Mortgage calculator

The mortgage calculator is an important tool to help you with understanding exactly what you can afford. Buying a home can be a daunting and financially intimidating task, so we have built this simple tool so you can see exactly how it will impact your monthly, semi-monthly, bi-weekly or weekly household budget. As you go through the house-hunting process, you can bookmark this page to quickly calculate the mortgage payment on any potential house purchase. Even if you’re not currently looking at properties, you can use this calculator for any property value amount just to see what the mortgage payment is like. An online mortgage affordability calculator can help reduce unwelcome surprises to your budget later.

You can use the mortgage payment calculator to run different scenarios and find out how much your mortgage payment will be. You also have the option to customize variables such as the down payment amount, mortgage rate, payment frequency, amortization, and choose between fixed or variable rate, to see the effects on your mortgage payment in Canada. You will be provided insights on how to minimize the amount of interest you pay by making prepayments on your mortgage principal.

To make this calculator simple to use, we’ve filled in some of the fields already. You can modify each field with your own information to calculate your mortgage payment. Try changing different fields to see how it increases or decreases your payment amount.

Property value: Add your current property value, your purchase price, or the estimated purchase price of a listing you’re considering making an offer on.

Down payment: This is the amount of savings you currently have that can go towards your purchase. If you are using this calculator on a property you already own, you can put the amount of money you have already paid down in this field.

Mortgage rate: By default, we’ve already included today’s 5-year fixed mortgage rate from Perch in this field. If you have another mortgage offer you would like to use, you can adjust the mortgage rate and mortgage type.

2nd mortgage: A second mortgage is a second loan that you take on your home. If you’re not sure what this is, you can ignore this field.

Mortgage rate type: Mortgages are either fixed or variable. You can read more about the differences between fixed mortgages and variable mortgages here.

Payment frequency: The most common payment frequency is monthly, however you can change the frequency based on your preference for managing your household budget.

Amortization: This is the number of years it will take for you to fully pay off your mortgage if you make your regular mortgage payments without prepaying.

If you’re not sure what to enter for these inputs, you can visit our rates page or open a Perch account to see what mortgage offers are available to you and what your estimated property value is.

There are a variety of different methods to reduce your mortgage payments, however this will differ depending on your situation. Some tactics to reduce mortgage payment can include extending your repayment term or refinancing your mortgage as it can relieve some of the monthly financial pressure. It’s advised to speak to your mortgage advisor first before making any decisions.

The amortization schedule or amortization table shows your remaining mortgage balance over time. Every time you make a mortgage payment, some of that money goes towards paying the mortgage interest and the rest goes towards reducing your mortgage principal or loan amount. Eventually, your mortgage principal will reach zero, meaning you no longer owe money to the lender and now own the property in full!

If you want to buy a home with a down payment of less than 20%, you’ll need mortgage default insurance, which is commonly referred to as CMHC insurance. This protects your lender in case you can’t make your mortgage payments. There are three mortgage insurance providers in Canada: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Sagen and Canada Guaranty Mortgage Insurance Company.

Your lender pays an insurance premium on mortgage loan insurance. This premium is calculated as a percentage of the overall mortgage and is based on the size of your down payment. Mortgage loan insurance premiums range from 0.6% to 4.50% of the amount of your mortgage. The bigger your down payment, the less you need to pay in mortgage loan insurance premiums. You can pay the insurance premium as a lump sum, or choose to add it to your regular mortgage payments.

In Canada, the minimum amount you need for your down payment is typically 5%. However, it also depends on the purchase price of your home.

A second mortgage is an additional loan taken out on a property that is already mortgaged. Since they are in second position (hence their name), it means that if the homeowner defaulted on their payments and the property was taken into possession, the lender in first position would always be paid out first, whereas the lender in second position runs the risk of not being repaid. To compensate for this added risk, mortgage rates for second mortgages are always higher than for principal mortgages.

Yes. Our mortgage calculator is completely free to use, along with all of our other calculators, rate comparison charts and articles.

Perch makes money through mortgage commissions which is paid by the lender. We don’t accept fees from lenders in exchange for preferential treatment. We only offer mortgages from regulated, trusted Canadian financial institutions. It’s always free to sign up for a Perch account or to use tools and calculators provided by Perch.