Lakewood of Strathmore incentivizing new homebuyers
By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Lakewood of Strathmore is offering a $5,000 cash incentive to new home buyers within the Community of Lakewood over the next few months.
“We wanted to create a homebuyer incentive or program that allowed people to come in, secure a new home with one of our builders in Phase 2A and allow them to be in a position so that they can buy a new home now and as rates come down, take advantage of rate drops over the spring and summer,” said Scott Silva, director of sales and marketing with Lakewood of Strathmore. “The thing is, we did not want them to wait for the rate drops because once you do that, the time has passed. The $5,000 giveaway is simply that. A $5,000 incentive that we will give directly to new buyers who sign a completed offer to purchase with our home builders and submit their deposit.”
Silva clarified that the $5,000 is able to be used for anything the buyer chooses – whether that be for adding to their downpayment on their home, to spending it on a vacation.
He explained part of the goal with the incentive is to create something that may help buyers offset potential increases in interest rates on their home or on the downpayment required, without doing a lending or rate adjustment program.
“Part of this incentive in the way it was created with our lending partner, Connect First Credit Union, because a lot of times, clients will come in with five per cent down, but they might not have the closing costs available by putting this money forward,” said Silva. “We now cover all of their closing costs, if not, most of them. The other thing that can also come in too is debt reduction. Sometimes debt servicing is a little high for individuals, so if they apply this money to pay down some debt, it can bring their debt servicing in line.”
The program is currently available for the first 20 buyers, though Silva said depending on the success it sees within its first 90 days, it may be worthwhile to extend the incentive longer.
This incentive extends to homes which will see completed construction in Phase 2A of the Lakewood community, with preferred builders working with the Lakewood of Strathmore team.
More information regarding the incentive is available through liveinlakewood.ca, as well as through a Lakewood of Strathmore online social media campaign.
“We want to make sure that we can get word out to all our potential buyers in Calgary and around Canada, and even outside of Canada … we have had a lot of positive migration to the region and Strathmore has been feeling that and I think we’re on the road to see a lot more,” said Silva. “We really just want to let everybody know Strathmore is open for business and come down and visit our amazing town.”