Home Purchase Mortgage: What Buying a Home Actually Costs in 2026
You have the down payment saved, or nearly. What nobody told you is how much more you need on closing day, and how a $1 difference in price can change your down payment by $175,000. Here are the real numbers.
5% down to $500K, 10% on the portion above, 20% only once you reach $1.5M
Rate holds of 90 to 120 days so a long search does not re-price your mortgage
AI credit review and AVM property analysis before you write the offer, not after
Six questions. A licensed broker reviews it and comes back with real numbers — not a rate teaser.
Placed with Canada's banks, monolines, credit unions and alternative lenders
TD BankScotiabankRBC Royal BankCIBCBMONational BankMCAPFirst NationalMerix FinancialHome TrustEquitable BankCMLS FinancialRFA MortgageCommunity TrustHaventree BankRadius FinancialB2B BankManulife BankServus Credit UnionMeridian Credit UnionFisgard CapitalCWB OptimumDesjardinsVancityCoast Capital SavingsAlterna SavingsBridgewater BankHomeEquity BankWealth One Bank of CanadaCanadian Western BankTangerineICICI Bank CanadaMarathon Mortgage
Lender names shown for reference. Availability, pricing and guidelines vary by province, property and borrower profile.
A home purchase mortgage is the loan that funds the gap between your down payment and the price of the home, secured against the property itself. In Canada the size of that loan is not set by what you feel you can pay. It is set by three rules working at once: the minimum down payment tier your purchase price falls into, whether default insurance is available on that price, and the federal stress test, which qualifies you at a rate about two points higher than the one you will actually pay.
Most buyers only meet those rules after they have fallen in love with a house. That is the expensive order. A seller wants a firm offer, your agent wants a decision this weekend, and the bank wants two years of Notices of Assessment. The stress is not the paperwork. It is the feeling that the number you were given is soft, and you are about to sign something for half a million dollars on the strength of it.
This page lays out the arithmetic before you need it: the down payment tiers, the $1.5 million insured cap and the cliff at the edge of it, what the stress test does to your maximum, and the full cash you need on closing day in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. All figures are current for August 2026.
Signs you are about to be surprised by your purchase mortgage
These are the situations that send buyers to a broker mid-deal, usually with a financing condition running out.
The number keeps changing
One lender said $620,000, another said $540,000, and nobody explained the difference. Usually it is amortization, how your bonus or overtime is treated, or whether a car lease was counted.
You are shopping just over $1.5 million
At $1,499,999 you can buy with about $125,000 down. At $1,500,000 you need $300,000, because default insurance is not available at or above that price. Nobody warns you until the deal is written.
You saved the down payment but not the closing costs
In Toronto, a $750,000 purchase with 10% down needs roughly $102,000 in cash, not $75,000. Land transfer tax, sales tax on the insurance premium and legal fees are all payable that day.
Your income is real but hard to prove
Commission, overtime, shift premiums, bonus, or self-employment. A bank adjudicator often uses base salary only. Other lenders average two years of total T4 income, which can be tens of thousands higher.
You bought a car after getting pre-approved
Every $100 a month of debt payment costs you roughly $15,500 of mortgage at today's stress-test rate. An $800 truck lease can quietly remove about $124,000 from your approval.
The closing date moved and your rate hold expired
Rate holds run 90 to 120 days at most lenders. If the hold lapses before funding, the file re-prices at whatever the market is that week, and you re-qualify at the new stress-test rate.
How much down payment do you need for a home purchase mortgage in Canada?
The minimum down payment in Canada is set by price, in tiers: 5% on the first $500,000, 10% on the portion between $500,000 and $1,499,999, and 20% once the price reaches $1,500,000. The tiers are cumulative, not a flat percentage of the whole price, which is why so many online estimates come out wrong.
On a $750,000 home the minimum is $50,000, not $37,500 and not $75,000. That is 5% of the first $500,000 ($25,000) plus 10% of the next $250,000 ($25,000). Anything above the minimum is your choice, and the choice matters, because the mortgage default insurance premium falls in steps as your loan-to-value drops.
