Canada throws some more petrol on the fire to cool it down.

From the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (it’s not clear to me whether this is a statutory body or a trade/lobbying organisation):

The First-Time Home Buyer Incentive helps qualified first-time homebuyers reduce their monthly mortgage payments without adding to their financial burdens.

The First-Time Home Buyer Incentive is a shared-equity mortgage with the Government of Canada. It offers:
* 5% or 10% for a first-time buyer’s purchase of a newly constructed home
* 5% for a first-time buyer’s purchase of a resale (existing) home
* 5% for a first-time buyer’s purchase of a new or resale mobile/manufactured home
* The Incentive’s shared-equity mortgage is one where the government has a shared investment in the home. As a result, the government shares in both the upside and downside of the property value.

By obtaining the Incentive, the borrower may not have to save as much of a down payment to be able to afford the payments associated with the mortgage. The effect of the larger down payment is a smaller mortgage, and, ultimately, lower monthly costs.

What is the point? Prices will just go up by 5% or 10%, and deposit-constrained first time buyers are back to square one.

Also, a nice try by a commercial landlord, from Business Insider:

WeWork’s CEO said your desire to go to an office depends on how “engaged” you are at work. Sandeep Mathrani, who stepped in as CEO of the coworking startup last year, said that people most comfortable working from home are the “least engaged” with their company, while the “overly engaged” want to go to the office…

“It’s also pretty obvious that those who are overly engaged with the company want to go to the office two-thirds of the time at least,” he added. “Those who are least engaged are very comfortable working from home.”

Is he trying to guilt-trip people into paying him rent? As the article concludes…

It’s worth noting that WeWork’s business model relies on filling office space.