Owning A Home Has Never Been So Affordable...

Being a real estate agent who primarily deals with first-time home buyers, I often hear obligations such as "Owning a home is too expensive" or "Renting is so much easier", and I've come to realize that first-time home buyers haven't looked into the typical costs in owning a home versus renting.

"Owning a Home is Too Expensive"

The average rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in Ottawa is $960/month, while that might not seem like very much, consider this. As early as a month ago, the mortgage interest rate was 5.5%. That same $960/month would translate to a monthly mortgage payment for a $193,000 home. With today's record-low interest rate of 3.45% that same monthly payment would be the equivalent to the monthly mortgage payment for a $240,000 home. That's like someone giving you an extra $47,000 towards your new home FOR FREE!

"Renting is So Much Easier"

I'm not going to argue that renting is easy - you pay your monthly rent to your landlord and most of the utilities are taken care of, and if anything breaks, you call up your landlord and they will come and fix it - life IS easy. But owning a home doesn't have to be hard, in fact, if you buy wisely, it's not any harder than renting.

Take a condominium for instance - typically condos are assumed to be a high-rise building with 15+ floors with 8+ residences per floor, but condos in Ottawa come in all shapes and sizes. Today, in Ottawa, condos can be anything from a townhome to a 'boutique condo' (that is a building that includes 35 residences or less) to a simple quad-plex. I find condos to be a great stepping stone into the world of home-ownership for first-time buyers - you are generally responsilbe for the interior of your home, while the condo fees take care of the exterior. First-time home buyers are often scared of the costs associated with home maintenance - what if the roof leaks? What if the windows need replacing? Which are valid concerns, but condo fees take care of all that for you - in most condos, you're typically responsible from drywall to drywall. I like to look at condo fees as a miniature payment plan - putting aside a small amount of money each month to save for something that will inevitably need to be repaired in the future. Whether you own a condo or non-condo, things in the home will break and you will need to fix them - it comes down to a difference of how you pay for it.

Now I'm sure you've all heard the horror sotries of condo fees starting out in the $200 to $300 range and then sky-rocketing to over $600 in a few years, but chances are, those stories are over 4 years old. Today, condominiums are subject to much stricter legislation than they used to be which prevents condo fees from spiking to those high amounts.

In my experience condos are a great idea for the first-time home buyer - it eases them into home-owning without being too overwhelming. And with today's interest rate, there is no better time to shop to that new home than today.

For more information about some of the condos in Ottawa, please visit www.bennettrealestatepros.com or ssend an email to taylor@bennettrealestatepros.com