Below 20% down, default insurance is mandatory and the lender arranges it through CMHC, Sagen or Canada Guaranty. At 20% or more you are conventional, or uninsured. Uninsured rates are typically a little higher than insured rates, which surprises people: today the best insured five-year fixed is 4.09% and the best uninsured five-year fixed is 4.29%. You pay no premium, but you pay a slightly higher rate for the life of the term.
Minimum down payment by purchase price, Canada, August 2026
Minimum down payment by purchase price, Canada, August 2026
Purchase price
Minimum down payment
Worked example
Default insurance
Up to $500,000
5% of the price
$450,000 home = $22,500
Available
$500,000 to $1,499,999
5% of the first $500,000 + 10% of the rest
$750,000 home = $25,000 + $25,000 = $50,000
Available
$1,500,000 and above
20% of the price
$1,500,000 home = $300,000
Not available
Your down payment must be traceable. Lenders ask for 90 days of statements on every account the money sits in. Money that appears from nowhere three weeks before closing will stall the file, even when it is entirely legitimate.
The $1.5 million cliff: where a home purchase mortgage stops being insurable
The insured mortgage price cap is $1,500,000, raised from $1,000,000 on December 15, 2024. Below that cap you can buy with the tiered minimum down payment. At or above it, default insurance is simply unavailable, so 20% down becomes the floor at every lender.
This creates the sharpest edge in Canadian mortgage rules. At a price of $1,499,999 the minimum down payment is $124,999.90. At $1,500,000 it is $300,000. One dollar of purchase price changes the cash you need by $175,000.10. If you are shopping between about $1.45 million and $1.6 million, this single fact is worth more than any rate discount you will ever negotiate.
The cliff cuts the other way too. Buying just under the cap means a large insured mortgage and a large premium, and the insured payment can be higher than the uninsured one. Below is the same buyer at both prices. It is not a trick question: the cheaper house has the bigger monthly payment, because 91.67% of it is borrowed.
The insured cap, worked through: same buyer, $1 apart
The insured cap, worked through: same buyer, $1 apart
$1,499,999 purchase
$1,500,000 purchase
Minimum down payment
$124,999.90 (8.33%)
$300,000 (20%)
Default insurance
Available
Not available
Base mortgage
$1,374,999
$1,200,000
Insurance premium at 4.00%
$55,000 added to the loan
None
Total mortgage
$1,429,999
$1,200,000
Rate used
4.09% insured
4.29% uninsured
Monthly payment, 25-year
$7,592
$6,502
Ontario 8% PST on the premium, cash at closing
$4,400
$0
If you are within roughly $60,000 of the cap, run both versions before you write the offer. Sometimes the right move is to offer less. Sometimes it is to find another $70,000 and go conventional. Either way it is a decision, not an accident.
How much mortgage can I afford? GDS, TDS and the stress test
Your maximum mortgage is the smaller of two ratio tests, calculated on a payment at the qualifying rate rather than your contract rate. The Minimum Qualifying Rate is the greater of your contract rate plus 2% or 5.25%. On today's best insured five-year fixed of 4.09%, that means you are underwritten at 6.09%. On the best uninsured five-year fixed of 4.29%, you are underwritten at 6.29%.
Gross Debt Service (GDS) is housing cost as a share of gross income: the stress-tested mortgage payment, property tax, heat, and half of any condo fee. Total Debt Service (TDS) adds every other obligation: 3% of credit card and line of credit balances per month, car loans and leases at their full payment, student loans, and support payments. On insured deals the ceilings are 39% GDS and 44% TDS.
The stress test is not a formality. On a household income of $120,000 with $400 a month of property tax and $125 of heat, the qualifying rate removes about $112,500 of borrowing power on a 25-year insured mortgage compared with qualifying at the contract rate. That is the gap between the payment you can visibly afford and the payment the rules say you must prove you can afford.
Every $100 a month of debt payment costs roughly $15,500 of mortgage at a 6.09% qualifying rate over 25 years.
A $600 car payment costs about $93,000 of mortgage. An $800 truck lease costs about $124,000.
A $9,400 credit card balance is counted at 3%, or $282 a month, which is about $43,700 of mortgage.
Paying a card to zero and closing nothing else can move your approval more than a 0.25% rate discount will.
Minimum credit score for an insured mortgage is 600 for at least one borrower. Most A lenders want 650 or better in practice.
