What is MLI Select, and what is it not?
MLI Select is CMHC's mortgage loan insurance for multi-unit rental buildings. CMHC insures the lender against the borrower's default, so the lender can lend on terms an uninsured loan would not reach. In exchange, the building's owner makes commitments on affordability, energy and accessibility, scored in points, and the points the building earns set the terms of its loan.
The insurance has a price, the premium, which CMHC sets and the project pays; CMHC repriced the program on 14 July 2025 (CMHC, as published, read 24 October 2026). It is not a grant and not a loan from CMHC: the lender lends, the program insures, and no money comes from the program itself. Nor does it fix the builder's price, carry the equity or set the rents of the units outside the commitment.
The terms on this page are CMHC's for new construction, as published on its page dated 21 September 2026 and read on 27 October 2026; a standing building bought or refinanced is not read here. An application reaches CMHC through a lender, and under Helio's programmes it goes through a broker. The commitments behind the points are the owner's to keep for as long as they run, so a board reads them as obligations, not as features of a loan.
How does a project earn its points?
Points come from three commitments, and they add up across them. Affordability is scored by the share of units held at or under the affordable rent, a ceiling CMHC sets at 30% of the median renter income for the area: for new construction, 10% of the units held for ten years earns 50 points, 15% earns 70 and 25% earns 100, and a twenty-year commitment adds 30 (CMHC, as published on the page dated 21 September 2026, read 27 October 2026). For Halifax that ceiling is $1,248 a month (CMHC, as published, as of 12 October 2026).
Energy and accessibility are scored on the building itself: energy by how far it performs better than Tier 1 of the 2020 national energy code for buildings, accessibility by the share of units built accessible or to universal design under CSA B651, with every unit visitable and the common areas barrier-free. Each scores in steps, energy up to 50 points and accessibility up to 30 (CMHC, as published, read 27 October 2026). Unlike affordability, they change the building, not the rent roll.
Points are a means, and a board should weigh them by what they buy. A tier can be reached by more than one mix of the three, each with its own cost: rent the building does not collect, or performance it pays for in the drawings. That leaves the question the figure below answers: what does each tier buy, and what did the top one do on one building?
| 50 pointsdebt coverage at least 1.1 | up to 95% of cost · up to 40 years · recourse |
|---|---|
| 70 points | up to 95% of cost · up to 45 years · recourse |
| 100 pointsthe tier the organisations programme pencils on | up to 95% of cost · up to 50 years · limited recourse |
| Affordabilitythe share of units at or under 30% of the median renter income for the area, held for ten years; a twenty-year commitment adds 30 points | 10% of units: 50 · 15% of units: 70 · 25% of units: 100 |
|---|---|
| Energythe building's performance against the 2020 national energy code for buildings (or the national building code's tiers) | 25% better than Tier 1: 20 · 50% better: 35 · 60% better: 50 |
| Accessibilityaccessible or universal-design units under CSA B651, with every unit visitable and the common areas barrier-free | 15% of units accessible, or 15% universal design: 20 · 15% accessible and 85% universal design, or every unit: 30 |
| The affordable rent for Halifax | $1,248 a month, CMHC MLI Select, as published, as of 12 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| The template eight, everything in | $2,417,056 on a $600,000 lot, the builder's price, design and legal lines held fixed |
| The insured loan at 100 points | $2,119,713, up to 95% of cost over fifty years on the worked case |
CMHC's MLI Select terms, as published (CMHC's page dated 21 September 2026), read 27 October 2026; the affordable rent under MLI Select for Halifax, CMHC, as of 12 October 2026; the worked case from the desk's engine, 15 October 2026. measured the tiers and the rent · inferred the worked case. Whether a project qualifies is CMHC's decision on its file.
What does each tier do to the loan?
For new construction, every tier insures a loan of up to 95% of the cost, so the points do not raise the leverage on a new building; they lengthen the loan and, at the top, lighten its recourse (CMHC, as published on the page dated 21 September 2026, read 27 October 2026). At 50 points the loan is amortised over up to 40 years, with recourse and a debt coverage of at least 1.1; at 70 points, over up to 45 years; at 100 points, over up to 50 years, with limited recourse (CMHC, as published, read 27 October 2026). Debt coverage is the rent left after operating costs, divided by the year's loan payments, and limited recourse narrows how far the lender can reach past the building to the borrower.
A ceiling is not a loan. The loan is also held to the coverage the rents can carry. On the worked case, the template eight on a 600 m² lot in Dartmouth with two of its units at the affordable rent, the insured loan at 100 points is $2,119,713 against $2,417,056 everything in, on a $600,000 lot (the desk's engine, 15 October 2026). That loan sits under the ceiling because the rents, not the ceiling, set it. This is why the length of the loan matters more than its headline share: spread over a higher tier's longer amortisation, the same loan costs less each year, so the same rents carry a larger one.
What the tier does not change is the rest of the project. The premium sits in the cost at every tier, and the builder's price, the land and the rents of the units outside the commitment are the project's own. A pro forma at the top tier should show the premium in its cost, and the commitment in its rent roll for as long as the commitment runs.
What does the affordability commitment cost?
