Peel Region will ask Ottawa and Queen’s Park to extend for another year a home ownership program that’s geared to low-income residents.
In May 2008, Peel received $2.85 million under the Canada-Ontario Affordable Housing program (AHP).
Dubbed “Home in Peel,” the initiative set out to provide 282 applicants with up to $10,000 of forgivable down payment assistance towards the purchase of a resale home.
Peel received 807 applications since the program’s startup. Some 282 applications have been approved with 80 offers of purchase completed.
However, with the program set to expire on March 31, officials say Peel needs more time to ensure the remaining applicants secure homes.
“This program was administratively heavy in its start up and the time involved in obtaining financing approval, house hunting, sale negotiation and closing times (added) to the process,” stated a report handed to councilors recently.
Home in Peel is designed to give low- to moderate-income residents, who are currently renting, a chance to enter the housing market.
Of the 80 homes purchased, 39 have been purchased in Mississauga, 41 in Brampton and zero in Caledon.
The average annual income of purchasers who submitted an offer of purchase is $43,405 and the average sale price for homes bought is $196,882, staff reported.
The homes purchased include five detached homes, seven semi-detached, 44 townhouses, five town houses and 19 high-rise condominiums. Condos Mississauga.
Initially, the program was restricted to people with a household income of less than $62,600, and the home could cost no more than $208,000.
However, regional councilors joined other municipal politicians in asking senior levels of government to improve the criteria in order to “increase the pool of eligible recipients.”
As such, both the federal and provincial governments raised the maximum household income to $75,800 and the maximum resale purchase price for a home to $247,500.
The government also decided to hike up the down payment assistance amount to $10,000, up from the $8,500 initially set out.
Region officials have deemed the program a success. According to region staff, 30 of the 80 new homeowners previously lived in social housing projects paying market rent.
~Torstar Network
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has released its Fall 2008 Rental Market Report for the Greater Toronto Area. Key findings are as follows:
• The average apartment vacancy rate in the GTA declined to 2.1 per cent in 2008, down from 3.2 per cent last year.
• Average fixed sample two-bedroom apartment rents increased by 1.7 per cent – a slightly stronger annual growth rate than experienced in 2007.
• The average apartment vacancy rate will be 2.0 per cent next year, with average fixed sample rents growing by 2.0 percent.
“The vacancy rate for purpose-built rental housing in 2008 declined as higher ownership home prices and slower job growth prompted an increased number of households to choose rental rather than ownership,” according to Jason Mercer, CMHC’s Senior Market Analyst for the Greater Toronto Area. “The vacancy rate will be virtually unchanged in 2009. Increased movement of renter households into newly completed condominium apartments next year will keep vacancy rates from dipping further.”
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) released its Fall 2008 Rental Market Report for the Kitchener and Guelph Census Metropolitan Areas(CMAs) today. Highlights of the Report are as follows:
• The vacancy rate for privately initiated rental apartments in the Kitchener CMA was 1.8 percent in 2008, down from 2.7 per cent in October 2007. In the Guelph CMA, the vacancy rate increased to 2.3 per cent from 1.9 per cent.
• The vacancy rate decreased for all bedroom types in the Kitchener CMA.
• The City of Waterloo experienced the lowest vacancy rate at 1.1 per cent. Kitchener West and Guelph South also had vacancy rates below two per cent.
• On the basis of a sample of structures common to both the 2007 and 2008 surveys, the average two-bedroom rent increased by 0.9 per cent in the Kitchener CMA and by 1.6 percent in the Guelph CMA.
• Both markets are expected to tighten next year, with the vacancy rate moving down to 1.6 percent in Kitchener and 2.0 per cent in Guelph
“A younger population, strong immigration, youth employment, a resilient economy and less movement of renters to homeownership contributed to the changes in rental demand in 2008,” noted Erica McLerie, CMHC Senior Market Analyst for the Kitchener-Guelph area. “In Kitchener, the vacancy rate declined to its lowest level since 2001. In Guelph, where ownership costs weren’t much higher than rents, the movement to ownership remained stronger, resulting in a higher
vacancy rate,” added McLerie.
