Is Flaherty Done Making Changes?
After all of the speculation and waiting for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s new mortgage rules, it seems possible that more measures may be needed to cool the Canadian housing market before it turns into a housing bubble.
It was originally hypothesized that one of the major changes that Flaherty would make would be to increase the down payment needed from five to 10 per cent. Given the average price of a house in this country is approximately $337,000, this would have made the difference for many people between being able to get into the housing market and having to wait on the sidelines. I know that I would never have been able to buy my first condo if I had had to pay a 10 per cent down payment.
I’m sure that Flaherty and the Federal Government have plans for other options in case the new regulations fail to slow the price of real estate. I just hope that they aren’t plans that end up pricing homebuyers out of the market. After all, speculators are doing a good enough job of that.
