Today, we're going to answer the question that seems to be coming up a lot lately with all of the changes that have happened with the Canadian mortgage laws and that is: "Can I still buy a home with zero down"? And the answer thankfully is yes if you know where to go and you know who to talk to.

Now, we have access to a little known program that allows you to borrow your down payment. You don't need thousands of dollars in the bank to buy a house anymore!

The fact of the matter is that your down payment can come from a personal loan through a bank, a line of credit from a bank, it can come from a credit card and before you discount that idea, just remember that a lot of people have credit card limits that are tens of thousands of dollars. And nowadays, credit card interest rates really aren't that bad!

So if you're paying on a high interest credit card, maybe you should look at getting a low interest credit card. But that's a bit of a side note, the fact of the matter is that the money can come from just about anywhere.

In fact, the money can be a gift from just about any party not related to the purchase and sale. The money can come from your parents, other family members, such as brothers or sister or cousins. The money can come from friends. It can come from an employer, which actually does happen quite a bit with small companies. In fact, it almost doesn't matter where the money is coming from as long as where it is coming from can be proven.

I mean for all that have matters, the money can come from your next door neighbor.

Okay, so this program has been created for clients that do have good credit. So if you don't have a down payment and you have bad credit, this program is not for you - there are other programs out there - but for this one, you do need to have good credit. You know, you may not been able to save for down payment, perhaps you've got part of a down payment or perhaps you've got none of your down payment.

Basically, you can borrow up to 5% of the purchase price for your down payment.

Okay, what you do need: you do need to have verifiable income. You need to be working at a job, or if your self-employed, you to need been self-employed for at least two years and you need to have two years of tax returns to make this work.

You need to have good credit.

In fact the minimum beacon score is 650, which really isn't too hard to attain but you do need to have that minimum 650.

Of course you need the ability to debt service the new loan payment. So the money that were borrowing for the down payment money - that's going to go on our debt servicing ratio, as well as that new mortgage payment. So we need to be able to be within limits for debt servicing, alright? And finally of course we need to qualify within CMHC guidelines - but... you know, if you can qualify for most programs with the down payment, you should be able to qualify for this one without a down payment.

And now property that this will work with. It'll work with single family homes up to two units. So you can go out and just a buy a regular old single home or you could buy a duplex, live in one side, rent the other side out - just a suggestion but it will work for regular house, it will work for duplex. This isn't designed for condos, apartment, townhouses, stuff like that, modular homes. It's more for a regular house type of purchase. So yes, they need to be prime marketable properties. The house can't be out in the middle of the bush somewhere, the lender prefers regular old houses inside city limits.

And the rates are still discounted! You're not paying ridiculous interest rates for this mortgage which goes back to why you need have good credit because they aren't going to charge through the nose for this mortgage. Okay, so that's a brief summary of how zero down mortgages can still work nowadays. Good luck with your Grande Prairie home purchase!