Ottawa · First Time Home Buyer
Written for one person: someone buying their first home. What you qualify for, what it costs, what happens in what order, and the money you are owed at the end that nobody reminds you to claim.
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A move-up buyer brings the proceeds of a house. You bring savings, and possibly a gift — so the down payment and the monthly carry are both built from scratch.
That is a real advantage. Your offer needs no sale-of-home condition, which is the least attractive condition a seller can receive. It also means you cannot bridge-finance.
Land transfer tax, legal fees, adjustments and title insurance are payable on closing, on top of the down payment. This is the most underestimated number in a first purchase.
A land transfer tax refund with an 18-month deadline, and a tax credit claimed the following spring. Both are commonly missed because they arrive long after closing.
Your route
The first five steps are the same either way. From step 06 the two journeys genuinely diverge — different checks, different commitments, different closing. Pick one and the rest of this page follows it.
Are you one?
This is the centrepiece of the whole page, and it decides real money. The two most valuable programs use tests that genuinely contradict each other — so check yourself against each one separately, never once.
Ontario land transfer tax refund
The strictest test in common use. Owning a home — or an interest in one — anywhere on earth disqualifies you permanently. A spouse's ownership while they were your spouse counts against you too, though ownership before they became your spouse may not.
Own once, and this one is gone for good.
RRSP Home Buyers' Plan
A far softer test, and a rolling one. It asks whether you lived in a qualifying home you or your spouse owned during the current calendar year before the withdrawal, or in the four calendar years before that.
A past owner can become eligible again.
So a person who owned a condo six years ago has permanently lost Ontario's refund and can still use the RRSP plan. One person, two opposite answers, same day.
The money
We link each programme to the authority that runs it rather than repeating its figures here, because these amounts and deadlines move — several changed in 2026. What you read at the source is the current rule, not our copy of an old one.
Ontario Ministry of Finance
Rates, how the tax is calculated, and the first-time homebuyer refund. Refund requests must be made within 18 months of the transfer — a deadline people miss.
Source checked 25 July 2026
Canada Revenue Agency
Lets a first-time buyer withdraw from their RRSP to buy or build a qualifying home, currently up to $60,000, repayable over 15 years. It can be combined with an FHSA withdrawal for the same home if each set of conditions is met.
Source checked 25 July 2026
Canada Revenue Agency
The registered account for first-home savers: contributions are generally deductible and qualifying withdrawals to buy or build a first home are tax-free.
Source checked 25 July 2026
Canada Revenue Agency
A rebate of the federal GST for first-time buyers of a newly built or substantially renovated home, capped by the home's value and limited to agreements signed inside a defined window. It applies to new construction only — there is no GST/HST on a resale purchase, so there is nothing to rebate.
Source checked 30 July 2026
Canada Revenue Agency / Ontario Ministry of Finance
Ontario rebates its provincial share of the HST on an eligible newly built home alongside the federal rebate, on its own thresholds and its own eligibility window.
Source checked 30 July 2026
Canada Revenue Agency
A non-refundable federal credit claimed on the tax return for the year you bought a qualifying home. It can be split with a spouse or common-law partner up to the combined maximum. Commonly missed, because it is claimed months after closing.
Source checked 30 July 2026
The steps
Buying a resale home — 10 steps from working out what you can carry to claiming your refund.
Before you look
Every buyer works out what a lender will lend and what they can carry each month. What is different the first time is that there is no equity from a previous sale standing behind either number. A move-up buyer brings the proceeds of a house; you bring savings, and possibly a gift. Start from the monthly carry — mortgage, property tax, heat, hydro, water, insurance, and either condo fees or the maintenance a freehold quietly demands — then work backwards to a price. The stress test qualifies you at a higher rate than you will actually pay, so your real ceiling sits below what a mortgage calculator first suggests.
Comparing the mortgage payment to your current rent and concluding you can afford it. Rent is usually the whole housing cost. A mortgage payment is the beginning of one.
This is the thing almost nobody is told, and it decides real money. "First-time home buyer" is not one status: each program writes its own test, and the tests do not agree. Ontario's land transfer tax refund turns on never having owned a home, or an interest in one, anywhere in the world — and a spouse's ownership while they were your spouse counts against you, though ownership before they became your spouse may not. The federal Home Buyers' Plan is far softer: it asks only that you did not live in a qualifying home you or your spouse owned during the current calendar year before the withdrawal, or in the four calendar years before it. So someone who owned a condo six years ago has permanently lost the Ontario refund but can re-qualify for the RRSP plan. Check yourself against each program separately, never once.
