As the real estate landscape continues to evolve, it’s important your clients have a solid grasp of the entire home buying process. From understanding interest rates, to choosing a mortgage and managing repayment schedules, financial literacy is essential for making informed decisions and ensuring long-term financial resilience.
While this information is valuable throughout the year, November is Financial Literacy Month and we recommend taking this opportunity to empower your clients by sharing insights about the financial aspects of homeownership, and providing them with the tools and resources they need to help make one of the biggest purchases of their lives.
As REALTORS®, you have the expertise to guide prospective homeowners through the intricacies of the real estate market, leveraging in-depth knowledge and experience to ensure a smooth and successful home buying journey.
In addition, CREA offers a number of resources you can share with your clients.
Both CREA.ca and REALTOR.ca provide a wealth of valuable resources to enhance your clients’ financial literacy. From CREA’s monthly housing market report to the REALTOR.ca mortgage calculators, both websites are ready to equip your clients with the knowledge and skills they need to make informed decisions.
CREA’s Home buyers’ Road Map helps Canadians navigate the home buying process and paperwork from start to finish. It allows your clients to understand what to expect from the process before starting their journey. It helps them assess their financial readiness, understand the purchase price of a home, identify various mortgage options, as well as anticipate related expenses such as closing and repair costs. The Home buyers’ Road Map is an excellent resource for first-time home buyers, and did we mention it’s available in five languages?
CREA’s Homeownership Dividend for Canadians is an excellent resource for your prospective clients, helping them understand the balance between the financial and non-financial benefits of homeownership, and just how far those benefits reach.
The CREA Café and REALTOR.ca Living Room blogs share countless articles on housing market analysis, the home buying process, working with a REALTOR®, and more. These resources can help your clients gain insight into the REALTOR® community, better understand the state of the housing market, and learn about the work that CREA does to support the entire housing continuum.
Here are some other resources to explore:
- The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada provides insights on how to choose, finance, maintain, and enhance a home, as well as resources addressing housing affordability and housing supply.
- The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) provides Canadians with information on buying a home, mortgage loan insurance, renting, home maintenance, and renovations.
- The Bank of Canada explores an annotated list of Canadian and international websites that provide financial information, on topics such as inflation, banking, personal finances, investing and consumer protection.
In addition to offering financial and volunteer support in local communities throughout Canada, most personal banks develop their own financial education programs and services for clients and the public.
Financial literacy empowers your clients to achieve their goals of homeownership and also contributes to the stability and prosperity of our communities. These resources can help you and your clients achieve the goal of financial stability and resilience.
The article above is for information purposes and is not financial or legal advice or a substitute for financial or legal counsel.
