The Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) is calling on the federal government to “reverse detrimental policy changes that deliberately and unnecessarily have made it harder for families to borrow responsibly in order to purchase a home.”
“With just under 100 days until the federal election in October, all four parties are missing a clear opportunity to offer a comprehensive plan to turn the declining home ownership trend around, keeping the dream alive for tens of thousands of young families,” says Tim Hudak, OREA CEO, in a news release. “It’s an urgent issue that needs to be addressed – and whichever party does so stands a good chance of winning, especially in the vote-rich GTA and lower mainland of B.C.”
OREA is calling on the government to
- Restore 30-year amortization periods for people with insured mortgages
- Move to a “more flexible and reasonable” mortgage stress test than the current one and
- eliminate the stress test “for careful savers renewing their mortgage with a different lender.”
“These restrictions in particular are unfairly disadvantaging home buyers, especially millennials looking to enter the market for the first time or young families looking to move up,” says Hudak. “Ontario Realtors are continuing to fight for families who are having their dream of becoming homeowners dashed by bureaucratic overreach in the mortgage market, outdated red tape and expensive regulations restricting housing supply and choice across the country.”
OREA says a survey by research firm Navigator supports these proposals, with 60 per cent of Ontarians saying they support a 30-year amortization period for insured mortgages. Fifty-eight per cent of Ontarians aged 18-34 support the federal government lowering the minimum qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages, with 51 per cent of all Ontarians also supporting the move.
