In Canada, are options available to subsidize conversion of a house into an energy efficient house?
There may be more, but a good starting point would be the ecoENERGY Retrofit Grants and Incentives.  Natural Resources Canada's ecoENERGY Retrofit program provides financial support to implement energy-saving projects. There are different application processes for homes, commercial and institutional buildings and industrial facilities. Together we can reduce energy-related greenhouse gases and air pollution, leading to a cleaner environment for Canada. Also, there was a temporary home renovation tax credit about a year back, but that no longer exists and nothing has replaced it yet.
"Assuming ""take advantage"" means continue to build wealth, as opposed to blow it all on a fancy holiday...  Downgrade As you already note, you could downgrade/downsize. This could happen via moving to a smaller house in the same area, or moving to an area where the cost of buying is less.  HELOC Take out a Home Equity Line of Credit. You could use the line of credit to do home improvements further boosting the asset value (forced appreciation, assuming the appreciation to date is simply market based). Caution is required if the house has already appreciated ""considerably"" - you want to keep the home value within tolerance levels for the area. (Best not to have the only $300K house on a street of $190K-ers...) Home Equity Loan Assuming you have built up equity in the house, you could leverage that equity to purchase another property. For most people this would form part of the jigsaw for getting the financing to purchase again." Hmmm. I hadn't considered that energy usage would be considered confidential. How about asking a nearby neighbor to share their next bill. If it's higher or lower than yours, just scale the history up or down accordingly.  Other than that, the utility company might offer its own level billing plan where they handle the estimate and offer you the same payment each month. Solar water heaters are definitely questionable in the Northeast -- the season when you most need them is also the season when they are least effective. Solar electric isn't a huge moneymaker, but with rebates on installation and carbon-reduction credits (SRECs) -- and a group purchase discount if you can get one, either at a town level or through organizations like One Block Off The Grid -- it can definitely turn a profit. Early estimate was that my setup would pay its initial costs back in 4 years, and the panels are generally considered to be good for a decade before the cells have degraded enough that the panels should be replaced. I haven't had a negative electric bill yet, but I've gotten close, and my setup is a relatively small one (eight panels facing SSE on a 45-degree roof). Admittedly I've also been working to reduce electricity use; I don't think I have an incandescent bulb left in the house. Having lived in both places, I have to say you can find a higher income in the US for the same job and can live in a small town versus having to live in a big city in Canada to find decent salaries.  For similar sized cities, the cost of housing is significantly lower in the US than Canada.  That is your biggest factor in cost of living.  If you are thinking of NYC or San Francisco, there are no comparable size cities in Canada and you would probably be better off in Canada.   My tax preparer was amazed at how much I paid in Capital Gains taxes when I left Canada.  Maybe it is different now but I doubt it. The biggest free lunch in the US is a generous capital gains exemption when you sell your primary residence without any lifetime cap or cap on the number of times you can do it.  There are rules on how long you have to live in it before selling. For investment real estate, all expenses are deductible in addition to fictional depreciation so with a mortgage you can have positive cash flow and pay no income tax.  You can keep doing tax deferred exchanges into bigger and bigger rentals.  When you are close to retirement, you can exchange into your ultimate beach home, rent it out a few years, then convert to a primary residence. I know that both Lowes and Home Depot (in Canada at least) will offer a 6 month deferred interest payment on all purchases over a certain dollar amount (IIRC, $500+), and sometimes run product specific 1 year deferred interest specials. This is a very effective way of financing renovations. Details: You've probably seen deferred interest -- It's very commonly used in furniture sales (No money down!!! No interest!!! Do not pay for 1 full year!!!)  (Personally, I think it's a plot by the exclamation point manufacturers) It works like this: Typically, I manage these types of purchases by dividing the principal by 6, and then adding 5%, and paying that amount each month.  Pay close attention to the end date, because you do not want to pay 22% interest on the entire amount.   This also requires that you watch your card balance carefully.  All payments are usually put to current purchases (i.e. those not under a plan) first, before they are applied to the plan balance.  So if you are paying 250 a month on the new floor, and run up another $150 on paint, You need to pay the entire new balance, and then the $250 floor payment in order for it to be applied correctly.  Also <shameless plug> http://diy.stackexchange.com </shameless plug>  Consider doing it yourself. I could be wrong, but I doubt you're going to be able to roll the current mortgage into a new one. The problem is that the bank is going to require that the new loan is fully collateralized by the new house.  