A $1 million home in Newmarket needs $75,000 down, not $200,000

A $1,000,000 home in Newmarket needs $75,000 down, not $200,000. The rule most people are working from changed on December 15, 2024, and a lot of Newmarket buyers are still saving toward a number that has not applied for over a year.

The catch is real, and I will get to it: the down payment was never the hard part. But if you have been told you need twenty percent to buy in this town, that is out of date by $125,000.

What actually changed

Mortgage default insurance is what lets you buy with less than 20% down. Until December 2024, it was only available on homes priced under $1 million — a ceiling set in 2012 and never adjusted while prices doubled around it.

On December 15, 2024 that ceiling moved to $1.5 million. The minimum down payment on anything between $500,001 and $1,499,999 is now:

• 5% of the first $500,000
• 10% of everything above $500,000

At $1.5 million and above, you still need 20% and the mortgage cannot be insured at all.

Why this matters more in Newmarket than almost anywhere

Newmarket's MLS composite benchmark price is sitting right around $1.0 million, down about 6.3% year over year in a market that has moved back to balanced.

That is the old ceiling, almost exactly. Newmarket spent years as a town where the twenty-percent rule genuinely applied to a typical house. It doesn't any more, and the change is recent enough that plenty of people — including some who work in real estate — have not updated the advice they hand out.

The real numbers on a $1,000,000 Newmarket home

The gap between those two down payments is $125,000. For most households that is not a savings target, it is a decade.

The costs that don't get mentioned

Putting less down is not free, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

The insurance premium is $37,000 and it gets added to your mortgage, so you pay interest on it for the whole amortization. Ontario charges 8% PST on that premium — about $2,960, and unlike the premium itself, that has to be paid in cash on closing day.

Add Ontario land transfer tax of $16,475 on a $1M purchase — less the $4,000 first-time buyer rebate if you qualify, so about $12,475. You can estimate your own with the land transfer tax calculator.

Now the part that actually stops people

It is not the down payment. It is qualifying.

On a $962,000 mortgage at a 4.19% five-year fixed over 25 years, the payment is about $5,160 a month. But you are not approved on that rate. You are approved on the stress test — the greater of your contract rate plus two points, or 5.25%. That is 6.19%, which puts the qualifying payment near $6,264.

Add heat and property tax, and a lender wants that total to sit inside roughly 39% of gross household income. On those numbers you are looking at a household income in the region of $210,000.

So the honest version is this: the down payment rule opened a door that used to be shut, and the income test is still standing right behind it. Anyone telling you a $1M home in Newmarket is now easy has skipped the second half.

The lever that helps most

Insured 30-year amortizations are available to first-time buyers and to buyers of newly built homes. On the same $962,000 mortgage that drops the payment from $5,160 to about $4,678 — roughly $481 a month — and lowers the income you need to qualify by something like $13,000 a year.

You pay more interest over the full life of the mortgage. That is the trade, and it is a real one. But it is the difference between qualifying and not for a lot of Newmarket files, and you can always shorten it later with prepayments.

Who this changes things for locally

Two groups in particular.

Households with strong income and a thin down payment. Newmarket has a lot of them — Southlake is one of the region's largest employers, and shift premiums and overtime can build an income that qualifies long before savings reach $200,000. How lenders treat that income varies enormously between them, which is a separate conversation and one worth having before you shop.

GO commuters. Newmarket sits on the Barrie line, roughly 58 minutes to Union with no transfer. That combination — a Toronto salary against a York Region price — is exactly the file the insured rules were widened for.

If you want the wider picture on how lenders read Newmarket files, I wrote a guide to the local market, and the service overview lives on my Newmarket page.

What I would do first

Not save. Find out what you qualify for. The down payment number is now easy to work out; the approval number is not, and it depends on how a specific lender reads your income, your credit and the property. Two lenders can differ by six figures on the same file.

Run a rough estimate yourself with the affordability calculator, then have someone check it against what lenders are actually approving this month. It costs nothing and it stops you saving toward the wrong target for another two years.

Buying your first home in Newmarket?

Send me your income, your down payment and your timeline, and I will tell you honestly whether a $1M purchase works on today's rules — and what price does, if it doesn't. Start with the first-time buyer options, or call me at (437) 961-0004.

Garry Sidhu is an Ontario Mortgage Broker, Licence #M21004814, operating under Akal Mortgages Inc., Brokerage Licence #10845. He helps borrowers compare mortgage options from 88+ banks, credit unions and specialty lenders across Ontario.

This article provides general information, not individualized financial or legal advice. Figures are illustrative and use a rate from the lender sheet effective August 17, 2026; property tax and heating costs are estimates and vary by property. Mortgage eligibility, rates and terms depend on the borrower, property and lender. Insurance premiums and qualifying rules are set by the insurer and the lender, not by me. Speak with a licensed professional about your situation. O.A.C. Last updated: August 20, 2026.