Reverse Mortgage

A reverse mortgage lets a homeowner aged 55 or older borrow against their principal residence without making any monthly payments. Instead of shrinking like a normal mortgage, the balance grows: interest accrues each period and is added onto what you owe, and the whole thing — principal plus every dollar of accumulated interest — becomes due only when the last borrower sells the home, moves out permanently, or dies. In Canada the two real providers are HomeEquity Bank (the CHIP Reverse Mortgage and CHIP Max) and Equitable Bank (PATH Home Plan, now sold as Reverse Mortgage Flex). This calculator projects that growing balance forward so you can see, in real dollars, how compounding without payments actually behaves over time.

What it answers

What your loan balance grows to after however many years you project, given that nothing gets paid down.
How much total interest accrues over that horizon.
The equity you would have left, assuming your home's value doesn't move.
Your loan-to-value today and how much higher it climbs by the end of the horizon.

What it deliberately does not cover

It does not tell you how much you would qualify to borrow. No lender publishes a precise, age-by-age percentage table — only broad statements like "up to 55% of value" (CHIP Max) or "up to 59%" (Equitable's PATH/Flex) — and the real number depends on your age, the property's location and type, and the lender's own underwriting. Get an actual quote or pre-approval and enter that figure as "Amount to borrow now." It does not guess where home prices go — the calculator deliberately holds your home value flat, so the only thing moving in this projection is the loan balance, which is real, calculable math rather than a price forecast. It does not add closing costs (appraisal, the independent legal advice every reverse mortgage requires, and a lender setup fee) to the balance unless you roll them into the amount you borrow. And it does not replace speaking with an independent lawyer — Canadian reverse mortgage lenders require borrowers to get independent legal advice before signing, specifically so someone explains the compounding balance to you outside the lender's own sales process.

Every input, explained

Current home value. A realistic current market value. The lender will order its own appraisal before funding, and CHIP and PATH/Flex both set a minimum appraised property value (roughly $250,000) to qualify at all.

Amount to borrow now. Not something this calculator estimates — take it from your own lender quote or pre-approval. This is the one number in the whole product that genuinely depends on individualized underwriting (age, property, location), so treating it as a formula here would be presenting a guess as a fact.

Interest rate. Reverse mortgage rates run well above a regular mortgage's — HomeEquity Bank's advertised CHIP fixed rates have run roughly 6.4–7.0% through mid-to-late 2026, and Equitable Bank's promotional PATH/Flex rates have run roughly 5.0–7.0% depending on the term and product tier. Use your own lender's current published rate; this default is illustrative, not a quote.

Years to project forward. How far ahead you want to see the balance grow. There's no fixed term to renew — the loan simply keeps accruing interest until it's repaid, whenever that happens.

How the math works

Because no payments are made, there's no amortization schedule to run — the balance is just the amount borrowed, compounded forward. Both CHIP and PATH/Flex disclose semi-annual compounding on their fixed-rate products, the same convention Canadian law requires on a regular mortgage: balance after t years = amount borrowed × (1 + rate ÷ 2)^2t. (This calculator steps it out one month at a time at the semi-annually-equivalent monthly rate, the same convention assets/js/calc-engine.js uses for every other mortgage calculation on this site — the result is identical to the direct semi-annual formula above.) Total interest accrued is simply the ending balance minus what you borrowed. Remaining equity is your home's value — held flat in this projection — minus that ending balance.

Worked example

A homeowner's home is worth $750,000. They borrow $200,000 now at an illustrative 6.94% rate and project forward 10 years.

Loan-to-value today: $200,000 ÷ $750,000 = 26.7%.
Balance after 1 year: about $214,121 — roughly $14,121 of interest added in the first year alone, on top of the $200,000 borrowed.
Balance after 10 years: $395,657 — nearly double the original $200,000, with no payments made along the way.
Total interest accrued over 10 years: $395,657 − $200,000 = $195,657.
Remaining equity after 10 years (home value held flat at $750,000): $750,000 − $395,657 = $354,343.
Loan-to-value after 10 years: $395,657 ÷ $750,000 = 52.8% — up from 26.7% today, entirely from compounding, since the home value in this projection hasn't moved at all.

That's the core trade-off of the product in one example: over 10 years, the amount owed grew by roughly $195,657 while nothing was paid down, and the loan-to-value nearly doubled — from about a quarter of the home's value to over half — purely from interest compounding on interest.

Provincial quirks and edge cases

Reverse mortgages are not currently available on properties in Yukon, the Northwest Territories, or Nunavut — both major lenders operate in all 10 provinces, including Quebec, but not the three territories.
In Quebec, a reverse mortgage is registered through a notary rather than a lawyer, the same as any other Quebec mortgage.
All owners on title must meet the minimum age (55) — if a spouse or co-owner is younger, ask the lender directly how that's handled, since options are limited and vary by lender.
Rural and recreational properties can qualify, but lenders often cap the amount lower than they would for a comparable urban property — ask your lender for a location-specific estimate rather than assuming the same percentage applies everywhere.
Most property types (single-family homes, condos, townhouses) are eligible, but each lender has its own minimum appraised value and condo-specific rules — confirm your specific property qualifies before assuming a number from this calculator is available to you.

Questions to ask a professional

Ask a reverse mortgage lender: "Based on my age and this specific property, what's the maximum I'd actually qualify to borrow today?"
Ask the independent lawyer required before you sign: "Walk me through exactly how this balance compounds, and what my estate will owe if I stay in this home another 10 or 15 years."
Ask a mortgage broker: "Given my situation, would a HELOC or a regular refinance cost me less than a reverse mortgage over the time I actually plan to stay in this home?"
Ask your family or estate executor: "Have we talked about how a growing loan balance affects what's left when this home is eventually sold?"

Frequently asked questions

How much can I actually borrow with a reverse mortgage?

There is no fixed, published formula — no lender publishes a precise age-by-age table. HomeEquity Bank advertises up to 55 percent of your home's value with its CHIP Max product; Equitable Bank advertises up to 59 percent with its PATH/Flex product. Where you actually land within that range depends on your age, the property's location and type, and the lender's own underwriting. Get a real quote or pre-approval from a lender and enter that amount here — this calculator does not estimate it from your age.

Does the interest really compound, or is it simple interest?

It compounds. Both CHIP and PATH/Flex disclose semi-annual compounding on their fixed-rate reverse mortgages — the same convention required by law on a regular Canadian mortgage. An adjustable-rate reverse mortgage compounds monthly instead. Either way, because nothing is paid down, each compounding period's interest is added to the balance, and the next period's interest is then charged on that larger number.

What happens if the balance ever grows bigger than my home is worth?

Canadian reverse mortgages carry a no-negative-equity guarantee. As long as you have kept up property tax, insurance and your other mortgage obligations, you or your estate will never owe more than the home's fair market value when it is sold — the lender absorbs any shortfall, not you.

Reverse mortgage or HELOC — which is better?

It depends on whether you can carry a payment. A HELOC usually costs less and its balance only grows if you draw more or skip the interest-only minimum, but it requires ongoing payments and you have to qualify on income and credit, like a new loan. A reverse mortgage needs no monthly payment and no income or credit qualification, but it costs more and the balance compounds against you every period regardless. Run both — see the Home Equity calculator for the HELOC side.

Rules and rates as of September 2026. This is general information for Canadian home buyers and sellers, not financial, legal, or tax advice. Rules and rates change; confirm current figures with your lawyer or notary, your lender, or the government office that administers the tax before relying on them.