Work performed by electricians, plumbers, carpenters, architects

Generally, work performed by electricians, plumbers, carpenters, architects, etc.
in respect of an eligible expense qualifies.

Family member hired for renovations

Expenses are not eligible if the goods or services are provided by a person related to you, unless that person is registered for the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax under the Excise Tax Act. If your family member is registered for GST/HST and if all other conditions are met, the expenses are eligible for the HRTC.

Eligible dwellings

An eligible dwelling is a housing unit that is eligible to be your principal residence or that of one or more of your family members at any time between January 27, 2009, and February 1, 2010.

In general, a housing unit is considered to be your principal residence when it is owned by you and ordinarily inhabited by you, your spouse or common-law partner, and your children. This means that any dwelling that you own and use personally could qualify, including your home or your cottage.

Cottages

If you own and use your home and cottage personally, eligible expenses incurred for both properties will normally qualify for the HRTC. Note that the maximum amount of eligible expenses you can claim for the HRTC is $10,000 per family.

Rental and/or business use of an eligible dwelling

If you earn business or rental income from part of an eligible dwelling, you can claim the HRTC only for expenses incurred for the personal-use areas of the dwelling.

Condominiums and co-operative housing corporations

For condominiums and co-operative housing corporations, your share of the cost of eligible expenses for common areas qualifies.

Eligibility period

The HRTC is based on eligible expenses for work performed or goods acquired after January 27, 2009, and before February 1, 2010, under an agreement entered into after January 27, 2009, related to an eligible dwelling.

Some businesses or individuals may assert that certain items qualify for the HRTC. It is important to remember that you are responsible for ensuring that all eligibility requirements are met when you claim this credit on your tax return.

• Renovating a kitchen, bathroom, or basement, windows and doors
• New carpet or hardwood floors
• New furnace, boiler, woodstove, fireplace, water softener, water heater, or oil tank
• Permanent Home ventilation systems, central air conditioner
• Septic systems and wells
• Electrical wiring in the home, home Security System (monthly fees do not qualify)
• Solar panels and solar panel trackers
• Painting the interior or exterior of a house
• Building an addition, garage, deck, garden/storage shed, or fence
• Re-shingling a roof
• A new driveway or resurfacing a driveway
• Exterior shutters and awnings

• Permanent swimming pools, hot tub and installation costs (in ground and above ground)
• Landscaping
• Associated costs such as installation, permits, professional services,equipment rentals, and incidental expenses
• Fixtures - blinds, shades, shutters, lights, ceiling fans, etc.

• Furniture, appliances, and audio and visual electronics
• Purchasing of tools
• Carpet cleaning
• House cleaning
• Maintenance contracts (e.g., furnace cleaning, snow removal, lawn care, and pool cleaning)
• Financing costs

Federal Home Renovation Tax Credit (HRTC)

Excessive real estate strength in Canada from ultralow mortgage rates could push the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates sooner or more aggressively than forecast, according to a TD Economics report on Tuesday.

The possibility is worth watching closely, the economics arm of Toronto-Dominion Bank argued, although it also said the most likely scenario is that the real estate market will moderate and inflation will remain in check.

The Bank of Canada has pledged to keep its interest rates unchanged at 0.25 percent until mid-2010, unless it sees a threat of inflation spinning out of control.

TD pointed to recent statements by the central bank that hinted that it would seek to lean against signs of emerging asset bubbles and that it is also monitoring developments in home prices.

In a recent speech, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney deemed the strength in existing home sales as "temporary", reflecting "pent-up demand" and improved affordability.

"The (Bank of Canada's) view at the moment is that the recent resurgence in real estate is temporary, but if it does not moderate in the coming year -- or worse still if price growth accelerates -- it could lead to an earlier and more substantial tightening in policy than currently anticipated," TD economists Craig Alexander and Grant Bishop said in the report on Tuesday.

The economists stressed that the central bank targets the rate of consumer price growth and does not target asset values.

"The key issue is whether the low interest rate environment is creating an economic imbalance that requires a rebalancing of monetary policy," the TD economists said.

Canadian real estate markets have staged a stunning turnaround this year from the end of 2008 when sales and prices retreated sharply. The latest Canadian Real Estate Association data showed August home sales were up 18.5 percent from a year ago, while prices rose 11.3 percent nationally from a year earlier to an average C$324,779 ($306,395).

TD expects sales will cool in the coming months and for price growth to return to a mid-single digit pace after months of pent-up demand and tighter mortgage pricing.

"The base-case economic forecast does not anticipate that hot real estate markets will force the Bank of Canada's hand, but it is a risk worth closely monitoring," the TD economists said.

TD expects the Bank of Canada will begin to gradually lift the benchmark overnight interest rate in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Did you know that there is more than one way to compute the interest on a loan?

Normally, interest rates on all fixed-term mortgage loans are computed semi-
annually. However, for mortgage loans with a variable rate, some lenders use a
semi-annually capitalized variable rate, while others use a monthly compounded
variable rate.

This difference in the calculation changes the payment by only a
few dollars per month but, over a long period of time, it can significantly affect the
overall cost of your loan.

