The average sale price of a home in Canada in January was around $612,000, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association . A five per cent down payment on the average property, then, works out to roughly $36,000 in savings.
“People need to understand that the bigger your down payment, the better off you’re going to be,” he says. “You should always try to borrow as little money as possible because it means that you’re going to be paying back way less in interest.”Expecting Canadians to be able to save tens of thousands of dollars starting from scratch is not necessarily realistic, Jarvis says.“That is, I think, where people have a lot of difficulty these days. And it’s no question why,” he says.
He reflects on his own circumstance a few years ago, living in Toronto, when he and his wife were looking at homes in neighbouring communities an hour or so outside the city’s core. “I would start looking at whittling down your biggest expenses in any way that you can, because if you’re having trouble saving now, it’s not going to get any easier with where prices are these days,” Jarvis says.As opposed to renting, which tends to give a tenant the flexibility of ending a lease at the end of a year or with a couple month’s notice, homeownership tends to come with a number of obligations that cannot be overlooked, Jarvis says.
These are the kinds of questions to have answers for before you sign on the dotted line to buy your first home, Jarvis says. Certain kinds of mortgages, like those with a variable rate, can be better for those with a bit more uncertainty, he adds. If you’ve reached the end of this article and suddenly you’ve got doubts about whether homebuying is right for you — that’s natural, too!Jarvis says the last — or perhaps, first — question to ask yourself before buying a home is what your reason is for making the purchase.