Getting a Mortgage for Million Dollar Home in the Okanagan

What New Buyers Need to Know About Buying an Okanagan Home in the $1,000,000 Price Range

Remember when a million dollars in the bank meant you could retire at an early age and live off of the interest? Us neither. Ask your parents. What was once touted as a lottery windfall has now been tempered by inflation. But in theoretical way that’s good news, seeing as you want to get a mortgage for a million dollar home. When you look at it that way, it’s far more attainable than it ever was. At press, the average price of a single family home in the Okanagan is now around $1,000,000 anyways. Still, you want to know what this all means as a new buyer who wants to buy a house in that price range. Let’s review.

Does It Really Need to be $1,000,000?

We ask this because there are some important implications to consider. Canadian law states that homes with a purchase price of $1 million or over require a downpayment of 20% or more. So you would automatically require a $200,000 downpayment. But for a $999,999 home you may qualify for a 7.5% downpayment (for example) which means you would only need a $75,000 downpayment (along with cost of mortgage insurance). We know that it seems a little arbitrary when a single dollar can make such a difference, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. The bottom line, is that if you’re willing to consider a price just below that symbolic million dollar mark, you have a LOT more flexibility with respect to downpayment and income requirements.

How to Get More for a Million Bucks

We talk a lot about first time buyer incentive programs here on our blog. However, if you’re hunting down a $1 million property you don’t qualify for the Government of Canada’s First Time Home Buyer Incentive (FTHBI). And in this case, knocking a couple of bucks off of the price tag won’t matter. The FTHBI mortgage is capped at four times the maximum household income of $120,000, or $480,000. This means the average price of a home would be $500,000 to $600,000, depending on the size of your downpayment. So again, $1 million prices ranges are excluded.

This seems fair. However, considering that the average price of a home in the Okanagan is around $1,000,000, maybe the Government should consider what it’s like to live in our neck of the country. We think so, which is why we’re dedicated to helping you get for your money. While you don’t qualify for the FTHBI, you may qualify for a number of programs that the banks don’t advertise. These include green home rebates, tax credits, and more. In fact, there are a total of 35 grants and rebates available to home buyers in BC. Do you want to sift through them all to see if you qualify for any of them? Or do you want someone to do all of the heavy lifting for you? We thought so. Call Carloni Mortgage Brokers at 250.493.9111 to ask.

In addition, due to longstanding relationships with banks and other lenders, we can get you access to lower unadvertised fixed and variable mortgage rates. When it comes to getting more bang for your million buck home aspirations, there’s no better resource than Carloni Mortgage Brokers.

Where You Want a House in the Okanagan Matters

We’d be remiss to exclude this one fact. Where you want to get a mortgage for a million dollar home in the Okanagan matters. Remember that $1,000,000 average price we were talking about? Well that value is calculated across a spectrum of the cities and towns in the Valley. In Kelowna (at press) the average price for a single family home is over $1,300,000 whereas in Penticton it’s significantly under the $1 million mark. In the latter scenario your money translates to an even dreamier property – almost the kind that your folks knew to be a million dollar home.

Carloni Mortgage Brokers services the entire Okanagan Valley. Contact us today to discuss your possibilities!

Call 250.493.9111