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Buying a New Home: 10 Mistakes to Avoid
WARNING: Buying a new house or a condo from the developer’s sales office is always very exciting, but if you are not very familiar with the whole process, it might cost you THOUSANDS of $$$ and many legal problems. Remember that the new development sale offices are established by the developer, and the agents working there are…
This is how Canada’s new GST cuts on home sales up to $1.5 million for first-time buyers will work
Prime Minister Mark Carney is fulfilling one of the key promises the Liberal party made during the recent federal election campaign, specifically relating to eliminating the federal five per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST) on home prices for first-time homebuyers. “My government has a mandate to bring down costs. We are delivering this mandate by cutting taxes — so Canadians keep more of their paycheques to spend where it matters most,” said the prime minister, with the specific plans for the GST cuts now released following King Charles III’s speech from the throne on Tuesday. This will be applied as a rebate — the First-Time Home Buyers’ GST Rebate. For first-time buyers only, there will be zero GST applied on new homes sold at up to $1 million. For new properties bought at a price of between $1 million and $1.5 million, there will be a reduced GST for first-time buyers and their new homes. This means that for homes priced at up to $1 million, first-time buyers will save up to $50,000 by not having to pay the GST. Buyers with new, more expensive homes will be eligible for a reduced GST rebate, which falls incrementally from home prices of $1 million to $1.5 million. For example, a home price of $1.1 million would be eligible for a 20 per cent rebate of $40,000, a home price of $1.25 million would be eligible for a rebate of $25,000, and a home price of $1.4 million would be eligible for a rebate of $10,000. A “new home” purchase is defined as property bought from a new home by a builder, a self-built home or a self-contracted new home, or an acquisition of shares of a co-operative housing corporation. Individuals are eligible for the rebate if they are adults and Canadian citizens or permanent residents. As well, they must not have lived in a home that they owned or that their spouse or common-law partner owned in the calendar year or in the four preceding calendar years. This existing ownership status consideration exists both within and outside Canada. At least one of the purchasers in a sale must be a first-time buyer for use as their primary residence, with this individual required to occupy the home following the sale. The sale agreement must be made between May 27, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2030. Homes that have yet to be built under the agreement must begin construction before 2021, with substantial completion by no later than the end of 2035. For rebates for owner-built homes, an eligible individual — at least one of the owner-builders who qualify as a first-time homebuyer — can recover up to $50,000 of the GST or the federal part of the rebate. Construction on the property must begin on or after May 27, 2025, with substantial completion by the end of 2036. And as for the rebate through the co-operative housing corporation share acquisition, an individual can similarly claim up to $50,000. The acquisition and construction timelines are the same for this option. This amounts to an adjustment, expansion, and refinement of Carney’s promise made during the election campaign to eliminate the GST on “new and substantially renovated” home sales up to $1 million for first-time buyers. Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre vowed to axe the GST for new homes up to $1.3 million, accounting for the higher home prices in markets such as Metro Vancouver and Greater Toronto. Carney’s policy move is endorsed by the Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA), which states that they have been advocating for such changes for a long while, and that these regulations have not changed since the introduction of GST in 1991. They say the federal government at the time originally committed to adjusting the GST New Housing Rebate thresholds every two years to reflect changes in housing prices and protect housing affordability over time. But these thresholds have not been changed for about 35 years now. Prior to this week’s policy details announcement, the federal government offered a smaller rebate amount of up to $6,300 or 36 per cent of the GST payment that would be required for a home that costs $350,000 or less. If the home costs more than $350,000, the rebate is gradually reduced, with the rebate reaching zero for a home price of $450,000 and over. “For years, CHBA has been advocating for a change to the GST thresholds on new construction homes to help address housing affordability challenges in regions across the country, and this measure is a very positive step forward for Canadians,” said Kevin Lee, CEO of CHBA, in a statement. “Previously, without details around the implementation of this measure, Canadians wishing to enter the housing market were holding out on buying a new construction home, which results in fewer home starts, so it is encouraging that today first-time buyers can have the confidence to move forward.” But Lee suggests the rebate thresholds should be more expansive to provide a greater number of homeowners with relief. CHBA wants to see the zero GST threshold increased to new home prices of $1.5 million, with the gradual reduction kicking in for prices between $1.5 million and $2 million, which would expand the eligibility for first-time homebuyers in Metro Vancouver and Greater Toronto, where there are higher home prices. They are also urging the federal government to expand the rebate to all new homes
