Free money from the government?
Today we're going to talk about First Time Home Buyer Incentives Provided by the government. And we've got 4 of them!

1. The Home Buyer's Plan
- This is a program that allows you to withdraw from your RRSP's to buy or build a qualifying home for yourself or a related person with a disability. The home buyer's plan allows you to payback the withdrawn funds within a 15 year period interest free and you are able to borrow up to $35,000 per person out of your RSP.

2. The 2nd way that you can pick up some free money is the Land Transfer Tax Refund.
- So the first time purchaser will receive a maximum refund of up to $4,000. There are some requirements to qualify for this refund.
a. You must be over 18 years old.
b. You must occupy the home as a principal residence.
c. You cannot have every owned or had any interest in any home, anywhere in the world. Meaning you must be a 1st time home buyer.

3. The First Time Home Buyer Incentive.
- It basically helps qualify 1st time home buyers reduce their monthly mortgage payments without adding on extra financial obligations. So, the 1st time home buyer incentive is a shared equity mortgage with the government of Canada. The government of Canada basically offers 5 or 10% of the 1st time home buyer's purchase as a deposit. So they basically give you the down payment. 5 or 10%. Now in return, they take a portion of the equity. So the shared equity component of the incentive means that the government now shares in both the upside and the downside of the property's value up to a maximum of gain or loss of up to 8% per year. You also have to pay this grant back after 25 years or whenever the property is sold.

4. Home Buyer's Amount on line 31270 of your tax return.
- So you can basically use a credit of up to $5,000 to reduce your taxes in the year that you buy a home.