Buying a home remains a daunting prospect for many Canadians, leading to slow sales and growing housing inventories in many major cities.

Vancouver-based Anthem Properties is offering a way around the obstacle: a flexible homeownership pathway combined with a rental equity plan.

Prospective homeowners can also be given leeway with move-in dates and deposit structures, working in tandem with Anthem’s team to figure out what works best for the buyer.

“How do we look internally to figure out what’s a way to help homebuyers that are feeling stuck?” Dennis Kim, vice-president of marketing at Anthem, explained in an interview with RENX Homes.

Renting an apartment from Anthem? A portion of the rent can be allocated toward the purchase of a new Anthem home. The company will take 25 per cent of the accrued rent and apply it as a credit toward the purchase – up to five per cent of the home’s price.

Anthem Homeownership Accelerator program

Named the Anthem Homeownership Accelerator program, it is designed to be open to buyers across a range of maturity and applicable for Anthem housing projects that range from condos to townhomes. With greater flexibility in product and purchasing, the idea is to make homeownership a more realistic prospect for Vancouverites who are living in one of the priciest housing markets in Canada.

A way to change the home market narrative

Launched in early May, Kim said the company deliberately unveiled the program shortly after this year’s federal election concluded. Regardless of the election’s winner, the developer-builder “knew that it would be a moment in time that we could help change the narrative,” he said, by stimulating activity in a morose housing market.

To widen accessibility, Anthem will be open to negotiating the closing date with prospective buyers, if needed. For example, for move-up buyers the company could wait until the customer sells their home first before closing the deal. For deposits, the buyer could make multiple instalments rather than one lump sum or have smaller down payments.

To further sweeten the deal, Anthem includes a referral program and cash-back offers. For every successful referral, a current Anthem homeowner can get up to $5,000.

Financing the property is still generally traditional, with Kim noting a mortgage will still have to go through a bank or credit union and a mortgage broker.

A part of Anthem from now on

Of the approximately one thousand people who have shown interest in the Homeownership Accelerator Program, about half have been first-time homebuyers, Kim said. The remainder have been a mix of upsizers and downsizers, and the “savvy investor” who views the moment as an opportune time to buy a home.

Some aspiring homebuyers have already applied to the program. Approximately 600 people showed up to the presentation centre for Anthem’s Jinju condo and townhome project in Coquitlam, which is eligible under its model.

Other qualified developments include Soco Two, another condo and townhome project in Coquitlam with units ranging from studios to three bedrooms, and Eastwoods, a townhome and garden flats project in North Vancouver.

The program is “tailor-made” for new projects, Kim said.

Anthem will look to introduce more projects to the market that will fall under the program, he added, and will continue to promote the concept throughout the year and engage realtors.

“We actually see this as something that will be as part of Anthem and Anthem homeowners for quite some time.”