Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland made changes to some mortgage rules on Monday as part of a plan to make housing more affordable. The federal government will increase the cap on insured mortgages to $1.5 million from $1 million, starting Dec. 15, this plan will allow more people to buy a house with a down payment below 20 per cent.
XFM news interviewed Trevor Dougan a young adult looking for a home in London and asked if this would help him put a down payment on his first home. Trevor said “yeah, absolutely. It’ll help me. I think I only got approved. for 350,000 dollars for a house even with my significant other and that was the minimum percent down”.
Trevor goes on to say “I think I had to put 20 per cent which was you know a surprise It was the price of houses like six months ago. That was almost 100,000 dollars for a pretty normal house”.
Trevor continues to say “The average price of a house in London I mean I would have to say is about 500,000 Right, So I mean to save up 110 thousand dollars or whatever it is that’s quite a bit of money.
XFM also sat down and spoke to Professor of economics at Western University Steve Williamson, we asked him if this plan is going to change anything in Canada. Steve said ” This is just for first time buyers. It’s not for everybody”.
Steve then goes on to say saying ” if it increases the demand for houses, it makes prices go up”.