Curb your spending
Curbing spending positively impacts home affordability by freeing up financial resources and increasing your ability to save for a down payment, reduce debt, or handle monthly mortgage payments comfortably.
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Mortgage Affordability
Mortgage affordability is your ability to comfortably manage your payments — not the largest number a lender is willing to approve.
Pay Off Debts
How to increase your mortgage affordability
We all want to buy the best house we can afford. But how do we increase our affordability?
Affordability is not one number handed down by a bank — it is the output of a formula, and every input in that formula is something you can move. Income, debt payments, down payment, amortization and credit score each shift the answer, sometimes dramatically.
Four Levers
What actually moves the number
Lower priced home
Although this may not be ideal, opting for a lower-priced home directly improves affordability by reducing the mortgage amount needed and lowering monthly payments, making homeownership more accessible and sustainable.
Reduce open accounts
Reducing the number of open accounts can positively impact affordability by improving your debt-to-income ratio, which can make you a more attractive borrower and potentially qualify you for better mortgage terms and interest rates.
Longer amortization
Opting for a longer amortization period spreads the loan payments over more years, resulting in lower monthly payments and potentially making the home more affordable within your budget. You pay more interest overall, so treat it as a tool rather than a default.
Do The Hard Work For Me
Let my Mortgage Affordability Calculator take care of it
This uses the same ratios lenders use — 39% GDS and 44% TDS — and qualifies you at the federal stress-test rate rather than the rate you will actually pay.
Affordability calculator
You could afford about
$0
- Mortgage required$0
- Down payment0%
- Maximum qualifying payment$0.00
- Payment at your actual rate$0.00
- Stress-test rate applied0%
Qualified at the greater of your rate plus 2% or 5.25%, using 39% GDS and 44% TDS. Lender policies vary — this is a planning estimate, not a pre-approval.
Down Payment Rules
The minimum you need in Canada
| Purchase price | Minimum down payment |
|---|---|
| $500,000 or less | 5% of the purchase price |
| $500,000 to $1,500,000 | 5% of the first $500,000 + 10% of the remainder |
| Over $1,500,000 | 20% of the purchase price |
Homes at or above $1.5 million cannot be insured, so 20% down is required. Budget separately for closing costs — land transfer tax, legal fees and title insurance typically add 1.5% to 4% of the purchase price.
Let’s talk through your options.
Book a 15-minute mortgage strategy call. No application, no credit pull — just a straight conversation about what you are trying to do and how the lending market would treat it.