Across Canada, too many properties are underused or vacant—from unused basements, to empty office towers, to vacant lots—and could be used to build more homes.
We announced technical guidance for lenders and insurers to offer mortgage refinancing for homeowners looking to add secondary suites to their homes, starting January 15, 2025. These mortgage insurance reforms, as well as the forthcoming Canada Secondary Suite Loan Program, will make it easier for homeowners to convert and unused basement into a rental apartment or a garage into a laneway home to increase density in our communities.
These changes will:
- Allow refinancing of insured mortgages for secondary suites, to let homeowners access the equity in their homes to finance the construction of secondary suites.
- Increase the mortgage insurance home price limit to $2 million for those refinancing to build a secondary suite, to ensure homeowners can access this refinancing in all housing markets across the country.
In addition, we announced consultations on the taxation of vacant land. We are seeking feedback from provinces, territories, and municipalities that are interested in implementing their own vacant land taxes. By taxing vacant lands, landowners would be incentivized to maximize the full potential of their land—building homes.
We also announced that an additional 14 underused federal properties have been identified as suitable for building new homes. With these additional federal properties being added to the Canada Public Land Bank, a total of 70 properties have now been unlocked and are available to homebuilders as of last week. This is part of our work—as Canada’s largest landowner—to turn unused and underused federal properties into 250,000 new homes.
By making it easier for homeowners to add secondary suites to their existing homes, and unlocking vacant lands and underused federal properties for housing, we can build the supply of homes Canada needs to make housing more affordable for every generation.
