Are you considering a move to or within Ottawa? Is an Ottawa Urban Neighbourhood being considered? Want to walk to work or school? Ottawa used to be a small city with a well defined core of urban neighbourhoods. Certainly Centretown, the Golden Triangle, the Glebe, Lowertown and Sandy Hill would have been considered “urban” for the last 60 to 100 plus years.
According to CMHC-SCHL the Government of Canada just released several tools and resources to help with the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive program.
These include:
1/ the product highlight sheet (PDF)
2/ the online calculator on the government website
3/ all about the program on the government website
4/ all about the process on an awkward government website, that may or may not work for you
Possibly, the most important question is how the “loan” is paid back. According to a quick review of provided info, you can pay back the full loan if you want at any time. If you sell the home you need to pay back as a percentage of the sale price.
For example, you “borrowed” 10% of value of a new home. When you sell you must pay the government of Canada 10% of the sale price, whether value went up or down.
For resale (not new) homes the max is 5% of value.
Why not borrow the full amount you can, and then if value goes up a lot, pay off the full loan just prior to selling? Not yet clear how this would be handled.
I expect there will be MANY more questions about the process and requirements. It really doesn’t seem like the government thought this program through…but it does line up nicely for a fall election.
There is no doubt that first time buyers are finding it MUCH harder to buy a home in the Ottawa market. Hopefully this program will help in a meaningful way.
Buying a home may initially seem daunting but following these steps can help to simplify the process. I see many first time buyers unsure of how to begin searching for a home and these are the tips I give them.
The Ottawa Real Estate Board (OREB) just released their statistics and comments on the market for January 2019.
Despite the record snowfall and cold weather the number of sales were the highest for the month of January is several decades.
Highlights include:
Quick overview of what’s happened in Ottawa’s condo (re)sale market over the last several years and what may happen going forward in 2019.
The Ottawa Real Estate market was somewhat crazy at times in 2018. There were many sales that went considerably over asking. Will 2019 be the same? Have we reached the pinnacle of pricing? This video has my commentary for Ottawa Real Estate in 2018 and going forward in 2019:
Eleven offices for rent, plus multiple “hot-seats” available at various price points ($500-$2100/m plus). Rent one, a few or all. Most offices facing south with windows. Partially furnished or unfurnished. Fresh paint.
It’s almost time to put this beauty away in storage. We can’t wait to bring it back out again next spring.
Ottawa Real Estate Market Stats July 2016 – Members of the Ottawa Real Estate Board sold 1,530 residential properties in July through the Board’s Multiple Listing Service® System, compared with 1,490 in July 2016, an increase of 2.7 per cent. The five-year average for July sales is 1,446.