Mortgage payment calculator

The payment estimator shows what your monthly mortgage payment looks like based on three inputs: home price (the purchase price of the property), down payment (the cash you're putting in upfront — minimum 5% on the first $500,000 and 10% on the portion above, up to $1.5M), and interest rate (your contract rate with the lender). The amortization is the total length of time it would take to pay the mortgage off in full, and the term is how long your current rate is locked in (usually 1–5 years). The affordability estimator works in reverse: plug in your household income and existing debts and it estimates the maximum price range a lender would likely qualify you for.

CMHC insurance (also called default insurance or mortgage insurance) is required by law any time you put less than 20% down. It protects the lender — not you — if the mortgage goes into default, and the premium is added to your mortgage balance rather than paid out of pocket. The premium ranges from roughly 2.8% to 4.0% of the loan depending on your down payment. With 20% or more down, you skip CMHC entirely (called a conventional mortgage), but you also lose access to the lowest insured rates, so the math isn't always obvious — we run both scenarios on every file.

Amortization matters more than most buyers realize. A 25-year amortization is the max allowed on insured mortgages (less than 20% down) for resale homes, and it gives you a higher monthly payment but you pay far less interest over the life of the loan. A 30-year amortization — available on conventional mortgages, on new construction, and on insured first-time buyer purchases of new builds — drops the monthly payment by roughly 7–10% and frees up cash flow, but you'll pay tens of thousands more in interest by the end. Finally, the stress test rate is the higher of your contract rate plus 2% or the Bank of Canada's qualifying rate (currently 5.25%). Lenders qualify you at that higher rate, not your actual rate, to make sure you can still afford payments if rates rise at renewal. It's the single biggest reason a calculator number and a lender pre-approval can come back different — which is exactly why a real broker conversation beats any calculator on the internet.