Help is on the way for first time homebuyers courtesy of the federal government.
As part of its Tuesday budget roll out, the Liberals are promising to pick up part of the cost of a mortgage for those looking to own their first home.
Brad Bondy is a real estate broker with RE/MAX Preferred Realty in Amherstburg.
He says, incentives or not, he won't be encouraging anyone to buy a home they can't afford.
"That borrowing power is going to be nice for these incentives, but people have to be careful too because the prices, where they're going, you still want to be safe whether it's buying your first home, your second home, but the incentives are definitely a plus to help the new buyers."
Bondy says this may be the extra push many new buyers need.
"With inventory being as low as it is in our area, it'll definitely help. It'll help the buying power, of course, because it could increase their budget a little bit, but at the same time, we still have to be safe and we still have to do the right thing for our buyers."
But he hopes the program doesn't give new buyers a false sense of security.
"A lot of them have debt. Whether it's school, whether it's car payments, whether it's credit card payments, you still have to keep that in consideration too. But when it comes to the house end of it, by all means, every incentive can help. It's going to help the buyers."
A city committee recently approved a zoning change for a new, 10 storey, 145 unit residential building on Meadowbrook Ln. in east Windsor which will consist mainly of one and two bedroom, mixed income units.
Site of a 145-unit residential development proposed by The Windsor-Essex Community Housing Corporation on Meadowbrook Ln. near Essex Way in east-Windsor. (Photo courtesy of www.citywindsor.ca)
Mayor Drew Dilkens believes the incentives help to ease the list of 5,000 people waiting for affordable housing.
"If you look at the project that we did on Meadowbrook that is going to be under construction very, very soon, it was really through the CMHC programs that we were able to get that affordable housing project off the ground. So we'll look for the details, the devil is always in the details, but I think it could be very, very positive for the City of Windsor and for other cities across Canada."
Under the new rules, mortgages would be partially covered by the feds lowering monthly payments for first time homebuyers with the amount of help depending on income and style of home.
In their last budget before the fall election, the Liberals are spending $200-million more than anticipated bringing the projected deficit to $19.8-billion for the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
— with files from AM800's Rob Hindi