First-time home buyers’ grant expires

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A home is the most expensive thing one will ever purchase, and for potential first-time home buyers, getting into the real estate market just got a bit more costly in BC.

Today is the first day without the first-time home buyers’ grant, meaning it’s too late to save the five per cent of the purchase price or cost of construction offered by the province.

But Mohamed Samman with Envision Financial doesn’t think it’ll have a big impact on your bottom line.  “Obviously, it would be nice (to save five per cent).  But  when you consider the other factors such as changes in home prices, changes in interest rates, your ability to come up with the cash equity towards a purchase,” He says. “Those are much bigger factors that influence your ability to make a purchase than $10,000.”

He doesn’t expect this to affect the local market, as he says not a lot of people took advantage of the possible ten thousand dollar incentive. “When you look at it in terms of the average price of a home, just recently the BC Real Estate Association released their February statistics and those statistics showed that the price of a home in BC was about $523,000,” he adds.

He argues it’s worth looking at the bigger picture. “In the grand scheme of things, $10,000 dollars is not really a very significant amount”.

Samman admits buyers are more likely to save some bucks by negotiating and getting a good deal.  “In today’s market, it’s a buyers market so there are a lot more sellers in the market, so it’s a great opportunity to negotiate the best price they can get,” he adds.