Montreal Real Estate Blog » Canadian Homeowners

A New Energy Tax Targets Home Sellers in Ontario

Deya Bautista — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:00:45 +0000

In Ontario: a new tax is being implemented to home sellers. As if they didn’t have enough taxes to pay already. Let’s just hope this new bill doesn’t reach us in Quebec anytime soon. Here is the complete article from the Canadian newswire:

The McGuinty government today gave third and final reading to Bill 150, the Green Energy Act, which, when implemented, will impose significant new costs on home sellers in Ontario. The new tax comes in the form of an energy audit fee that must be paid by home sellers prior to a single family home being sold.

The new audit fee is only applicable on single-detached, semi-detached, houses, townhouses and fourplexes. Owners of high-rise condominiums, and all other forms of non-residential real estate, are exempt from the energy audit provision.

“Single family home sellers are being unfairly targeted by home energy audits,” explained Ms. Aunger, President of the Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA). “If the benefits of going green are shared by all Ontarians, then why has the provincial government targeted single family home sellers to pay the costs?”

This is the third tax aimed specifically at real estate transactions in the last three years.

First, the government of Ontario passed the City of Toronto Act, which allowed the city to impose the first ever municipal land transfer tax in Canada.

Earlier this spring, the Minister of Finance announced that the provincial sales tax would be harmonized with the goods and services tax, resulting in thousands of dollars in increased taxes on resale transactions and tens of thousands of dollars in additional tax on new homes in Ontario.

Finally, energy audits could cost home sellers additional thousands in lost equity.
“Dalton McGuinty is using Ontario homeowners as his own ATM,” said Ms. Aunger. “Public policy should promote homeownership – not raise costs for homebuyers and erode equity of home sellers.”

Posted By: Deya Bautista - Real Estate Broker working as part of the McGill Immobilier team. Specializing in high end condos in downtown and Old Montreal. For buying or selling contact Deya at: 514.917.7889 http://montrealrealestateblog.com/

Interest rate cut will help Canadian home owners and buyers

Deya Bautista — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:58:24 +0000

The interest rate cut announced today by the Bank of Canada will help Canadian home owners and buyers, according to The Canadian Real Estate Association. The Bank of Canada cut its benchmark overnight lending rate by one-half of one percentage point to 3 1/2 per cent on March 4th, and signaled further cuts in the near future. The trend-setting Bank rate, which is set 0.25 percentage points above the overnight lending rate, now stands at 3.75 per cent.

“The threat of inflation is being eclipsed by concerns about slower economic growth, so the Bank of Canada cut its trend-setting bank rate to boost growth,” said CREA Chief Economist Gregory Klump. “Financial market turmoil will remain a downside risk to growth for some time. This means the Bank will probably continue lowering interest rates.”

Lower lending rates will help offset the effect of tightening credit conditions and allow homeowners to obtain better mortgage terms. This will also benefit Canadian homeowners dealing with variable rate mortgages.

“The Bank of Canada today acknowledged that the U.S. economic slowdown was likely to be deeper and more prolonged than it projected less than six weeks ago,” said CREA President Ann Bosley. “When the Bank decided to lower interest rates today, the advertised five-year conventional mortgage rate stood at 7.29 per cent. This is less than one per cent above where it stood at
the beginning of last year. Competition among mortgage lenders remains stiff, which continues to help many borrowers negotiate discounts from advertised rates.”

Declining interest rates and a rebound in economic growth are factored into the CREA MLS(R) 2008 market forecast. “MLS(R) sales activity will stay strong and reach the second highest level on record this year. Residential MLS(R) prices are also expected to continue rising. Additional cuts to mortgage interest rates are good news for housing affordability and Canadian housing demand,” Klump added.