Should I Put 20% Down To Purchase A Home?

The short answer is: probably – if you have it.

The main reason is that if you put less than 20% down, you will pay an expensive insurance premium (CMHC).

So when should you put less than 20% down? The obvious answer is: when that’s all you have available.

The other advantage to putting 20% down is that the qualification criteria are generally less strict and the amount you can qualify for, jumps up a bit.

Should you put more that 20% if you have it? Again, that depends.

If you have 35% down, your interest rate can take a nose dive. The reason is that when you hit the 35% down mark, you reach a kind of “low risk threshold” that the banks love. When you put that much down, the rates can be very similar to mortgages insured by CMHC where you pay a premium to guarantee the mortgage to the lender.