Greg Guyatt - Mortgage Architects

03/29/2026

The Ontario government just announced a big expansion to the HST Rebate Program on newly constructed homes. It now applies to all buyers (not just first-time homebuyers) for a one-year period starting April 1, 2026.
On the surface, it sounds like a huge win — up to $130,000 off the HST on new homes valued up to $1 million (with a sliding scale for homes between $1M and $1.85M).
But here’s the reality most people miss: this rebate often functions more like a builder pricing tool than a true buyer benefit.

Here’s how it typically plays out:
The government provides the rebate
The builder factors (or “bakes”) that rebate into the advertised purchase price upfront
The buyer ends up paying it back through a higher base price.

In many cases, builders use the rebate as a marketing incentive while adjusting their pricing at their own discretion. There’s a good chance a big chunk of it is already built into the asking price.

Bottom line: The HST rebate is not automatically extra money in your pocket — it’s often just a condition of the deal. If you don’t qualify, or if the builder doesn’t fully pass it through, you could be on the hook for that amount out of pocket.
My advice when looking at new construction:

Always compare the total purchase price (including how the rebate is handled) against similar properties in the area
Carefully review the purchase agreement — especially the section on how the HST rebate is applied.

Don’t let the headline “$130,000 savings” distract you from the real numbers
If you’re thinking about a new build or have questions about how this affects your mortgage options (including renewals coming up), feel free to reach out. I’m happy to walk through the numbers with you and make sure you’re not overpaying.

03/18/2026

James E. Thorne


Chief Market Strategist
PhD Econ. Astute, observations and conclusions. Personal views. Not investment advice. Please do your own research.

A Master Class in Incompetence: the Bank of Canada.

High energy prices are deflationary: they squeeze real incomes, crush discretionary spending, and deter investment, so the ultimate macro effect is weaker growth and downward pressure on underlying inflation, not a permanent inflation spiral. Yet you should fully expect central bankers to ignore basic economic theory and, as they did with wages and tariffs, misread a negative supply shock in oil as the start of a permanent inflation regime rather than a growth shock with only temporary price effects. It is hard to describe that repeated error—treating every cost shock as a 1970s rerun, as anything other than total incompetence.

The Bank of Canada just delivered a masterclass in that incompetence: leaving rates unchanged as Canada heads for a hard landing is not caution, it is negligence—tight policy into a weakening, energy‑squeezed economy is how you turn a slowdown into a policy‑induced recession, then blame “inflation expectations” after the fact.

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02/24/2026

From James E. Thorne

James E. Thorne

·
For the record.

Macklem’s Fantasy Economics: Calling a Housing Recession “Resilience”

The most interest‑rate‑sensitive sector of the Canadian economy is already in a textbook recession, which should be the first clue to any serious practitioner that Macklem and the Bank of Canada have miscalibrated policy.

When the most interest rate sensitive sector of the economy is in clear recession and Macklem insists the economy is “resilient,” it is not prudence, it is recklessness masquerading as sophistication.

With only 269 new homes sold in the Toronto area in January, the weakest since 1981, the new‑build market isn’t “cooling,” it has effectively seized up, and only a theorist divorced from reality would pretend otherwise.

No one should be surprised: this is precisely where the early warning signs pointed, yet the Bay Street chorus that sneered at those concerns two years ago has suddenly gone very quiet. And to think some on Bay Street were still confidently forecasting Bank of Canada hikes into this downturn, a comical display of model‑worship over judgment, now paid for by households, builders, and the real economy. Yes, another day in paradise.

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02/21/2026

Happy to be a proud sponsor of the U16 AAA Hamilton Steel.

Highlights and interviews from Sunday November 23rd between the Admirals and Steel at the Chedoke Arena in Hamilton.This video is presented in partnership wi...