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BC Real Estate Glossary

CMHC Default Insurance Cap

Also known as: CMHC · CMHC cap · CMHC insurance · CMHC default insurance · Mortgage insurance cap

The maximum home purchase price eligible for CMHC default mortgage insurance — raised from $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 effective December 15, 2024.

CMHC default mortgage insurance allows buyers to purchase a home with as little as 5% down (on the first $500,000) plus 10% on the portion between $500,000 and the cap. Effective December 15, 2024, the maximum eligible purchase price for default-insured mortgages was raised from $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 — the most material loosening of the high-ratio mortgage market in over a decade.

Above the $1,500,000 cap, conventional 20%-down financing is required. The same December 15, 2024 reform also extended 30-year amortization eligibility to all first-time home buyers and to all buyers purchasing newly constructed housing, regardless of the property's purchase price.

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Related terms

  • 30-Year Amortization Eligibility — Insured mortgages can be amortized over 30 years instead of 25, but only for first-time buyers and for anyone buying newly built housing.
  • OSFI Mortgage Stress Test (B-20) — OSFI Guideline B-20 requires federally-regulated lenders to qualify mortgage borrowers at the greater of (a) the contract rate plus 2 percentage points or (b) the Bank of Canada qualifying rate (5.
  • Bridge Financing — A short-term loan covering the gap between the day your down payment is due and the day the money from your old home actually arrives.
  • Leasehold Property in BC — With a leasehold you own the building or strata unit but rent the land under it from a long-term lessor.

See also

Cite this fact

Use any of these formats. Codex content is licensed under CC BY 4.0 — attribution required.

BibTeX — LaTeX, academic
@misc{bronsonjob-cmhc_insurance_cap,
  author       = {Job, Bronson},
  title        = {{CMHC default insurance maximum purchase price}},
  howpublished = {BC Real Estate Codex},
  year         = {2024},
  url          = {https://www.bronsonjob.com/codex#cmhc.insurance_cap},
  urldate      = {2026-08-02},
  note         = {Fact ID: cmhc.insurance_cap, version 2.}
}
APA — Press, journalism
Job, B. (2024). CMHC default insurance maximum purchase price. *BC Real Estate Codex*. Retrieved 2026-08-02, from https://www.bronsonjob.com/codex#cmhc.insurance_cap
Plain link — Slack, email, Twitter
CMHC default insurance maximum purchase price — Bronson Job PREC, BC Real Estate Codex (2026-08-02). https://www.bronsonjob.com/codex#cmhc.insurance_cap

Fact id: cmhc.insurance_cap · v2 · machine-readable: /api/v1/facts/by-id/cmhc.insurance_cap.json

Sources: CMHC · Government of Canada
Verified sources (2)· re-verified 2026-08-02Click to expand

Every claim on this page is sourced to a primary government, regulator, or industry-association URL. We re-verify quarterly; the verification dates below show when each source was last confirmed against the live government page.

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License: This definition is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Cite as: "CMHC Default Insurance Cap", BC Real Estate Glossary by Bronson Job, https://www.bronsonjob.com/glossary/cmhc-insurance-cap.

Bronson Job PREC, REALTOR® at Momentum Realty Inc. — Langley + Fraser Valley + Greater Vancouver
Bronson Job PRECREALTOR® · Momentum Realty Inc.GVR Member #6015742 · FVREB Member #FJOBBR