By Greg Fry

Home ownership

What will minority government mean for first-time home buyers?

Oct 24, 2019 | 2:31 PM

PRINCE GEORGE — What will the new Liberal minority government mean for first-time home buyers?

A lot of promises were made during the campaign, including a Liberal plan to fully implement the first-time home buyer incentive, which would provide Canadians with up to ten per cent off the purchase price of their first home.

One thing that likely won’t be going away however, is the stress test that the Liberals introduced in 2016.

The stress test is a financial threshold that any Canadian looking to take out a mortgage must pass.

The Conservatives wanted to fix the mortgage stress test by removing it from mortgage renewals while the NDP, who could hold the balance of power in Ottawa, would like to double the Home Buyer’s Tax Credit, which is available to first-time homebuyers, to $1,500.

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The NDP would also like to help by re-introducing 30-year terms to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation insured mortgages.

“I’m excited at the opportunities it (minority government) presents,” says Skeena-Bulkley Valley NDP MP Taylor Bachrach. “There’s still a lot of conversations that have to take place and I’m not going to pre-judge the outcome of those but Canadians have sent us a pretty clear message that they want the parties to work together.”

And it promises to be an issue Canadians’s expect action on. In fact a recent poll by real estate listings site Zoocasa suggested that 84 per cent of Canadians say housing affordability is negatively impacting them.