In its latest policy announcement today, the Bank of Canada held target for the overnight rate at 0.25%.

The Governing Council will hold the policy interest rate at the effective lower bound until economic slack is absorbed so that the 2% of inflation target is sustainably achieved

What is FTHBI?

What you need to know about the Canadian First-Time Home Buyer Incentive, the FTHBI promises to help make real estate more affordable for first time home buyers. The program offers qualified applicants up to 10% interest free loan in order to lower mortgage carrying costs and making home ownership more affordable. After 25 years or when property sold whichever comes first, homeowners must pay slice of their property value back to government.

Why is FTHBI unpopular?

Program launched in Sept. 2019, government earmarked $1.25 billion funds and expected to help 100,000 families purchase their first home in 3 years.  However, according to data from CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation), only 9,530 applications approved in its first year. Why FTHBI off to a slow start? Many in industry criticized program itself is overly complicated and too much restrictions.

One of the biggest restrictions of program is that purchase price is limited at $505K currently. In cities like Toronto and Vancouver, home buyers are hardly find a property below that price.

The FTHBI becomes more useful

In end of 2020, government planned to make some changes to the program. One of changes is to increase purchase price from $505K to $722K in 3 cities – Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria. Other cities in Canada will remain the same at $505K.

Ottawa believes that these changes will help more first time home buyers getting on board and making FTHBI more useful.