Kingston offers down payment assistance program

Once again, the City of Kingston is offering the Home Ownership Down Payment Assitance Program.
Highlights:

• 5% of the purchase to a maximum of $7,244
• Must not presently have ownership in a home or have any vested interest in a residence.
• Must be purchasing a home for $181,000 or less as established by Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
• Must not presently have ownership in a home or have any vested interest in a residence.
• Deadline to respond is August 7, 2008

When this was offered previously in the wintertime, I was fortunate to work with several buyers who took advantage of the program and were able to purchase their first home because of it.
If you have any questions about the program or any other aspect of buying your first home, please feel free to get in touch :)

Important changes to Canadian mortgages

As of October 15 of this year, the zero-down mortgage will no longer be available. It's been a popular option for a few years now, for those with good income and good credit but no cash on hand. The new rule (aka reverting back to the old rule) is that you'll be required to have a minimum 5% down payment.
The interesting twist is that they are lowering the Beacon score and TDR (total debt ratio) requirements, so you can have more debt and poorer credit, but you have to have the cash!

The 40-year amortization will be history also, which isn't an awful thing. What it meant was that you could afford to spend more on a house, but you'd pay a couple of thousand extra in CMHC fees, and it would take you considerably longer to start paying down the actual principal on the loan. The maximum amortization under the new changes will be 35 years, a healthier option in my opinion.

Some of the major banks have already stopped offering zero-down options, so if you had been considering this as a possibility, contact your mortgage broker NOW to get the process started.

Here's a selection of articles about the changes:
CBC
Globe & Mail
Reuters

More stats!!

It's certainly not a surprise to see an article like this. Basically reaffirming that the boom is over (for now) and it's definitely a buyer's market at this moment, particularly as we continue through the summer.

Well, well, well

There's a public information session tonight, hosted by a cleverly named group called Well Aware, that would be of interest to anyone who uses a well for their main water source.

Details

Housing starts down, hope is up.

"The second-quarter housing start numbers actually are reassuring and indicate that the Kingston housing market has shown no signs of the kind of collapse in housing starts that has occurred in the U. S."

http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1109642

Famous people sell houses too!

An interesting article about the things that make celebrities just the same as anyone else - they too can try to ask too much for their house.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/homestyle/07/09/celebrity.real.estate.ap/index.html