So the only way that you can ensure that is if you can construct the house cheaply enough that the difference between the construction cost and the end market value is enough to cover the current loan AND keep the loan-to-value (LTV) low enough that the bank is secured. So say you currently owe $40k on your mortgage, and you want to build a house that will be worth $200k. In order to avoid PMI, you're going to have to have an LTV of 80% or less, which means that you can spend no more than $160k to build the house.  If you want to roll the existing loan in, now you have to build for less than $120k, and there's no way that you can build a $200k house for $120k unless you live in an area with very high land value and hire the builders directly (and even then it may not be possible). Otherwise you're going to have to make up the difference in cash. When you tear down a house, you are essentially throwing away the value of the house - when you have a mortgage on the house, you throw away that value plus you still owe the money, which is a difficult hole to climb out of. A better solution might be to try and sell the house as-is, perhaps to someone else who can tear down the house and rebuild with cash. If that is not a viable option (or you don't want to move) then you might consider a home equity loan to renovate parts of the house, provided that they increase the market value enough to justify the cost (e.g. modernize the kitchen, add on a room, remodel bathrooms, etc. So it all depends on what the house is worth today as-is, how much it will cost you to rebuild, and what the value of the new house will be. I wish this was the case in Canada.  I lost about 60k on my home in one year and have to sell now to move for work.    In the US I could simply default and the bank takes the loss.  In Canada if I default, CMHC pays the bank, then I'm sued by CMHC and stuck with the bad debt.    Simply put - here the onus of repayment is on the lender, not the lending institution.  It sounds good until you are the one looking at losing your shirt. You don't understand how global warming works and where most emissions sources come from (hint: transportation is a huge one). Never mind local air quality.   Neither of these things mean we must live devoid of petroleum products. Just that we don't need to burn it and live with the exhaust it creates and the consequences that arise from it.   But yes, wind and solar are already becoming the cheapest forms of electricity available. The price point for renewables no longer requires heavy subsidies and is now becoming cost competitive. No, look:  Say a company needs to get $100 per solar panel to make a profit.  But a consumer only wants to pay $80 for a solar panel, otherwise it isn't worth it.  So, we have two options:  1. We offer a tax reduction to the consumer of $20.  They now pay $100 for the solar panel, and get $20 back.  The customer has now effectively paid $80 and the company has got $100.   Or,  2. We give the company a subsidy for $20 per panel.  They now sell the solar panel for $80, then get $20 in subsidy.  The customer has now paid $80 and the company has got $100.  You're against the 2nd option, in favour of the first.  Have I understood you correctly? The new mortgage qualification rules were introduced to cool a hot Canadian housing real estate market. The rules are a pre-emptive measure intended to avoid a bubble (and later crash) in real estate. The government wants to make sure anybody buying a house can handle higher interest rates. Those rates, currently at record lows, are expected to go up later this year and into the future. The tighter mortgage rules include: Borrowers will need to qualify against a minimum standard 5-year fixed rate mortgage, even if they'll contract their mortgage at a lower or variable rate.  Previously, the 3-year fixed rate mortgage was used as the minimum qualification standard. The amount a homeowner can borrow in a refinanced mortgage drops to 90% of the home value, down from 95% of the home value.  A home is not meant to be an ATM machine. Anybody wanting to borrow to buy an investment property – i.e. a property that won't be their principal residence – will need a 20% downpayment instead of a 5% downpayment. The new rules go into effect April 19th, 2010.  However, according to the backgrounder (see below): Exceptions would be allowed after   April 19 where they are needed to   satisfy a binding purchase and sale,   financing, or refinancing agreement   entered into before April 19, 2010. Definitive information about the new rules can be found at the Department of Finance of Canada.  Specifically, refer to: Some additional news media sources: You don't mention where you live, but in the US, zoning laws, building codes, and insurance rules, would make this difficult if not impossible. People do convert shipping containers into housing, but they have to be modified to conform with local rules for habitability. This makes them more expensive then say, a trailer or a mobile home. "I'm a little confused on the use of the property today.  Is this place going to be a personal residence for you for now and become a rental later (after the mortgage is paid off)?  It does make a difference. If you can buy the house and a 100% LTV loan would cost less than 125% of comparable rent ... then buy the house, put as little of your own cash into it as possible and stretch the terms as long as possible.  Scott W is correct on a number of counts.  The ""cost"" of the mortgage is the after tax cost of the payments and when that money is put to work in a well-managed portfolio, it should do better over the long haul.  Don't try for big gains because doing so adds to the risk that you'll end up worse off. If you borrow money at an after-tax cost of 4% and make 6% after taxes ... you end up ahead and build wealth. A vast majority of the wealthiest people use this arbitrage to continue to build wealth.  