What the stress test does to a $120,000 household, no other debt, 39% GDS
What the stress test does to a $120,000 household, no other debt, 39% GDS
Product and contract rate
Qualifying rate
Max mortgage, 25-year
Max mortgage, 30-year
5-year variable, 3.35%
5.35%
$560,922
$608,364
5-year fixed insured, 4.09%
6.09%
$523,121
$562,069
5-year fixed uninsured, 4.29%
6.29%
$513,585
$550,516
For reference: 4.09% with no stress test
4.09%
$635,700
n/a
Total cash needed to close, by province
The down payment is not the closing cost. It is one line in a list. The rest, which is due the same day, varies enormously by province, and this is where Ontario buyers get hurt and Alberta buyers get a pleasant surprise.
Three things drive the difference. Ontario charges provincial land transfer tax and Toronto charges a second municipal land transfer tax on top, effectively doubling it inside the city. British Columbia charges property transfer tax but has generous newly built and first-time buyer exemptions. Alberta charges no land transfer tax at all, only land titles registration fees of $50 plus $5 per $5,000 of value, on both the transfer and the mortgage registration.
The fourth thing nobody budgets for: in Ontario, the 8% provincial sales tax on your mortgage default insurance premium is payable in cash at closing and cannot be added to the mortgage. Quebec charges 9% and Saskatchewan 6%. British Columbia and Alberta charge none. On a $675,000 insured mortgage that is $1,674 in Ontario and zero in Calgary.
Cash needed to close on a $750,000 home with 10% down ($675,000 mortgage, 3.10% premium)
Cash needed to close on a $750,000 home with 10% down ($675,000 mortgage, 3.10% premium)
Line item
Toronto, ON
Vancouver, BC
Calgary, AB
Down payment (10%)
$75,000
$75,000
$75,000
Land transfer / property transfer tax
$22,950 (provincial + municipal)
$13,000
$0
First-time buyer rebate available
-$8,475
-$8,000
No LTT to rebate
PST on the insurance premium (cash only)
$1,674 (8%)
$0
$0
Land titles registration fees
Included in legal
Included in legal
$1,550
Lawyer, disbursements, title insurance
$2,400
$2,050
$2,150
Total cash to close, first-time buyer
$93,549
$82,050
$78,700
Total cash to close, not a first-time buyer
$102,024
$90,050
$78,700
Alberta buyers save the most on closing day. A $750,000 purchase costs about $23,300 less to close in Calgary than in Toronto, before any first-time buyer rebate.
What these figures exclude
Your deposit is not extra money, it is credited against the down payment on closing. Beyond the table you should also budget property tax and utility adjustments reimbursing the seller for anything prepaid, a home inspection at roughly $400 to $700, moving costs, and an appraisal of $300 to $500 on uninsured deals. New builds add HST or GST treatment, development levies and occupancy fees that a resale purchase never sees.
CMHC insurance: what it costs and what you cannot add to the mortgage
Mortgage default insurance protects the lender, not you, and it is mandatory whenever your down payment is under 20%. The premium is a percentage of the mortgage amount that rises as your loan-to-value rises, and it is normally added to the mortgage rather than paid in cash. The provincial sales tax on that premium is the exception and must be paid at closing.
The premium is a real cost but it is not automatically the wrong choice. Waiting three more years to reach 20% in a rising market often costs more than the premium. It also buys you the lower insured rate. The honest comparison is premium plus interest at the insured rate against three years of rent plus whatever the house does in that time.
One planning point that is worth real money: the premium tiers are steps, not a smooth curve. Moving from 9.9% down to 10.0% down drops your premium from 4.00% to 3.10%. On a $675,000 mortgage that is a $6,075 saving for about $750 of extra down payment.
The premium can be added to your mortgage. The provincial sales tax on it cannot.
Ontario charges 8% PST on the premium, Quebec 9%, Saskatchewan 6%. BC and Alberta charge none.
Amortizations over 25 years carry a premium surcharge of 0.20%.
Non-traditional down payments, such as borrowed funds, carry a higher premium at 95% LTV.
Insured mortgages are only available on properties priced under $1,500,000.
