Monthly payment

Your payment is fixed for the term on a fixed-rate mortgage, but how it splits between principal and interest shifts every month — early on, most of it is interest; later, most of it pays down your balance. That's amortization at work.

Switching from monthly to accelerated bi-weekly is the simplest way to pay less interest: you make 26 half-payments a year (the equivalent of 13 monthly payments instead of 12), which can shave two to four years off a 25-year amortization without you really feeling it.

Because Canada uses semi-annual compounding rather than monthly, the effective cost of a Canadian mortgage differs slightly from the posted rate. Our payment calculator uses the correct Canadian method, so the number you see is the number you'll pay.