The price gets the headline; the deposit schedule decides whether a buyer can actually hold the deal. Of the 168 project records in this catalogue, 83 carry a full deposit structure, and 58 of those are also priced — so for 58 projects the entire cash path to closing can be read before anyone signs. The schedules fall into three families: percentage ladders, flat-dollar amounts, and schedules that split by product type. Here is each family with the dollars worked out.
Family one: the percentage ladder
The most common shape in the catalogue is a ladder — a reservation cheque, then instalments that climb to a stated percentage of the price. NOMI Urban Towns in Kitchener, priced from $449,990 (verified November 1, 2026), is the cleanest example on record:
Deposit schedule — NOMI Urban Towns, Kitchener
Price verified 2026-11-01
NOMI Urban Towns · Fusion Homes · Kitchener · from $449,990 · After estimated rebate; eligibility applies
$5,000 on reservation; balance to 5% in 30 days; $5,000 at 60, 90, 120 and 150 days; balance to 10% at 180 days. First-time buyers: balance to 2.5% in 30 days; $5,000 at 60 and 120 days; balance to 5% at 180 days (5% total)
On the from-price of $449,990, that ladder is these cheques:
| When | Cheque | Running total |
|---|---|---|
| Reservation | $5,000 | $5,000 |
| 30 days (balance to 5%) | $17,499.50 | $22,499.50 |
| 60 days | $5,000 | $27,499.50 |
| 90 days | $5,000 | $32,499.50 |
| 120 days | $5,000 | $37,499.50 |
| 150 days | $5,000 | $42,499.50 |
| 180 days (balance to 10%) | $2,499.50 | $44,999 |
Ten percent of the price is out the door inside six months. The same record carries a first-time-buyer track that stops at 5% total — $22,499.50 on this price — with smaller instalments at 60 and 120 days. Two buyers at the same project, same price, can face deposit totals $22,499.50 apart depending on which track they qualify for; the schedule, not the price list, is where that difference lives.
Vista Hills in Waterloo stretches the same ladder further: 15% total on a from-price of $569,900 is $85,485 — $5,000 on signing, $23,495 at firming (5% less the signing cheque), then $28,495 at 30 days and $28,495 at 90 days. Same mechanism, $40,486 more cash than NOMI’s standard track, on a price $119,910 higher. Percentage ladders scale silently with price; that is the thing to check first.
Deposit schedule — Vista Hills, Waterloo
Price verified 2026-10-21
Vista Hills · Activa · Waterloo · from $569,900 · After estimated rebate; eligibility applies
15% total — $5,000 on signing; 5% (less the $5,000) at firming; 5% at 30 days; 5% at 90 days (confirm current terms)
Cadence in Cambridge runs a finer-grained ladder — reservation, balance to 2.5% at firming, 2.5% at 30 days, then 1% steps at 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180 days for the urban townhomes, reaching 10% total. On the from-price of $649,990 that is $64,999 spread across eight touches instead of four — smaller individual cheques, same destination, and less warning before each one.
Deposit schedule — Cadence, Cambridge
Price verified 2026-10-21
Cadence · Fusion Homes · Cambridge · from $649,990 · After estimated rebate; eligibility applies
$5,000 reservation; balance to 2.5% at firming; 2.5% at 30 days; urban townhomes then 1% at 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180 days; two-storey townhomes and detached then 2.5% at 60 and 90 days — 10% total (Fusion Homes' Cadence deposit schedule, E.&O.E. January 2026)
Family two: flat dollars, whatever the price
Laurel Creek in Waterloo ignores percentages entirely for its towns: $60,000 total — $20,000 with the offer, $15,000 at 90 days, $15,000 at 150 days, $10,000 at 240 days — and $70,000 or $80,000 for detached homes depending on garage, over the same 240 days. Flat schedules cut both ways. On Laurel Creek’s from-price of $623,000 the town schedule works out to about 9.6% — under the 10% ladder norm. Buy a more expensive home in the same release and the flat $60,000 is a smaller share still; buy the cheapest and it is a bigger one. The percentage is yours to compute; the builder only publishes the dollars.
Marquis Series at Hazel Glenn in Cambridge is the same family, compressed: $15,000 on signing, $5,000 at 60 days, $10,000 at 90, 120 and 150 days — $50,000 total over 150 days, about 8.1% of its $619,381 from-price, but front-loaded into five months instead of eight.
Family three: the schedule splits by product
Some records carry a different schedule per product line. Wildflowers in Kitchener holds four: condo towns at $40,000 or $50,000 total in 60 days depending on the model, freehold towns at $50,000 in 60 days ($55,000 on 9–12-month closings), detached at $55,000–$65,000 by closing window, and Phase 8 quick move-ins at $35,000 with the offer. Reading one line of a split schedule and assuming it covers the release is the most common deposit mistake this catalogue can document — the line that applies is the one for your product type and your closing window.
How to read any schedule in this catalogue
- Total it yourself. Builders publish instalments; the sum — and its percentage of your actual unit price, not the from-price — is the number your cash flow has to meet.
- Count the days, not the cheques. 10% over 180 days (NOMI) and 15% over 90 days (Vista Hills) are different liquidity problems even at similar prices.
- “Balance to X%” means cumulative. Each step tops the total up to that percentage; it is not an additional X%.
- Watch the record’s own cautions. Vista Hills and Laurel Creek both close their schedules with “confirm current terms”; Cadence’s is marked E.&O.E. January 2026. Schedules change between releases — the date on the record’s price verification is part of the fact.
- Deposits are not the down payment discussion. What a builder collects and what a lender requires at closing are two separate calculations that meet at the final closing, not before.
Every schedule quoted here is the record’s own text, shown in full on its project page with its verification date. Where a project carries no deposit record, the catalogue says so rather than estimating one — 85 of the 168 records are in that state today, and closing that gap is data work, not copywriting.