CMHC premium by loan-to-value, standard Purchase product
CMHC premium by loan-to-value, standard Purchase product
Loan-to-value
Down payment
Premium
On a $500,000 mortgage
65% or less
35%+
0.60%
$3,000
65.01% to 75%
25% to 34.99%
1.70%
$8,500
75.01% to 80%
20% to 24.99%
2.40%
$12,000
80.01% to 85%
15% to 19.99%
2.80%
$14,000
85.01% to 90%
10% to 14.99%
3.10%
$15,500
90.01% to 95%
5% to 9.99%
4.00%
$20,000
25-year or 30-year amortization, and what CMHC Home Start changes
Since December 15, 2024, a 30-year insured amortization is available to all first-time buyers on any property type, and to any buyer of a newly built home whether they are a first-time buyer or not. CMHC delivers this through a separately named product called Home Start. Standard CMHC Purchase is still capped at 25 years, which is why some lenders will tell you 30 years is unavailable when it is simply a different product code.
The trade is straightforward and you should see both halves of it. A longer amortization lowers the payment and lowers your qualifying ratios, which is often the difference between an approval and a decline. It also costs a great deal more interest over the life of the loan and carries a 0.20% premium surcharge.
If you are uninsured with 20% or more down, 30-year amortization has always been available and needs no special product. Some lenders will go to 35 years on uninsured files. The stress test still applies either way.
A $600,000 insured mortgage at 4.09%: 25 years against 30 years
A $600,000 insured mortgage at 4.09%: 25 years against 30 years
25-year
30-year (CMHC Home Start)
Monthly payment
$3,185.46
$2,883.75
Payment difference
—
$301.71 lower per month
Total interest over the full amortization
$355,639
$438,150
Extra interest cost
—
$82,511 more
Premium at 90% LTV
3.10%
3.30% (+0.20% surcharge)
Who qualifies
Any borrower
First-time buyers on any property, plus all buyers of new builds
CMHC's first-time buyer definition for Home Start is broader than most people expect: you qualify if you have never owned in Canada, or have not occupied a home you owned in the current year plus the previous four, or have had a recent marriage or common-law breakdown.
Fixed vs variable in 2026: which is actually cheaper right now?
The Bank of Canada policy rate has been 2.25% since October 2025, held at six consecutive announcements, with the next decision scheduled for September 2, 2026. Prime sits at 4.45%. That has produced an unusual market: variable rates are meaningfully below fixed rates, which is the reverse of most of the last three years.
The best five-year variable today is around 3.35%, against 4.09% for the best insured five-year fixed. On a $500,000 mortgage over 25 years that is a payment gap of about $198 a month. The catch is that a variable payment moves with prime, and the stress test qualifies the variable at 5.35% rather than 6.09%, so it can also approve you for more house than a fixed would.
There is a third option most buyers never see quoted. A three-year fixed at 3.94% prices below the five-year fixed and lets you re-decide in 2029 without paying to break. If you think rates drift down but you cannot carry payment volatility, a shorter fixed term is often the honest middle.
Payment on a $500,000 mortgage, 25-year amortization, August 2026
Payment on a $500,000 mortgage, 25-year amortization, August 2026
Product
Rate
Monthly payment
Qualifying rate
Prepayment penalty if you break
5-year variable
3.35%
$2,456.93
5.35%
Three months' interest
3-year fixed
3.94%
$2,613.86
5.94%
Greater of three months' interest or IRD
5-year fixed, insured
4.09%
$2,654.55
6.09%
Greater of three months' interest or IRD
5-year fixed, uninsured
4.29%
$2,709.29
6.29%
Greater of three months' interest or IRD
Rates move. These are the best available rates as of August 2026 and are not a quote. Your actual rate depends on your credit, the property, whether the deal is insured, and the lender's current pricing. We will show you the live number for your file.
Mortgage broker vs bank for a home purchase mortgage
A bank can only offer you its own products. If your file does not fit that bank's policy on bonus income, rental offsets, self-employment, or property type, the answer is no, and the reason is rarely explained in a way you can act on. A brokerage submits the same file to many lenders and picks the policy that fits, which is a different exercise from rate shopping.
The differences that decide most files are not rate. They are how a lender treats variable income, whether it uses a 50% or 80% rental offset, whether it accepts a 30-year amortization on your product, how it counts a car lease with six payments left, and how quickly it can issue a commitment when your financing condition has four days on it.
