The president of Sarnia-Lambton's Real Estate Board is pleased with measures in the federal budget that will help homebuyers.
Donna Mathewson said they've been lobbying Ottawa for some of them for the last four years, including increasing the amount you can pull from retirement savings to purchase your first home to $35,000.
"The homebuyers plan was previously $25,000," said Mathewson. "If you were a first-time homebuyer you could borrow up to $25,000 from yourself, via your own RRSPs and pay that back over the next 15 years in equal payments. We wanted that upped from $25,000 because in a lot of markets that just didn't cut it."
There is also $1.2 billion earmarked over three years for "shared equity mortgages," which could see Canada's housing agency kick in 10 per cent of the purchase price of a home to bring down the mortgage load for qualified buyers.
Mathewson said that money would have to be repaid if you ever sell the house.
She said steps needed to be taken to shore up the economy, and home sales stimulate the economy more than anything else.
"We also needed to address the rental market," which Mathewson said is indirectly affected by real estate. "There's not enough rental housing either for people in different cities. So, they do have a provision where they're going to put some money toward helping the supply of rental units and the creation of rental units."
She said funds are also being committed for consulting to investigate how to increase affordable housing in some areas.
"I hope that those plans can stay in place, we do have an election coming up this fall and we don't know who's going to be in after that election. Hopefully, whichever government is in place keeps these housing plans that they've initiated."
