The path to homeownership can be both extremely exciting and a bit overwhelming all at once. To help guide you through the entire homebuying and mortgage processes, it’s important to be able to rely on the expertise of a professional mortgage broker or agent.

As mortgage experts dedicated to helping make the dream of homeownership a reality for our clients, we understand the importance of ensuring reasonable mortgage qualification methods are in place to benefit as many Canadians as possible.

Since this is an election year, we’re hearing plans from the federal government about taking another look at stringent ‘stress tests’, which have seen fewer people qualify for a mortgage.

There’s also buzz about the feds considering a budget announcement that would allow first- time homebuyers to obtain 30-year insured mortgages – up from the current 25-year limit.

These moves would represent a positive change in direction after more than a decade of measures by federal Conservative and Liberal governments since the 2008 recession aimed at cooling housing markets and encouraging Canadians to take on smaller mortgages.

Good news for homebuyers

As an industry, we’ve been lobbying the government for years to be heard about these progressively impeding changes made to homeownership rules, but our expertise seemed to fall on deaf ears.

We’re hopeful that new measures to ease qualification are being discussed thanks to an upcoming election. This is great news for Canadians – and particularly first-time buyers. Canada’s extremely low mortgage default rates demonstrate that qualification measures were not too lenient before the stricter mortgage rules were implemented.

While making among the most important financial decision of your life, be sure to ask the person you’re consulting if they belong to industry associations and/or what measures they’re taking to help ensure more Canadians can qualify for a mortgage and enjoy the dream of homeownership.

Have questions about mortgage qualification or your mortgage in general? Answers are a call or email away!