Province will administer all homeowner grants and sets this year’s threshold at $1.625M

Tiffany Crawford
The Province

The B.C. government is taking over administration of homeowner grants from municipalities, and announced Tuesday that this year’s grant threshold is set at $1.625 million.

The province already administers the grant for rural homeowners. Homeowners in all municipalities will now submit applications to the B.C. government instead of their municipal office.

Applications will open in May when a majority of property tax notices are received.

The B.C. Finance Ministry is reminding homeowners to keep their property assessment notice or property tax notice from their municipality because they will need their roll and jurisdiction number to apply for the grant.

The grant is reduced by $5 for every $1,000 of assessed value above the threshold. Some low-income seniors, veterans and people with disabilities can also apply for a supplement that replaces any grant amount they lose because the value of their home is over the threshold.

The grant amounts for 2021 for homeowners in Metro Vancouver, and the Fraser

Valley Regional and Capital Regional districts are up to $570 for the basic grant, and up to $845 for homeowners who are 65 or older, or if the homeowner or a person they live with has a disability.

For northern or rural areas, the grants are up to $770, or up to $1,045 for homes where the homeowner is 65 years or older or the homeowner is a person with a disability.

Homeowners may also be eligible for property tax deferment if they’re 55 or older, or are financially supporting a dependent child.

 

© 2021 The Province

Vancouver housing market ends 2020 on fire, shatters December sales record

Sean MacKay
Livabl

 Despite the tighter measures put in place to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Vancouver home buyers scooped up a record number of properties during what’s typically a quiet period for housing activity in December.

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver today announced that 3,093 homes sold across the Vancouver region last month, a 53.4 percent increase over the same period in 2019 and a record for the month of December. Sales even slightly outperformed November 2020’s total even with December’s long stretch of holidays.

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“Robust December sales outpaced long-term averages in what’s traditionally the quietest month of the year in real estate. This was part of an unusual seasonal pattern the market followed last year, which can be attributed in large part to the pandemic,” said REBGV President Colette Gerber.

With the book now closed on 2020, REBGV also reported that total home sales for the year, 30,944, were over 20 percent higher than totals achieved in 2019 and 2018 and only slightly below the 10-year average.

It’s an impressive feat considering how few homes were sold during the early months of the pandemic.

“When the pandemic began in March, the housing market came to a near standstill. We knew, however, that shelter needs don’t go away in times of crisis, they intensify,” said Gerber.

She went on to applaud real estate professionals’ work with public health and other regulatory bodies to ensure precautions and protocols were swiftly implemented so buyers and sellers could continue to transact safely through the pandemic.

Gerber noted that changing homebuyer preferences and low interest rates drove demand in 2020, but looking ahead, it will be the supply of homes on the market that will shape activity and price trends for 2021.

Home prices continued their steady upward climb across all property types in the final month of 2020.

The benchmark price of a detached home was $1,554,600, up over 10 percent from a year earlier. Condo apartment prices rose 2.6 percent from a year ago to a benchmark of $676,500. Attached homes recorded a 4.9 percent benchmark price increase, rising to $813,900.

 

© 2020 BuzzBuzzHome Corp.

Buying or selling – key projections for Canadian real estate in 2021

Clayton Jarvis
Mortgage Broker News