client financial information leaving your control — which is your problem to account for under PIPEDA, not theirs.
The assessment happens on demand, at whatever hour the file lands, and the tenth file of the day gets the same treatment as the first. There is no queue to sit in and no shift to wait for. You stay the decision maker on every deal — the AI does the reading, the arithmetic and the first pass at policy fit.
We are describing our own product in the third column, so treat it as what it is — our argument, not a neutral review. The part worth checking independently is the first two columns, because those trade-offs are real regardless of who you buy from.
T4 and salaried, self-employed with two years of T1 Generals and Notices of Assessment, commission, seasonal, rental offsets and add-backs — calculated the way the lender you are going to will calculate it.
Trade lines, utilization, the difference between a bruised file and a declined one, and the payment obligations that actually load into the ratios rather than the ones that look alarming but do not.
GDS and TDS against the minimum qualifying rate, insured versus insurable versus uninsured treatment, and amortization limits — including where a file sits relative to the OSFI B-20 expectations your lender underwrites to.
Whether this deal belongs at an A lender, a B lender or a private, and what would have to change for it to move up a tier — before you burn a submission finding out.
The gaps that get a file returned: a missing page, a deposit that needs a source, a property type that will trip an appraisal condition, a co-signer whose income does not do what the applicant thinks it does.
A deal narrative you can actually send — the rationale, the exceptions you are asking for, and why this borrower is stronger than the ratios suggest, in the language a BDM reads.
An outsourced underwriting desk is a staffing business wearing a technology label. Its economics are headcount, so its capacity is headcount, so the moment your volume spikes — the exact moment you needed it — it is rationed. That is not a knock on the people doing the work. It is arithmetic.
There is also a quieter problem. When you send a file out, you are moving a borrower's income documents, bureau and identity information into another organisation's environment. That obligation stays yours. Fewer parties handling the file is not a nice-to-have; it is a smaller surface area.
So we built the tool instead. It is the same reason our answer to marketing is a content engine rather than a bigger agency retainer.
Most underwriting tooling is American, and it shows the moment you need insured versus uninsured treatment, a minimum qualifying rate, or a provincial licence framework. Ours starts here: OSFI B-20, the MQR, default insurance through CMHC, Sagen or Canada Guaranty, and the title your regulator actually uses — a FSRA mortgage agent Level 1 or 2 in Ontario, a submortgage broker under BCFSA, a mortgage associate under RECA in Alberta, a courtier hypothécaire under the AMF in Quebec.
The timing matters too. CMHC puts roughly 1.15 million Canadian mortgages up for renewal in 2026. Renewal season is precisely when underwriting capacity gets scarce and precisely when a file sitting in a queue costs you the client.
You can, and brokers do - but the usual options are hiring an in-house underwriter or sending files to an outsourcing shop, and both mean your turnaround depends on someone else's staffing. Treadstone offers a third route: an AI underwriter that assesses the file on demand, so capacity does not depend on who is available that afternoon.
No. Treadstone does not staff or place human underwriters, and does not run an outsourced underwriting desk. We build the AI alternative to doing either. If you specifically want a person on contract, we are not the right provider and will say so.
Fulfillment and Operations covers deal processing, document chasing and file management - the administrative work around a deal. Underwriting is the assessment itself: reading the income, the bureau and the property against lender policy. They are complementary, and many brokerages use both.
Yes. The AI produces a decision-ready assessment with its reasoning and the flags it raised. The licensed professional reviews, adjusts and submits. Nothing is submitted to a lender automatically, and accountability for the file stays exactly where your regulator puts it.
All of Canada. The underwriting logic is Canadian by construction - OSFI B-20 and the minimum qualifying rate, insured versus uninsured treatment, and the licence framework in your province, whether that is a FSRA mortgage agent in Ontario, a BCFSA submortgage broker, a RECA mortgage associate in Alberta or a courtier hypothecaire under the AMF in Quebec.
Engage AI underwriting is in early access and pricing is set with each brokerage rather than published as a list price. Join the early-access list or book a call and we will walk you through it.
Engage AI underwriting is in early access. Join the list and we will show you how it handles one of your real deals — or book a call and we will tell you honestly whether it fits how your brokerage runs.
