When buying a home, you are required to provide a minimum 5% of the purchase price as down payment.
If the purchase price is greater than $500,000 then 10% is required for the amount over the $500,000 price.
What sources can be used for a down payment?
Your down payment can come from your personal savings, RRSPs – Registered Retirement Savings Plans, TFSAs – Tax Free Savings Plans, Gifted Funds, borrowed funds, and /or existing equity in the property you may be selling.
Closing costs
Apart from the down payment you will also be required to provide you have access to up to 1.5% of the purchase price of your home available for closing of the home purchase transaction such as the legal fees, utility connections, and moving costs etc. These are referred to as closing costs.
Documentation
It is most common practice for lenders to require 90 days worth of banking statements from the accounts your down payment is coming from. We your brokers and the mortgage underwriter will require to complete a paper trail of all the withdrawals and deposits. If you have been moving money around between bank accounts or even opening new accounts, following and proving the trail of the cash can become quite tedious.
Before you start moving your down payment money around- talk with your mortgage sister. We are here to help!