For example: for a $250,000 mortgage amortized over 25 years, the customer
will pay $3.40 more per month if the lender capitalizes monthly, an increase of
$1,020.

Do some digging; might as well keep this money in your pocket. Your
advisor knows where to go and who to deal with in order to save you money.

Canadian banks are chopping their mortgage rates across the board by up to a third of a percentage point as the cost of borrowing in the bond market falls.

The popular five-year closed mortgage gets the biggest cut.

At TD Canada Trust, a five-year closed mortgage drops three-tenths of a percentage point to 5.55 per cent. At the Royal, the five-year closed term falls three-tenths of a point to 5.49 per cent. At BMO, a five-year loan also falls to 5.49 per cent, but that represents a drop of .36 of a percentage point.

These are all posted rates. The big banks typically offer discounts of at least a full percentage point on most closed mortgages.

BMO and RBC say they're offering a special rate of 4.19 per cent on their five-year mortgages. A few smaller financial institutions such as First Calgary Savings are currently offering five-year loans for just under four per cent.

At the big banks, most other mortgage terms were trimmed by smaller amounts. A one-year closed mortgage falls a fifth of a percentage point to 3.70 per cent at BMO and RBC. A 10-year closed mortgage drops a fifth of a percentage point to 6.70 per cent at TD and to 6.75 per cent at the other two.

Analysts say low mortgage rates have helped to turn around the Canadian housing market in recent months. Real estate statistics for July show that the number of resales across the country surged more than 18 per cent from a year earlier to a record high. The average MLS sale price in July was up 7.6 per cent from July 2008.

The Bank of Canada is widely expected to keep its key overnight lending rate unchanged at its current record low of 0.25 per cent when it makes its next interest rate policy announcement on Thursday.

Real estate prices rose again in August and were approaching their levels of a year ago, numbers released Wednesday by the Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley real estate boards showed.

Market watchers, surprised by the strength of the rebound, said it appeared buyers were cashing in on record-low mortgage rates while they last.

Sales set records in July and stayed hot in August. The question now is whether the market can keep up the pace.

“Before I would call this a complete recovery I would want to see a couple of months of data,” Robyn Adamache, a market analyst with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said in an interview.

Adamache added that there now are five months worth of data showing an upward trend, but “it remains to be seen whether this was just a one-shot deal where everybody was pre-approved for their [low-rate] mortgages and they basically jumped into the market, and whether or not [the market] can be sustained for the rest of the year.”

However, Adamache said on balance, Metro Vancouver’s average property prices, since their trough last March, have climbed back to within three percentage points of their peak.

She estimated that from peak to trough, average prices fell some 15 per cent.

Record-low mortgage rates, which fell as low as 3.65 per cent on five-year fixed-rate mortgages before rising again after June 1, played a big role in the market.

“If I had to put [market performance] on one thing, I would have to say interest rates,” Carolyn Heaney, Vancouver area manager of mortgage development for the Bank of Montreal, said in an interview.

Heaney said her mortgage lenders had a lot of clients who had been approved for mortgages with the low rates, and had 90 days to buy homes and close their purchases before their pre-approvals expired.

“There were certainly a lot of people who jumped off the fence in order to keep their rates,” she said.

Kevin Lutz, B.C. mortgage manager for RBC Financial Group, said that despite the recession, a bit of consumer confidence has been returning to the market. Lutz said the past few months have seen buyers cram almost a year’s worth of buying activity into a short period.

In the area of Metro Vancouver covered by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV), that translated into 3,441 sales through the Multiple Listing service, a 120-per-cent increase from last August, when the region saw 1,568 sales.

Prices in Metro continued to edge up with the benchmark price (the average price of the typical property sold) for detached homes hitting $732,656 in August. That was just 0.7 per cent below last year’s benchmark price for detached homes.

Some communities saw detached-home prices rise above their levels of a year ago. On Vancouver’s west side, for example, the benchmark of $1.4 million in August was three per cent higher than in the same month a year ago.

The $685,746 benchmark for detached homes on Vancouver’s east side was 3.2 per cent higher than a year ago.

New Westminster, Pitt Meadows and the Sunshine Coast also saw detached home prices higher than a year ago.

“It has been surprising,” REBGV president-elect Jake Moldown said. “I don’t think if you had talked to any of us in January that we would be expecting sales levels to be where they are today.”

However, he said with price adjustments and low interest rates combining to reduce mortgage payments, a lot of first-time buyers have jumped into the market, helping set off a chain reaction of upward movement.

In the Fraser Valley, realtors recorded their second busiest August on record, with agents racking up 1,786 sales through the MLS in August, up 96 per cent from 910 sales in the same month a year ago, when the market was sliding rapidly.

For the period of June through August, the board said valley realtors saw 5,857 MLS sales, which outpaced the same period of 2007, but is still far from matching 2005’s 6,866 sales for June, July and August.

Fraser Valley realtors saw the benchmark price (the average price of a typical property sold) for single-family homes creep up 3.8 per cent over the past three months to $483,839 in August, not quite erasing the losses of the past year. That price was still 3.5 per cent below last August’s $501,317 benchmark.