Canada's First-Time Home Buyer Incentive Is Ending This Month & Here's What You Need To Know
You only have a few weeks left to get this federal housing benefit.
Houses in a neighbourhood in Montreal.
You'll soon have less support from the federal government to make buying a house more affordable.
That's because the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive in Canada is being scrapped.
Here's what you need to know about the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive program — including how much it offers toward a down payment, when the deadline to apply is, and more.
This incentive is a housing benefit offered by the federal government to help people in Canada buy a home for the first time.
With the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive, eligible Canadians could get 5% or 10% of their home's purchase price for a down payment.
That addition to the down payment is meant to lower mortgage carrying costs and make homeownership more affordable in Canada.
According to the CMHC, Canada's First-Time Home Buyer Incentive is a shared-equity mortgage with the federal government that offers:
- 5% or 10% for a first-time buyer's purchase of a newly constructed home
- 5% for a first-time buyer's purchase of a resale (existing) home
- 5% for a first-time buyer's purchase of a new or resale mobile/manufactured home
If you receive this incentive, you're required to pay it back after 25 years or when the property is sold, whichever happens first.
You can also repay the incentive in full any time before without a pre-payment penalty.
It was just revealed that the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive has been discontinued and won't be an option for Canadians looking to buy their first house soon.
The deadline for new or resubmitted applications for the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive is:
- midnight Eastern time on March 21, 2024
If your application is submitted on or before the deadline but declined because of an application error, the mortgage loan insurer is responsible for fixing and resubmitting your application.
Applications resubmitted after March 21 must be reviewed and requests for reviews must be submitted no later than midnight Eastern time on March 25, 2024.
If your application — whether it's new or resubmitted — is in before the deadline, it will be processed "promptly," the CMHC noted.
No new approvals for the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive will be granted after March 31, 2024.
There has been no indication from the feds that the incentive being scrapped will impact Canadians who have already received the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive.
This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.