At Lendmax the front end is deliberately technological. We run an AI-assisted read of your credit file to find what an underwriter will flag before they flag it, use automated valuation models to sanity-check the property against comparable sales, and compare offers across more than 30 lenders. Documents are signed digitally. The point is not novelty. It is that a file assembled properly the first time closes on time.
One credit pull, submitted to multiple lenders, rather than a hard inquiry at each bank.
Access to monoline and credit union lenders that do not have branches and do not advertise.
Policy matching on income type, property type and debt treatment, not just rate matching.
Broker compensation on standard A-lender purchase mortgages is paid by the lender, not by you.
A written comparison of the offers, so you can see what you are turning down.
How Lendmax structures a purchase file
The goal is a firm approval that survives contact with an underwriter, not a headline number that collapses when someone asks for a Notice of Assessment. That means doing the work in the right order: verify income first, verify the down payment second, then price the deal.
Every purchase is different, but the sequence is not. Here is what happens between your first call and your lawyer's office.
Read the credit file before the lender does — We pull one bureau and run an AI-assisted review of it: revolving balances counted at 3%, accounts that will trip a lender's tier cut-off, old collections, and inquiries that need explaining. Anything fixable gets fixed before submission, not after a decline.
Build the income the way an underwriter will — Salary, bonus, overtime, commission, self-employment and rental income are each treated differently by each lender. We calculate your qualifying income under multiple lender policies and use the one that is both highest and fully documentable, then confirm the down payment trail over 90 days.
Compare across 30+ lenders and hold a rate — We price the file at banks, monolines and credit unions at the same time, weighing rate against amortization, prepayment terms and penalty formula. Then we hold a rate for 90 to 120 days so that a long search does not re-price your purchase.
Underwrite the property, then close digitally — We run an automated valuation on the subject property before you write the offer, so a low appraisal is not a surprise on the day the condition expires. Commitment, conditions and signatures are handled digitally, and we work directly with your lawyer to funding.
This page covers: home purchase mortgage, how much mortgage can i afford canada, minimum down payment canada, down payment for a house in canada, cmhc insurance calculator, mortgage stress test canada, closing costs when buying a home ontario, what credit score do you need to buy a house in canada, fixed vs variable mortgage canada 2026, gds tds ratio, purchase plus improvements mortgage, how much do i need to buy a house in ontario, land transfer tax ontario first time buyer.
Case scenarios
Four situations, four sets of numbers
Four situations we see every week, with the numbers before and after. Names and figures are illustrative composites built from typical files — your own numbers will differ.
S
Simran
Mississauga, ON
Bidding at $1,530,000 with $190,000 saved, and 20% down was mandatory
Simran and her partner had sold their townhouse and netted $190,000. They were bidding on detached homes around $1,530,000. Their bank kept declining, and the reason given was that they needed 20% down. At that price default insurance is not available, so the minimum was $306,000 and they were $116,000 short with no way to bridge it.
Before
Target purchase price
$1,530,000
Minimum down payment required
$306,000 (20%, no insurance available)
Cash available
$190,000
Shortfall
$116,000
Financing status
Declined at two lenders
After Lendmax
Target purchase price
$1,450,000
Minimum down payment required
$120,000 (5% / 10% tiers)
Cash available
$190,000
Shortfall
None: $145,000 down plus $31,111 closing costs
Financing status
Insured approval, $1,345,455 at 4.09%
We showed them the cap arithmetic before their next offer. Staying under $1,500,000 moved them from the uninsured 20% rule back into the tiered minimums. At $1,450,000 they put down $145,000 (10%), the mortgage was $1,305,000 with a 3.10% premium added, and the insured five-year fixed came in at 4.09% with a monthly payment of $7,143. GDS came in at 37.7% on their combined $312,000 income.
An $80,000 lower price cut the required down payment by $186,000.
T
Tyler
Calgary, AB
Saving for 20% down when he only needed 5%
Tyler is 29, earns $101,000, and had been putting away $1,500 a month toward a $97,000 target because he believed 20% was the rule. He had $26,000 saved and roughly four more years of saving ahead of him, while the townhouses he wanted kept moving.
