Anyone who needs a mortgage – in other words, anyone who isn’t buying their home outright – will need to consider the question of how much money to put down at the time of purchase. Since few people have the savings available to buy a home with cash, young, middle-aged and older Canadians all need to know exactly how much they can afford to put down on a new home.
Just to be clear, a down payment is the portion of the home’s final purchase price that you’re able to put forward at the time of purchase. Say the home you want to purchase is $400,000 – if you put down $40,000, your down payment is 10%.
How will this help me?
The good news is that you don’t need to put down a lot of money in order to get into a home. In many cases a home can be purchased with a down payment of just 5% – on a $400,000 home, that would be $20,000.
Of course, there are significant benefits to putting more money down. The higher your down payment, the less the amount of your mortgage. This could reduce each mortgage payment and may lower the amount of time required to pay off your home and the amount of interest you pay over the life of the mortgage. Nova Scotia does offer a Down payment assistance program. Click to learn more.