Buying a home is likely the largest financial investment and one of the most important decisions of your life. The Federal Government has programs available to assist Home Buyer’s like you in order to make mortgages more affordable and more attainable. Here is a brief outline and website links to some of the programs available to assist buyers in different ways.
The First-Time Home Buyer Incentive makes it easier for you to buy a home and lower your monthly mortgage payments. This program is a shared equity mortgage. This means that the government shares in the upside and downside of the property value. It allows you to borrow 5 or 10% of the purchase price of a home. You pay back the same percentage of the value of your home when you sell it or within a 25-year window.
The Home Buyers’ Amount offers a $5,000 non-refundable income tax credit amount on a qualifying home acquired during the year. For an eligible individual, the credit will provide up to $750 in federal tax relief.
The Home Buyers’ Plan (HBP) is a program that allows you to withdraw up to $35,000 in a calendar year from your registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs) to buy or build a qualifying home for yourself or for a related person with a disability. Review the following link for more information.
The GST/HST New Housing Rebate may qualify you for a rebate of part of the GST or HST that you paid on the purchase price or cost of building your new house, on the cost of substantially renovating or building a major addition onto your existing house, or on converting a non-residential property into a house. The link below provides all the details on this rebate.