What You Should Know About the Government’s New FTHB Incentive
Silverman Mortgage | Sep 10, 2019
Launched on September 2nd 2019, the first time home buyer’s incentive is designed to help qualified first time home buyers reduce their monthly expenses. The goal is to make housing more affordable. The government of Canada has set aside $241M for the program and has estimated it will help 100,000 Canadians over the next 3 years.
Program highlights.
Your mortgage must be default insured, CMHC will provide 5% of the downpayment for an existing home, or 10% downpayment for a new build construction.
Your income must be less than $120,000 per year and you must meet the criteria of being a first time home buyer. The insured mortgage plus incentive cannot be more than four times your household income.
There are no repayments required while you have your mortgage, however, you can pay it back anytime or upon the sale of your property. There will be some risk-sharing with the government.
Consumer Sentiment
According to a recent survey completedtitled “Home Buying is Hard Work” by Mortgage Professionals Canada, Canadians are in “moderate agreement” that the new First-Time Home Buyer Incentive will “make it easier for Canadians to afford a home.”
However, among existing homeowners, most say they would not have used the program when they bought their first home, while most respondents also said they would not be willing to give up equity in their home.
Mortgage Professionals Canada Chief Economist Will Dunning expects the program will result in less than 5,000 incremental first-time purchases per year.
The More You Know
If you’re looking to buy your first home, and are considering the first time home buyer’s incentive program, the most important thing you can do is collect all the information and consider all your options.
Unfortunately, understanding mortgages can be difficult. There is a lot of information to consider when simply qualifying for a mortgage, without adding the stress of government programs, and what these programs mean for you, long term.
The good news is that you don’t have to navigate everything alone.
As an independent mortgage professional, my job is to help you qualify for the best mortgage available, using the best programs and incentives available. We’d love to walk you through all your options and explain in detail the ramifications of using a program like the first time home buyers incentive. It might be a fit for you, however, it might not be. Let’s talk!
Please contact us anytime, we’d love to discuss buying your first home!
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When looking to qualify for a mortgage, typically, a lender will want to review four areas of your mortgage application: income, credit, downpayment/equity and the property itself. Assuming you have a great job, excellent credit, and sufficient money in the bank to qualify for a mortgage, if the property you’re looking to purchase isn’t in good condition, if you don't have a plan, you might get some pushback from the lender. The property matters to the lender because they hold it as collateral if you default on your mortgage. As such, you can expect that a lender will make every effort to ensure that any property they finance is in good repair. Because in the rare case that you happen to default on your mortgage, they want to know that if they have to repossess, they can sell the property quickly and recoup their money. So when assessing the property as part of any mortgage transaction, an appraisal is always required to establish value. If your mortgage requires default mortgage insurance through CMHC, Sagen (formerly Genworth), or Canada Guaranty, they’ll likely use an automated system to appraise the property where the assessment happens online. A physical appraisal is required for conventional mortgage applications, which means an appraiser will assess the property on-site. So why is this important to know? Well, because even if you have a great job, excellent credit, and money in the bank, you shouldn’t assume that you’ll be guaranteed mortgage financing. A preapproval can only take you so far. Once the mortgage process has started, the lender will always assess the property you’re looking to purchase. Understanding this ahead of time prevents misunderstandings and will bring clarity to the mortgage process. Practically applied, if you’re attempting to buy a property in a hot housing market and you go in with an offer without a condition of financing, once the appraisal is complete, if the lender isn’t satisfied with the state or value of the property, you could lose your deposit. Now, what happens if you’d like to purchase a property that isn’t in the best condition? Being proactive includes knowing that there is a purchase plus improvements program that can allow you to buy a property and include some of the cost of the renovations in the mortgage. It’s not as simple as just increasing the mortgage amount and then getting the work done, there’s a process to follow, but it’s very doable. So if you have any questions about financing your next property or potentially using a purchase plus improvements to buy a property that needs a little work, please connect anytime. It would be a pleasure to walk you through the process.