Before
Purchase price
$485,000
Down payment
$97,000 (20%) target
Time still needed to save
About 4 years
Mortgage including premium
$388,000
Monthly payment
$2,102 at 4.29%, 25-year
After Lendmax
Purchase price
$485,000
Down payment
$24,250 (5%)
Time still needed to save
None: closed in 47 days
Mortgage including premium
$480,102
Monthly payment
$2,307 at 4.09%, 30-year
As a first-time buyer Tyler qualified for a 30-year insured amortization under CMHC Home Start, at a 4.20% premium instead of 4.00%. Alberta charges no land transfer tax, so his total cash to close was about $27,470 including land titles fees of $1,070 and legal costs. GDS came in at 38.4% and TDS at 42.1% including a student loan payment. The 5% route costs him about $205 a month more than the 20% plan would have, and it started four years sooner.
Bought with $24,250 down instead of $97,000, roughly four years earlier.
M
Mei
Burnaby, BC
$20,000 short on a new-build townhouse, on a 25-year amortization
Mei and her husband had $210,000 for a $1,050,000 new-build townhouse, a clean 20% down. Their bank pre-approved them on a 25-year amortization and the maximum came out around $820,000 against the $840,000 they needed. Nobody mentioned that uninsured lenders will write 30 years, or that the property was exempt from property transfer tax.
Before
Purchase price
$1,050,000 new build
Down payment
$210,000 (20%)
Amortization offered
25 years
Max mortgage at the 6.29% qualifying rate
$820,468
BC property transfer tax assumed
$19,000
After Lendmax
Purchase price
$1,050,000 new build
Down payment
$210,000 (20%)
Amortization offered
30 years, uninsured
Max mortgage at the 6.29% qualifying rate
$879,466
BC property transfer tax assumed
$0, Newly Built Home Exemption
We placed the file with a lender that writes 30-year uninsured amortizations, which lifted the qualifying maximum by roughly $59,000 on the same $178,000 income. The property also qualified for BC's Newly Built Home Exemption, which fully exempts new homes priced at or under $1,100,000, removing $19,000 of property transfer tax from the closing statement. The $840,000 mortgage funded at 4.29% with a payment of $4,133.
A 30-year amortization added $58,998 of borrowing room, enough to close.
F
Fatima
Ottawa, ON
Declined at 40.4% GDS on a new build, and unaware of the GST rebate
Fatima and her husband had firmed up a $720,000 pre-construction townhome with $60,000 down, then their lender came back over the GDS ceiling and the builder's deadline was six weeks out. They also had not heard of the First-Time Home Buyers' GST Rebate, which had received Royal Assent five months earlier.
Before
New-build purchase price
$720,000
Amortization
25 years, standard CMHC Purchase
GDS at the 6.09% qualifying rate
40.4%, over the 39% ceiling
Monthly payment at 4.09%
$3,644
First-Time Home Buyers' GST Rebate claimed
$0
After Lendmax
New-build purchase price
$720,000
Amortization
30 years, CMHC Home Start
GDS at the 6.09% qualifying rate
38.0%, approved
Monthly payment at 4.09%
$3,305
First-Time Home Buyers' GST Rebate claimed
$36,000
Both buyers met the first-time buyer test, and the home was newly built, so the file moved to a 30-year insured amortization under CMHC Home Start at a 4.20% premium. That pulled GDS from 40.4% to 38.0% on their combined $148,000 income and the approval issued. Separately, because the agreement of purchase and sale was signed after March 20, 2025 on a new home under $1,000,000, they were eligible to claim the full federal GST back, up to the $50,000 maximum.
$36,000 recovered through the First-Time Home Buyers' GST Rebate.
Scenarios are illustrative composites for the purpose of showing how a solution is structured. They are not testimonials and do not represent specific clients. Figures assume Canadian semi-annual compounding and are rounded. Your rate, approval and savings depend on your credit, income, property and lender.
The brokerage advantage
Why a brokerage beats a single lender
Access to nationwide lenders
A single bank can only offer you the one product it sells. We are licensed across Canada and place files with dozens of lenders — chartered banks, monolines, credit unions, trust companies, alternative lenders and private capital. When one lender says no, that is the start of the conversation, not the end of it.
