Clinton

Lending in Clinton, BC

Clinton is a classic Cariboo town, a place brokers will see on Highway 97 between Cache Creek and 100 Mile House. It has a genuine Gold Rush identity. The main street still has that frontier look, and the community leans into its history with things like the Annual Ball, running since the 1860s. This isn’t a manufactured theme; it’s the real deal, with roots in ranching, forestry, and its history as an important stop on the old Cariboo Wagon Road.

For any deal in Clinton, you have to start with the town’s scale and economic reality. The population is shrinking—it dropped over 11% in the last census to just 568 people. The demographic also skews much older, with a median age of 59 and over a third of residents being seniors. Right away, that tells us the real estate market is thin. This is a stable community, not a high-growth one. The economy is exactly what you’d expect for the region: agriculture and forestry are major employers, along with retail and construction. But it’s not a high-income economy. Median household income is just $48,000, the unemployment rate is a stubborn 10.9%, and the overall employment rate is low at 37.5%. These aren’t just numbers; they’re direct flags for market depth and a borrower’s ability to weather a downturn.

This context is everything for a broker sending us a file from here. We see Clinton as a place for a specific type of person—someone choosing a quiet, rural life with great access to the outdoors. But that lifestyle comes with trade-offs. The climate is challenging, with a Plant Hardiness Zone of 4b, meaning long, harsh winters. You don’t get a fast-moving, liquid real estate market. With over 86% of the housing stock being single-detached homes and a large senior population, inventory moves slowly. In a foreclosure, our recovery timeline gets stretched out. Finding a qualified buyer would take time, and the carrying costs would eat into any recovery.

Our first question is always about the exit. Protecting our investors’ capital means we plan for the worst-case scenario from day one. In a small, shrinking market like Clinton, the risk is higher. We have to be brutally honest about resale values and how long it would take to liquidate a property without crashing the local market.

This is why our exposure in Clinton is limited. We’ll look at deals, but we are extremely conservative. Our maximum loan-to-value is 50.0%. Any file you send needs a strong borrower, a clear purpose, and a rock-solid exit strategy that doesn’t depend on a quick sale. We can make deals work in towns like Clinton, but our terms will always be grounded in the on-the-ground reality.