The commitment is paid in rent the building does not collect. A unit held at the affordable rent gives up the difference between $1,248 a month (CMHC, as published, as of 12 October 2026) and what it would otherwise rent for, every month the commitment runs. Because the ceiling comes from the area's renter incomes and not from the unit, the size of that difference is set by the market around the building, and it is not the same across the region.
On the worked case the commitment is the two one-bedrooms, held at the affordable rent while the six two-bedrooms rent at the market: two of eight is 25% of the units, which earns 100 points on affordability alone (CMHC, as published, read 27 October 2026; the desk's engine, 15 October 2026). Two units give up their difference; the whole loan gains the longest amortisation and limited recourse. Whether the trade pays is the project's arithmetic, and how wide the difference runs, area by area, is read in where affordable housing pencils in Halifax.
For an organisation whose mandate is affordable housing, the commitment is often the mandate itself, a cost it meant to carry; for an owner building to rent at the market, it is a real line in the pro forma. The province's Affordable Housing Development Program measures affordable differently, at 20% below average market rent for fifteen years (the program page, verified 24 October 2026). A project that uses both holds its affordable units to each program's measure, for each program's term.
Can energy and accessibility carry a project without affordable units?
Part of the way. On CMHC's tables as published (the page dated 21 September 2026, read 27 October 2026), the most energy can earn is 50 points and the most accessibility can earn is 30, so a building with every unit at the market stops at 80: enough for the 70-point tier, short of 100. The top tier needs an affordability commitment of some kind. At its shallowest, a twenty-year commitment on 10% of the units earns 80 points, and the first energy step adds the 20 that make 100 (CMHC, as published, read 27 October 2026).
On an eight-unit building, then, the top tier can be reached two ways: two units at the affordable rent for ten years, or one unit for twenty years, 12.5% of the eight and over the 10% step, with the building 25% better than Tier 1 of the 2020 energy code (CMHC's tables as published, read 27 October 2026). Which costs less is the project's arithmetic, rent given up on one side and a better envelope and systems on the other. The worked case on the organisations page takes the first route.
Energy and accessibility points are earned in the drawings, so they have to be decided early. An energy target chosen after the structure and systems are set is far more expensive to reach, and an accessible layout is cheaper to draw than to renovate into. That is why the points belong in the first analysis and the design, while the building is still a set of decisions rather than a fixed drawing.
A tier on CMHC's tables is not a tier on a file. Whether a project qualifies, and on which commitments, is CMHC's decision on the project's own file.
What does MLI Select leave to the rest of the stack?
Insured debt is the base of the stack, and even at its ceiling it leaves part of the cost to someone else. On the worked case the loan the rents carry sits under that ceiling (the desk's engine, 15 October 2026), so the share left over is larger than the ceiling alone would leave. That share is what the equity and the grants have to carry, and it widens as the rents fall against the cost.
For an organisation, the province's program asks 5% equity from a community group, and the rest is the loan and the grants, with the province's forgivable loan on the affordable units (the program page, verified 24 October 2026). Each program runs on its own clock, and which of them a project can reach, in which window, is set for one mandate at a time; how the stack is assembled is set out in how affordable housing gets developed without land or a team, and the programs in force are on the organisations page. No grant is assured by anything written here.
What changes for the owner of an ER-3 lot?
The loan is the same; the decision around it is not. On the ER-3 programme, a template eight, on a lot where the zone allows eight, carries one insured loan under MLI Select on the affordability path, the construction loan converting into it at lease-up, with the two one-bedrooms at the affordable rent (CMHC MLI Select as published; the ER-3 page's comparison, as of 15 October 2026). The commitment is the owner's to keep, as it would be an organisation's.
For an owner the commitment is not a mandate but a cost, set against a choice: building, or selling the lot as it stands. The ER-3 page's comparison sets the lot sold today against the equity a finished eight leaves at lease-up, and where the numbers say sell, the reading says sell. What the zone allows on the lot comes first, and is set out in what your lot allows in Halifax; every ER-3 lot is on the ER-3 page.
What Helio does, and what happens next
Under the organisations programme, Helio brings the site, the pro forma that pencils under the programs in force, the applications through a broker and the builder's price fixed in its contract, for a stated fee, and stays on the file to hand-over. Neither Helio nor the builder takes a share of the building, and no grant is assured.
The first step is the mandate analysis, ten business days. Tell us the mandate, who the units must serve and the funding you hold or can reach: within one business day Lloyd calls, and the analysis ends in a readout with your board or its committee, one or two candidate projects that pencil, with the stack, the timeline and the first window, or an honest "not yet". The owner of an ER-3 lot asks for the lot's reading on the ER-3 page.
Weighing the points for a building your organisation could own? Tell us the mandate; the analysis reads them against the rest of the stack.
Ask for the mandate analysisWhere affordable housing pencils in Halifax
The affordable rent against what the market asks in five areas: what each affordable unit gives up, and the stack that has to carry it.
How affordable housing gets developed without land or a team
What an organisation brings and what it lacks, who does what from the analysis to the keys, and how the stack around the insured loan is assembled.
What your lot allows in Halifax
Four to eight units on an ER-3 lot, set by the lot's area, and the reading that sets building against selling.
Figures in this guide carry their date and source; method and limits of the underlying map data are on the methodology page. Spotted an error? Correct a record.