Can I get a regular mortgage to buy a home in a land-lease or mobile home community in Ontario?

Usually not on the same terms as buying a house on its own lot. In a land-lease community, you own the home itself but only rent the site it sits on under a tenancy governed by Part X of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006. Because there's no underlying land for a lender to take a mortgage against, a conventional real estate mortgage doesn't fit the transaction the way it would for a freehold purchase.

Lenders that finance these homes generally treat them more like a secured personal property loan (sometimes called a chattel loan) than a real estate mortgage, since the collateral is the home itself rather than land. That typically means different qualifying criteria, shorter amortization periods, and potentially less favourable rates than a standard residential mortgage, along with fewer lenders actively offering the product. Some homes registered and affixed in a way that makes them closer to a real property improvement may have more financing options, but this depends heavily on the specific community, the home's construction, and the lease terms. Before making an offer, it's worth confirming financing availability with a lender familiar with land-lease properties, since discovering financing limitations after a deal is signed can be a costly surprise.