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Plan for 3 towers next to Commercial-Broadway station finally heads to public hearing
After nearly a decade of proposals, pushback and debate, a plan to build a set of towers next to one of Metro Vancouver’s busiest transit hubs is getting a public hearing. About 100 people have signed up to speak for and against the proposed redevelopment of a Safeway lot next to the Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain station. The plan before council envisions three towers, with heights of 44, 38 and 37 storeys, comprising 1,044 rental homes. 2:14 Drastic changes made to Broadway-Commercial Safety redevelopment plan Ten per cent of those units would be secured at city-wide average market rates, while the remainder would lease for going market rates. Story continues below advertisement The proposal has generated strong feelings on both sides, with supporters arguing more housing is critically needed, particularly near transit, and opponents arguing the units won’t be affordable. “Vancouver has a crushing shortage of housing. For decades, we have not been building enough housing, and this neighbourhood, Grandview Woodlands, is a great example of this, we basically haven’t built much new housing there since the 1970s, and as a result the population there is actually declining … despite the fact this SkyTrain station we are talking about is one fo the busiest transit hubs in the country,” Peter Waldkirch, director of Abundant Housing, told CKNW’s The Jill Bennett Show. “Burnaby just proposed an 80-storey tower … it’s actually quite perverse, it’s backwards that we are building bigger and taller buildings than this in the suburbs than we are in the heart of the city.” Get daily National news Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Opponents like Craig Ollenberger, chair of the Grandview Woodland Area Council, say the proposed secured market rental requirement is far too low. A rendering of the trio of proposed towers for Commercial and Broadway in Vancouver. City of Vancouver 2:05 Public hearings on controversial East Vancouver development postponed again Speaking on CKNW’s The Jas Johal Show, he said the city should look to replicate what it did in the Broadway Plan, which is 20 per cent of units at 20 per cent below market rates. Story continues below advertisement “It is bringing nothing but 1,000 luxury rental units to our community, suites that nobody will be able to afford. And for that the city is only asking for 10 per cent of the units to be at market rent,” he said. “This community, the majority of people can’t afford market rent.” The proposed redevelopment would also include a 37-space child care facility, a ground-level public plaza and an upper-level courtyard. Trending Now The development has been contentious ever since it was first put forward in 2016, as part of the broader Grandview-Woodland Community Plan approved by the council led by then-mayor and now federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson. Neighbourhood groups had rejected a previous version of the community plan, arguing it would radically change the neighbourhood’s character, and the pushback led to a municipal citizens’ assembly whose feedback was eventually integrated into the revised 2016 plan, which included a maximum tower height of 24 storeys. A proposal for the Safeway site envisioned two towers, one of them hitting that threshold. 2:04 Grandview Woodland development tour A subsequent version of the proposal, with the tallest tower reaching 30 storeys and composed mostly of condos, nearly made it to a public hearing in 2022, but was sidelined by the 2022 municipal election. Story continues below advertisement “The economics have changed. Rents were lower a few years ago … interest rates were lower … community expectations were different. I think when this project started getting negotiated, you could argue against the need for more housing more successfully,” said Tom Davidoff, an associate professor of economics at UBC’s Sauder School of Business. Davidoff said the pressure to get new units built and to comply with the provincial and federal governments’ transit-oriented density requirements will likely weigh in the project’s favour. The site would sit virtually on top of the intersection of two SkyTrain lines and the 99-B Line bus route. It’s TransLink’s third-busiest transit hub, and saw more than 6.2 million boardings in 2023. “If you can’t have density at the intersection of streets named Commercial and Broadway, where there is a major transit intersection, I don’t know where you want people to go,” Davidoff said. With scores of people signed up to speak, Wednesday’s hearing could go late into the evening, — with files from Alissa Thibault © 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.