Assuming one answer covers every program. Qualifying for the RRSP Home Buyers' Plan tells you nothing about whether you qualify for Ontario's refund — they are not the same test.
Two registered plans exist for exactly this moment. The First Home Savings Account gives a deduction going in and a tax-free qualifying withdrawal coming out. The Home Buyers' Plan lets you take money from an RRSP and repay it over time. They can generally be used for the same home if you meet each set of conditions — and each has its own definition of first-time, which is the step above. A gifted down payment from family is common and entirely legitimate, but your lender will want a signed letter confirming it is a gift and not a loan, because a loan changes what you can carry. Whatever the source, the money has to be visible and explainable in your account well before closing.
Opening an FHSA the week you plan to buy. Both plans reward being opened early; the account has to exist before it can do anything for you.
A pre-approval tells you what a lender will commit to and usually holds a rate for a set period. It is a ceiling, not a promise, and it is not the final approval — that comes after you have an actual property, and the lender has to approve the property too. First Time Home Buyers are more likely than most to be putting down less than twenty per cent, which means the mortgage must be insured. That premium is normally added to the loan rather than paid up front, so it quietly raises both what you borrow and what you pay interest on. A longer amortization is also available on insured mortgages for first-time buyers and for buyers of newly built homes: it lowers the monthly payment and raises the total interest paid, which is a trade-off rather than a free improvement.
Treating a pre-approval as final approval. An appraisal below the price can undo the arithmetic after your offer is already accepted.
In Ontario a purchase is closed by a lawyer, so you are hiring one whether or not anyone tells you in advance. Line that up early rather than in the week after an offer is accepted, when your choices narrow to whoever happens to be free. The rest is your call: a mortgage professional, an agent if you choose to work with one, and — on a resale purchase — a home inspector. Interview more than one of each. How clearly someone explains things while there is no pressure is a fair guide to how they will treat you when there is.
Leaving the lawyer until an offer is accepted. It is the one professional you cannot skip, and the worst time to choose one is when the clock is already running.
Choosing and committing
Location and housing type set your real budget more than anything else, and the same money buys very different homes across Ottawa. The pressure specific to a first purchase is the belief that it has to be right forever. It does not — most first homes are held for a handful of years, and a condo or townhouse in an area you can genuinely afford beats stretching for a detached house you cannot carry through a rate change. Then view with your questions written down, because you will not remember them in the room. A viewing is reconnaissance, not an inspection.
Stretching to the maximum approval for a forever home on a first purchase. The stretch is what removes your ability to absorb a renewal at a higher rate.
A new build front-loads the decisions. Before anything is built you are choosing an area, a builder, a specific lot and a floor plan — from drawings, a model home and a sales centre, not from a house you can walk through. Take the builder choice as seriously as the house: look up their licence, how long they have been building, how many homes they have completed and any conduct history, and go and look at communities they finished years ago rather than only the one they are selling today. Sales centres are staffed by people who do this professionally while you are doing it once.
Choosing on the model home. Model homes are upgraded to sell; the base specification is what your contract actually buys, and the difference is paid for at the design studio.
For a resale home, an inspection tells you what condition you are actually buying — the things a viewing cannot show you and the seller may not know. For a condo, the status certificate tells you what condition the building's finances are in, including whether a special assessment is coming, which is exactly the kind of surprise a first purchase has no room to absorb. Neither is a formality. Both are cheap relative to what they find.
Waiving the inspection to make an offer more competitive, on a first purchase, with no equity to absorb whatever it would have found.
There is no house to inspect, so the builder's agreement is what gets inspected instead, by your lawyer, before you sign rather than after. It sets the price, what the base specification actually includes, how and when deposits are paid, what happens if the closing date moves, and what you may and may not change later. Ontario's new-home warranty also covers deposits within limits, and the warranty itself runs on its own clocks from possession. Understand both before money leaves your account.
Signing at the sales centre on the day because an incentive expires. Whatever the agreement says is what you are buying, and the schedules at the back are where the costs live.
An offer in Ontario is a legal document, not an opening conversation: price, conditions, deposit, and an irrevocable date after which it expires. Here is the structural advantage nobody explains to First Time Home Buyers — you have nothing to sell. A move-up buyer often has to make their offer conditional on selling their existing home, which is the least attractive condition a seller can receive. Yours does not need it, and that carries real negotiating weight. The flip side: you cannot bridge-finance, because there is no sale to bridge from, so your closing date has to be coordinated against the end of a lease rather than the sale of a house.
Giving notice on your rental before the deal is firm, then having a condition fail. Decide in advance what you will not waive, because you will not decide well under pressure.
