The City of Winkler, Lux Construction Inc. and Access Credit Union have partnered to break down financial barriers to home ownership. They have launched a 2-year pilot program called Headstart to a Home, designed to help those struggling to save up for a down payment for home mortgages.

"We hear regularly from people that it's hard to save enough money for a down payment," explained Mayor Henry Siemens. "This program was brought to us by Lux Developments. They have seen this program in Saskatchewan, and they brought the idea to us. We approached, together with them, Access Credit Union and, with a few tweaks to make sure that it worked in our market, we were able to put something together."

He noted, this has been about six months in the making. 

The program will see Lux Construction build 24 homes in the first year, and another 24 homes in year two. They will also provide a $10,000 discount on the purchase price of these homes, to be located on Yellowstone Trail, for qualified applicants. Access Credit Union will provide an insured mortgage and an interest-free loan for the down payment of 5% of the purchase price for 5 years, and The City of Winkler will provide security to Access Credit Union so that qualified homebuyers may secure the interest-free loan.

"As we did the research on it and looked further into this guarantee, $15,000 is a fairly safe guarantee in our community," added Siemens. "Even if we do have some defaults, as a rule in Winkler, houses have appreciated in value rather than depreciated. So, over those years the house will be worth more. We shouldn't be in a place where we run negative on it. We've looked at it from an accounting piece. We've looked at it from a legal standpoint. We believe that the risk is very low, but the reward is huge that we're able to help people get into home ownership." 

Research also included examining the program that runs in Saskatchewan. 

"There we found that the program started initially as a small pilot in one community and grew over multiple communities with an extremely low default rate," explained Siemens. "We were surprised even at how low they were. They did thousands of them during the time that the program ran there, and it was extremely successful, very well received by the community, and almost no defaults." 

Because this opportunity will allow 48 households to become homeowners over two years, Siemens said it was a very quick opportunity for Council to support the plan.

"We know that we create a healthier, more stable, less transient community when we give an opportunity, or we've helped find an opportunity for people who want to own homes, to own homes. So, we're interested to see what this will do. We expect that we'll see very strong interest in it."

With 12 pads already poured, and shovels ready to hit the ground today, Siemens expects these homes will be in the $303,900 range (after discount).

Choice Realty has been contracted by Lux Construction to handle the sale of these homes. Interested homebuyers should contact them for more information.

With files from Pam Fedack

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