Monthly Down Payment Monitor: November 2024

When mortgage rates are all anyone talks about, it can be easy to forget just how important a down payment is to home buying success.

Even during the COVID era, when rates were at historic lows, you would have been left out of the feeding frenzy if your down payment savings fell short of the required minimums.

That’s why NerdWallet developed this Monthly Down Payment Monitor: To help Canadian home buyers understand how much they might need to save in order to get approved for a mortgage.

Unlike interest rates, you can control your down payment savings. Once you have an idea of how much you’ll need to put down, you can build a savings strategy around that target amount.

Expect a long, slow process, but every dollar you put away literally gets you closer to owning your own home.

Down payment requirements in Canada: November 2024

The information in the following table is based on Canada’s minimum down payment guidelines and the average sale prices for October 2024 provided by provincial real estate associations.

Province	Average Sale Price October 2024	Minimum Down Payment Required	20% Down Payment
B.C.	$970,845	$72,085	$194,169
Alberta	$544,752	$29,475	$108,950
Saskatchewan	$324,302	$16,215	$64,860
Manitoba	$372,212	$18,611	$74,442
Ontario	$878,620	$62,862	$175,724
Quebec	$513,976	$26,398	$102,795
New Brunswick	$322,246	$16,112	$64,449
Nova Scotia	$444,067	$22,203	$88,813
PEI	$393,904	$19,695	$78,781
Newfoundland	$318,636	$15,932	$63,727

Regional highlight: Eastern Canada

The relative affordability offered by the housing markets east of Quebec make cities in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and PEI attractive to investors and willing-to-move home buyers alike.

The minimum down payment requirements are generally approachable in these communities, but putting 20% down is still a rather lofty goal, especially if a rowdy winter market drives prices higher.

Real estate boards sometimes use different measurements when analyzing their data, like average price, median price and benchmark price. (We explain the differences below.) For now, just focus on those minimum down payment numbers.

New Brunswick

Benchmark detached home price: $319,400
Minimum down payment required: $15,970

Benchmark condo price: $291,300
Minimum down payment required: $14,565

Nova Scotia

Benchmark detached home price: $403,300
Minimum down payment required: $20,165

Benchmark condo price: $472,100
Minimum down payment required: $23,605

PEI

Average detached home price: $408,148
Minimum down payment required: $20,407

Average condo price: $332,143
Minimum down payment required: $16,607

Newfoundland and Labrador

Benchmark detached home price: $308,600
Minimum down payment required: $15,430

Benchmark condo price: $258,300
Minimum down payment required: $12,915

Down payment savings tip: Aiming at a moving target

The Canadian Real Estate Association’s October home sales figures show that buyers are once again ready to rumble. With mortgage rates falling and mortgage rules loosening, it might not be long before rising demand knocks a hole in your local market’s housing supply and prices start inching up.

When you’re tracking a moving target like home prices, it’s important to aim where it’s going to be, not where it sits today. If your plan is to buy a home in early 2025, consider increasing your down payment goal to account for any price spikes that occur in the meantime.

It’s a tough time of the year to be thinking about saving money, but you may need to put more down if the market takes off. The property you want may cross the $500,000 threshold and no longer qualify for a 5% down payment. If you’re getting your mortgage from an alternative lender that requires a 20% down payment, that figure will continue to grow the more home prices increase.

Average price: This is the total sales volume, calculated in dollars, divided by the number of home sales. A monthly average price can be swayed by a few expensive properties, which makes it a somewhat unreliable metric for describing market trends. If three $10 million homes are sold in one month in Toronto, for example, it would increase the average price, but it wouldn’t necessarily mean all prices are rising.

Benchmark price: Benchmark prices are an interesting alternative to average prices. They’re the prices that buyers are expected to pay for a particular property type. Benchmark prices are determined using the Canadian Real Estate Association’s MLS Home Price Index, which is more of a modelling tool than an analysis of what’s actually happening in the market.

Median price: Median price is essentially the mid-point between the lowest- and highest-priced homes sold over a particular period. Half of the homes sold would be more expensive than the median, the other half would be less. It’s difficult to gauge the market using median price since it leaves you wondering how high home prices might be.