Signing commits you at today's price for delivery in several seasons' time, with deposits due on a schedule set in the agreement. Then comes the design studio, where the base specification becomes an actual house and the price becomes a different price. Go in knowing which upgrades genuinely have to be done by the builder — anything structural, or buried behind drywall — and which are simply more expensive bought here than done later. Take your budget with a number written on it, because the room is designed to move that number.
Treating the design studio as decorating. Structural and behind-the-wall choices are effectively permanent; finishes usually are not, and are often cheaper afterwards.
Keys and after
Between acceptance and key day your lawyer searches title, your lender finalises the mortgage, and the closing costs arrive — land transfer tax, legal fees, adjustments and title insurance. They are payable in cash on closing, on top of the down payment, and they are the most consistently underestimated number in a first purchase. Ottawa has no municipal land transfer tax on top of the provincial one, unlike Toronto.
Budgeting only for the down payment. Closing costs are a separate, additional cash requirement, and they land at the least convenient moment.
Construction runs its own sequence and its own timeline, and the closing date in a builder's agreement is not as fixed as a resale closing date — the agreement itself explains how it can move, which is why reading it mattered. Before you take possession you walk the house with the builder at the pre-delivery inspection and record everything incomplete, damaged, missing, inaccessible or not working. Then closing brings land transfer tax, legal fees and builder adjustments — and on a new build the adjustments can include charges a resale buyer never sees.
Rushing the pre-delivery inspection. Failing to note something does not automatically end your warranty rights, but it leaves you proving the damage was there before you moved in — a far harder conversation than writing it down was.
The transaction ends and two pieces of money are still outstanding, both commonly missed because they arrive long after everyone has stopped thinking about the purchase. Ontario's land transfer tax refund is worth up to $4,000 to a qualifying first-time buyer and must be claimed within 18 months of registration. The federal home buyers' amount is a tax credit claimed on the return for the year you bought, and it can be split with a spouse or common-law partner. Then the first year is about learning the house and the rhythm of Ottawa's seasons, and building the habit of setting money aside for repairs that have not announced themselves yet.
Missing the 18-month deadline on the Ontario refund, or forgetting the home buyers' amount at tax time. Nobody sends a reminder for either.
Your checklist
Select everything you’ve completed so far to generate an accurate checklist of your remaining tasks.
One line per step, for the route you chose. Saved in this browser only — never sent anywhere — and the printed sheet carries your ticks with it.
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Tools
All 7 calculators run in your browser. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent anywhere.
The two numbers that matter — what a lender will lend, and what you can carry each month once tax, heat and fees join the payment.
Under twenty per cent down means an insured mortgage. See what the premium adds to the loan you carry.
Ontario's marginal brackets, with the first-time buyer refund applied — and no municipal tax on top, unlike Toronto.
The cash you need on closing day, on top of the down payment. The number most first purchases underestimate.
What a given price actually costs per month, on Canadian semi-annual compounding.
The honest monthly comparison, with the trade-offs stated rather than predicted.
Questions
It depends entirely on which program you are asking about, and this is the single most useful thing to understand. For Ontario's land transfer tax refund, no — that test asks whether you have ever owned a home or an interest in one anywhere in the world. For the RRSP Home Buyers' Plan, quite possibly yes — it looks only at the current calendar year and the four before it, so a past owner can re-qualify. Check yourself against each program separately.
For Ontario's refund it can. A spouse's ownership while they were your spouse counts against you; ownership before they became your spouse may not. The federal plans have their own spousal wording. If either of you has owned anywhere, treat it as a question for your lawyer rather than an assumption.
Generally yes, provided you meet each set of conditions — they are separate programs with separate rules and separate definitions of who counts as first-time. Confirm the current limits and conditions with the Canada Revenue Agency directly rather than relying on any summary, including ours.
Neither is better in the abstract, but the money genuinely differs. A First Time Home Buyer buying newly built can claim a GST/HST rebate that does not exist on a resale purchase, because there is no GST or HST on a resale home to rebate. Against that, a new build means staged deposits, a closing date that can move, and a year or more of waiting. Pick on your timeline first, then read the rebate rules at the source.
Yes. In Ontario a property purchase is closed by a lawyer — it is not optional, and it is not something your agent or lender does for you. Engage one early rather than in the week after your offer is accepted.
Closing costs, in cash, on closing day: land transfer tax, legal fees, adjustments and title insurance. They sit on top of the down payment and are the most underestimated number in a first purchase. On a new build, builder adjustments can add charges a resale buyer never sees. Our closing cost estimator gives you a working figure.
No. This site explains how to buy, sell and rent in Ottawa — the process, the rules and the costs. We do not list properties and we do not link to listing sites. The search box here searches our guidance, not the market.
