Making a down payment of 20% eliminates private mortgage insurance, meaning the lender has less security of being protected if you default on your mortgage compared to if you made a down payment of less than 20%. Therefore, mortgage rates increase accordingly.  

If, on the other hand, you make a down payment of 25%, you decrease the risk to your lender enough that they will offer rates comparable to the rates you will find attached to a high-ratio mortgage. In fact, in order to secure low rates in the high-ratio mortgage category, some lenders will require a down payment of 35% or more. 

The down payment for a house in Canada will vary, depending on the lender. However, the minimum down payment will look like this (broken down by final sales price): 

Under $500,000 

While it varies depending on your lender, the minimum down payment on a house in Canada is 5% on a property priced under $500,000. To calculate what the 5% down payment will look like, you can multiply the final sales price of the property by 0.05.  

Between $500,000-$999,999 

If the home you are buying is between $500,000 and $999,999, you will have to make a down payment of 5% for the first $500,000 of the buying price and 10% for the amount above the $500,000. To calculate the minimum down payment in this case, you can multiply the first $499,000 by 0.05 ($24,950) and the remaining amount by 0.1. The sum of the resulting two numbers is your minimum down payment.