First-time buyers
The first-time buyer’s playbook for Ottawa, 2026 edition.
There has never been more federal and provincial help for a first purchase than right now; the trick is that none of it applies automatically. Here’s the full stack, with real Ottawa numbers.
What “starter home” means in Ottawa right now
Per the Ottawa Real Estate Board’s May numbers, the average townhome sold for about $564,000 and the average condo apartment for about $433,000, with roughly three months of inventory, which means you can actually take a weekend to think before offering. Those two price points are where most first purchases land, so we’ll use the townhome for the math below.
The savings stack: claim all of it
These programs combine. Most of our first-time clients qualify for four or five of them at once:
| Program | What it’s worth |
|---|---|
| FHSA: save $8,000/yr (max $40,000), tax-deductible in, tax-free out | $40,000 + tax refunds |
| RRSP Home Buyers’ Plan: borrow from yourself, repay over 15 yrs | $60,000/person |
| First-time buyers’ GST rebate: new builds up to $1M (law since March 12, 2026) | up to $50,000 |
| Ontario land transfer tax rebate | up to $4,000 |
| First-Time Home Buyers’ Tax Credit | $1,500 |
Two of these deserve a closer look:
The new GST rebate is the headline. It received Royal Assent on March 12, 2026 and applies retroactively to qualifying purchase agreements signed from spring 2025 onward. It removes 100% of the 5% GST on a newly built home priced up to $1 million (phasing out up to $1.5M); on a $700,000 new build in Barrhaven, Orléans or Kanata, that’s up to $35,000 you don’t pay. It does not apply to resales, which genuinely changes the new-vs-resale comparison for some buyers.
The land transfer tax rebate is smaller but automatic money. On a $564,000 townhome, Ontario’s land transfer tax is about $7,755; the first-time buyer rebate knocks off the first $4,000, leaving roughly $3,755 at closing. (A detail people miss: if your spouse owned a home before, it can affect your eligibility, so ask before you count on it.)
The payment tools: 30-year amortizations are back
Since late 2024, first-time buyers can take a 30-year amortization on an insured mortgage, both new builds and resales. It costs a 0.20% bump on the insurance premium, in exchange for meaningfully lower payments. On that average townhome:
| $564,000 townhome · minimum $31,400 down · 3.99% | |
|---|---|
| Monthly payment, 25-year amortization | ≈ $2,910 |
| Monthly payment, 30-year amortization | ≈ $2,635 |
| Breathing room | ≈ $275/mo |
You pay more interest over a longer amortization, so the 30-year option isn’t automatically right, but it can be the difference between qualifying and not, and most lenders let you prepay 10–20% a year to shrink it back once your income grows. Our payoff calculator shows exactly what that looks like.
The honest part: the stress test
Whatever rate you’re offered, federally regulated lenders must qualify you at the higher of 5.25% or your rate plus 2%; at today’s ~3.99%, that means proving you could carry 5.99%. For the townhome above, that works out to needing a household income somewhere in the high $120,000s, depending on your debts. If that’s not you yet, the condo market at $433,000 changes the math substantially, and so does a co-signer, a bigger down payment, or a credit-union lender that isn’t bound by the federal test. This is precisely the kind of routing a broker does for free.
Buying your first place this year?
A pre-approval costs nothing, holds your rate for up to 120 days, and tells you exactly which of these programs you qualify for.
Get pre-approved →Sources
Program rules have eligibility fine print (residency, prior ownership, occupancy) and change over time; figures use Canadian semi-annual compounding and current insurance premium tiers. General information, not financial or tax advice.