The answer seems to be yes. Please note the mortgage is not usually 70% of the purchase price, it is 70% of the appraised value. With our bank, we didn’t get to choose the firm that did the appraisal. The first house we had appraised, the house was valued less than the agreed purchase price. The second house we appraised was valued higher than the agreed purchase price. This meant 80% of the valuation actually covered the entire purchase price. In other words we got a 100% mortgage and only had to pay the additional 13% transfer tax and notary fee.