Specialized programs most borrowers never see
Stated-income and bank-statement programs for the self-employed, newcomer programs that accept international credit, rental-offset policies that make investment properties work, purchase-plus-improvements, extended amortizations, equity-only lending. These are real programs with real guidelines — they are simply not advertised at a branch counter.
Flexibility on how your file is structured
The same borrower can be an approval or a decline depending on which lender sees the file and how the income, debts and property are presented. We know which lender counts child support as income, which one will use a 30-year amortization, and which one will look past a bruised credit year.
Volume leverage on pricing
Lenders price for the brokerages that send them consistent, well-packaged, low-default business. That leverage is why a broker-sourced rate is frequently better than the posted rate — and why an exception request from us gets answered.
Experience with the file that is not straightforward
Power of sale timelines, tax arrears, CRA liens, separation agreements, business-for-self write-offs, construction draws, private-to-A exit plans. The complicated files are the ones where a broker earns their fee — and the ones we handle every week.
One advocate, start to finish
You are not re-explaining your situation to a new person at every stage. One licensed broker owns your file from the first call through to funding, and stays with you through renewal so the plan actually gets executed.
How it works
Our four-step process
1
Understanding the situation
We start with a real conversation, not a form. What is the payment doing to your month? What is the deadline? What has already been declined and why? Everything after this depends on getting this part right.
2
Finding a solution
Your file is matched against our full lender panel — banks, monolines, credit unions, alternative lenders and private capital — and structured to fit the guideline it will actually be approved under, the first time.
3
Negotiating rates
We do not accept the first number. Volume and lender relationships get your file priced as an exception, not as a walk-in. Then we compare the true cost — rate, penalty, prepayment terms and fees — side by side.
4
Stress-free closing
Documents are signed digitally, conditions are cleared by our team, and your lawyer is briefed before funding day. You get one point of contact from approval to keys, and a plan for what happens next.
Reviews
What clients say after closing
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Home Purchase Mortgage — frequently asked questions
The minimum is 5% on the first $500,000 of the price, 10% on any portion between $500,000 and $1,499,999, and 20% once the price reaches $1,500,000. On a $700,000 home the minimum is $45,000. Below 20% down, mortgage default insurance is mandatory and is added to your loan.
Between $1,000,000 and $1,499,999 you still use the tiers: $25,000 on the first $500,000 plus 10% of everything above it. A $1.2 million home needs $95,000. At $1,500,000 and above, default insurance is unavailable and the minimum jumps to a flat 20%, or $300,000.
No. At 20% or more down the mortgage is conventional and no default insurance is required. You will usually pay a slightly higher rate than an insured borrower, because insured mortgages carry less risk for the lender. Today that gap is about 0.20% on a five-year fixed.
Yes, the premium itself is normally added to your mortgage and amortized with it. The provincial sales tax on the premium is the exception and must be paid in cash on closing day. Ontario charges 8%, Quebec 9% and Saskatchewan 6%. BC and Alberta charge no sales tax on the premium.
The insured minimum is 600 for at least one borrower, and CMHC applies GDS of 39% and TDS of 44% at that level. In practice most A lenders look for 650 or higher, and the best rate tiers usually start around 680. Below 600 you are generally looking at alternative or B lenders, which price roughly 1% to 2% above A rates plus a lender fee.
Budget 2% to 4% of the purchase price on top of your down payment. On a $750,000 Toronto purchase with 10% down, expect roughly $27,000: provincial and municipal land transfer tax of $22,950, 8% PST on the insurance premium of about $1,674, and lawyer, title insurance and disbursements of about $2,400. First-time buyers can claim up to $4,000 provincially and $4,475 from the City of Toronto.
Take 30 years if the payment or the qualifying ratios are the constraint, and 25 if they are not. On a $600,000 insured mortgage at 4.09%, 30 years lowers the payment by about $302 a month but costs about $82,500 more in interest over the full term and adds a 0.20% premium surcharge. A 30-year insured amortization is available to first-time buyers on any property and to any buyer of a newly built home.
Use a bank if your file is straightforward and you value the existing relationship. Use a broker when something about the file needs a policy match: variable income, self-employment, a rental offset, an unusual property, or a tight financing condition. A brokerage submits one application to many lenders on a single credit pull, and on standard A-lender purchase mortgages the lender pays the broker, not you.