The will be some serious changes to the housing market in mid-April when the new mortgage rules take effect.
These rules will raise the gross amount of income required to qualify, depending on the term.
And look for higher interest rates soon as well.
That will be a problem for a lot of people.
This in itself isn't a bad thing as such,but it will affect housing sales.
The realtors will not be happy and the banks will be much tougher to deal with.
CMHC is also going to be harder to deal with.
They are already designating certian areas with a high foreclosure rate due to unemployment and loss of jobs,as high risk.
No more grey areas.
It is going to get tougher to buy a home.

Realtors won't be happy? I doubt there will be too many people shedding tears over that. Realtors do fairly well. If your not doing well as a realtor it isn't because of the rules governing mortgages.

Are the rules getting tougher than before? Yes, I would have to agree with you. Were the rules difficult before? No, I don't think they were. We live in a society with under 5% interest rates. Almost nothing down as a down payment and mortgage terms of up to 35 years. Those rules are still pretty relaxed.

If you are getting turned down by the bank because you might be a higher risk then that might not be a bad thing. Maybe the bank/government is trying to tell those people that renting is a good thing.

Think about it, if you are currently working in an industry that is prone to layoff, isn't it better to be renting where you give 1 month's notice and could be moving to a city with better employment opportunities? Plus, there are the hidden costs of home ownership that first time home buyers don't consider like property taxes, upkeep, repairs etc.

Then it is not a good idea for banks to lend mortgage money to GM workers, forestry related workers and any one who works in a manufacturing enterprise? Unless the lending institution will take mortgage payments from these people while working in China. That's where the jobs are. Forestry workers, if they lose their jobs, can always follow the overseas shipment of our logs.

Prince George has the lowest housing starts in the entire Province. Its not too hard to register an increase, when there were only TWO housing starts in 2009!

Tim McEwan will probably take the credit again!

Save up a 20% down payment first, eliminate CMHC from your lives, receive favorable rates from the bankers because you have 20% equity interest in your property.

Consider a line of credit that uses every dollar that flows through your hands to reduce the amount of interest you pay and get out of debt sooner.

Billions for the Bankers and Debts for the people. The insurance companies and Revenue Canada get the rest. Isn't it time you questioned where you get your advice from?

Damn good advice Chester!
The former mortgage rules allowed too many people who really could not afford it to buy a home.
Bad idea...very bad,that usually ends in financial disaster.

I disagree, 0% down or as little as 5% over a longer ammortization period definately allows a lot more people to afford to buy. Anyone renting a house or even a trailer these days can afford to buy a reasonbly priced house. The problem that happened in the States that thankfully didn't happen here in a large scale, was selling houses to people they absolutely knew couldn't afford the payments no matter what the interest rate. Like the waitress in New York working for $6.00/hr and a mortgage broker getting approval for a $300,000.00 home. Any idiot could see she could never afford it, she defaulted less than 6 months in. This happened millions of times over down in the States. But at least here in Canada the mortgage brokers and banks, even though borrowing was easier, still only allowed loans at an affordable level to the borrower. So giving people starting out and better chance to succeed in buying SOME sort of housing, I think, is a good thing. You also still have to be a solid credit risk. If not, you will still have to come up with a hefty down payment for any bank or legitimate lender to look at you.

When you're talking about such small numbers, (i.e. from 2 to 6 housing starts), they're not statistically significant enough to be an indicator of anything.

I agree that the rules should be tightened in order to purchase a house. The 35 and 40 year mortgages have been a huge factor in house price increases over the past few years. People were able to afford more because they could lengthen the amount of time for re-payment.