They have plenty of money to pay off mortgages, but choose not to.  $200,000 at 2% is an extra $4000 per year.  Compounded at a 7% rate ... it adds up to $180k after 20 years ... not exactly chump change. Money in an investment account is accessible when you need it.  Money in home equity is not, has a zero rate of return (before inflation) and is not accessible except through another loan at the bank's whim.  If you lose your job and your home is close to paid off but isn't yet, you could have a serious liquidity issue. NOW ... if a 100% mortgage would cost MORE than 125% of comparable rent, then there should be no deal.  You are looking at a crappy investment.  It is cheaper and better just to rent.  I don't care if prices are going up right now.  Prices move around.  Just because Canada hasn't seen the value drops like in the US so far doesn't mean it can't happen in the future.  If comparable rents don't validate the price with a good margin for profit for an investor, then prices are frothy and cannot be trusted and you should lower your monthly costs by renting rather than buying.  That $350 per month you could save in ""rent"" adds up just as much as the $4000 per year in arbitrage. For rentals, you should only pull the trigger when you can do the purchase without leverage and STILL get a 10% CAP rate or higher (rate of return after taxes, insurance and other fixed costs).  That way if the rental rates drop (and again that is quite possible), you would lose some of your profit but not all of it.  If you leverage the property, there is a high probability that you could wind up losing money as rents fall and you have to cover the mortgage out of nonexistent cash flow. I know somebody is going to say, ""But John, 10% CAP on rental real estate?  That's just not possible around here.""  That may be the case.  It IS possible somewhere.  I have clients buying property in Arizona, New Mexico, Alberta, Michigan and even California who are finding 10% CAP rate properties.  They do exist.  They just aren't everywhere. If you want to add leverage to the rental picture to improve the return, then do so understanding the risks.  He who lives by the leverage sword, dies by the leverage sword.  Down here in the US, the real estate market is littered with corpses of people who thought they could handle that leverage sword.  It is a gory, ugly mess." "Let's look at basics. Your 340K mortgage amortized over 25 years at 3.5% is going to cost you $1700 in payments - almost exactly your rent. You won't be paying out less. You will in fact be paying out more, because you are now liable for more insurance, and any repairs will have to be paid for by you, not the landlord. So don't do this to save money. Figures from here. Don't forget that it is extremely likely that interest rates will go up in the next few years. 7% is not unlikely. Can you afford it if your payments double? You can get a fixed rate mortgage, but they are going to cost you much more than 3.5% for more than a couple of years. Don't be fooled by the 'pay yourself' argument for getting a mortgage. in the first few years almost all of your payments is interest, not paying down the principal. You are just switching from paying a landlord to paying a bank. There are huge advantages to waiting until you have a good down payment before buying a house. People with a big down payment get better interest rates, and don't need to pay as much CMHC insurance. You will be less at risk if the price of your house drops. Also ask yourself if you are sure you will be in your house for five years - if not, even real estate agents would usually admit you shouldn't buy. The truck payment shouldn't be an issue, as long as you are sure you can service both truck and mortgage payments. Nor is $600 in credit card debt significant in the big scheme. I would probably put any spare cash towards a down payment. It reduces your interest rate (possibly), some expenses with regard to your mortgage, and your risk if you have to sell and your house value has dropped.  You might like to look at the government of Canada website ""Rent or buy"". It's down right now so I can't give you a link. I'll edit it in when it's back up. EDIT:Turns out it's offline for 'updating'. Here's the link." Thanks for the feedback obelus,   The cost is $20,000 to 50,000 sqft.   Ya I am just looking for a rough idea of what a similar newer building is costing I figured what we are paying is really high as the building is extremely old and designated as a heritage site so we can't just knock it down. Beautiful building just not very efficient.   The newer building is the route I think we are gonna end up going not sure what we can do with the current building as not too many options for resale. We can't adjust the lease rates to compensate for the cost as the tenants are all seniors and it is an integrated care home. A change to apartments would prove difficult as there are no kitchens in 90% of the suites.  We are currently paying approximately $0.40 psf a month to heat (All electric) and the estimate for the new building is $0.1425 psf (Geothermal) so it is a pretty huge impact in comparison if it is possible but I haven't heard of a real building actually costing that little before.   Thanks for the suggestion for the IR I think I am gonna get some one in after the holidays to do a inspection to see if there is any short term fixes we can do with our system. In that case, forget this whole pot shop and look into buying some REITs (Real estate investment trusts).  Or invest in QCLN, a ETF that invests in companies that produce and distribute green energy.   You're looking for a get rich quick scheme, not a solid investment. You don't even have any money. You can't afford to lose $92,000 when you have $0.