Affordability Calculator

The minimum is tiered, not a flat percentage. You need 5% of the first $500,000, 10% of the portion between $500,000 and $1,500,000, and 20% of the entire price above $1,500,000. On a $900,000 home that works out to $65,000, or 7.22% — not the 5% the headline rule implies. The $1,500,000 ceiling came into force in December 2024, raising the previous $1,000,000 cap and pulling a large band of urban purchases back into insured territory.

With $120,000 saved, roughly $600 a month of other debt payments, a 4.29% contract rate and a 25-year amortization, the qualifying math lands at about $684,000 — a mortgage of roughly $564,000 plus your down payment. The binding constraint there is TDS, not income in the abstract. Change the debt figure, the amortization, or the rate and the answer moves by tens of thousands of dollars, which is exactly what the calculator is for.

Because your lender will. Federally regulated lenders qualify you at the Minimum Qualifying Rate — the greater of 5.25% or your contract rate plus two percentage points — while you pay at the contract rate. A 4.29% mortgage is underwritten at 6.29%. The calculator reports both: the qualifying payment that determines your maximum price, and the lower payment you will actually make. The gap between them is not savings; it is the buffer the rule exists to create.

Dollar for dollar, but not more than that. Once your income caps the mortgage, every additional dollar of down payment raises the maximum price by exactly one dollar — it does not unlock extra borrowing. In the worked example on this page, the mortgage sits near $565,000 whether the buyer puts down $60,000 or $200,000; only the purchase price moves. The real gains from a larger down payment are crossing 20% to escape default insurance entirely, and the lower premium bands below it.

The premium is a percentage of the mortgage amount and steps down as your down payment rises: 4.00% at 5% to 9.99% down, 3.10% at 10% to 14.99%, and 2.80% at 15% to 19.99%. At 20% or more there is no premium. The premium is normally added to the mortgage rather than paid in cash — but the provincial sales tax on it is not: Ontario charges 8%, Quebec 9% and Saskatchewan 6% on the premium, payable at closing out of pocket.