New house “snags”
July 23rd, 2008 -- Posted in future / dreams / goals, hill to haven | 3 Comments »Ok, is this not the worst “catch-22″ ever…?
1. You are not allowed to withdraw RRSP funds under the Home Buyers Plan unless you’ve already entered into a written agreement to purchase a home.
2. You are not allowed to enter into an agreement to buy a home (with this builder anyways!) without giving part of the down-payment the same day, with funds already in your bank account.
Since it takes 3-6 business days (apparently) to withdraw the funds from your RRSP, this means someone can’t use her/his RRSP funds for the first down-payment on a house if one is required upon signing the agreement.
So either this a big flaw in the great-sounding Home Buyer’s Plan or Minto is really on crack for wanting 5% of the cost of the house the very day you sign on the dotted line.
Speaking of Minto being on crack, do you know they want 12.5% total down-payment, and want it within the first couple months of signing?
Which may have been more do-able had we been able to use our RRSPs for that first 5% because that’s where the bulk of our funds are!
Oh and also, I made a mistake in calculating the total amount in our RRSPs, so that was a disappointment. I think it was because we’d been paying off the RRSP loan every month, so two payments were coming out for about the same amount even though the 2nd payment wasn’t actually going towards new contributions.
Another big snag: our RRSP share values suck beyond all sucking right now. If we withdraw them now, we not only haven’t gained a penny of interest on them, we actually *lose* over $1000 from what we’ve contributed over the past 5 years!!!
Our “dream house” is looking a little too dreamy right now. We might have to give this one up and go with another neighbourhood or a later closing date or different street or combination of those factors. 
