'That good news just never comes': the frustrations of first-time home buyers in northeastern Ontario

Theresa Handrigan and her partner were out for dinner with friends when they got a call from their real estate agent.

"'This going to be it,'" the Sudbury woman remembers thinking.

"We were so excited."

After weeks of house hunting, and getting outbid on homes in their price range, they thought this call was going to finally be the news that their offer had been accepted and they were now home owners for the first time. 

Instead, it was their agent telling them that the buyers wanted $10,000 more, which they couldn't afford.

"That was quite sad and disappointing," Handrigan said.

"It's hard to even start dreaming about what our life would be there because you just get so numb to the process."

She said they've put in 10 offers on houses since mid-February and have yet to seal a deal.

They've been looking for places listed between $350,000 and $450,000, but believe that many sellers are "intentionally underlisting" to "start bidding wars." 

"And we quickly started to find that a lot of the houses that were listed in our price range were actually going for quite a bit higher," Handrigan said.

"For some of them I've been getting excited and for others, we go in and look at them and we say 'This is way nicer than it looked like in the pictures, there's no way this is going to go for what we can afford.'"

She said they've started bidding on cheaper homes so they can afford to offer $50,000 to $70,000 over asking  "and we still continue to get beat out."

Handrigan said on one Sudbury house, theirs was one of 21 offers and it sold for $105,000 over the asking price.

"It's just constant: dreams getting crushed," she said.

The market is also tight for first-time home buyers in smaller northern Ontario communities.

Tim Lascak is one of the 4,400 people who live in Iroquois Falls, but after months of looking, he hasn't landed a house to call his own.

"Somewhat frustrating, because you get out there, you see the houses that you like, you make those offers and hope for some good news, but that good news just never comes," he said.

"Haven't really found a strategy for winning ... I feel you need someone in the know, so you can jump on a house before it even comes on the market just to have a chance."

Lascak said most of the houses in his town seem to go to cash offers and he's found it hard to save up for a larger down payment, given the high cost of living in recent years.

"It will happen. I know one day I'll be able to find my house," he said.

While governments have been trying to make it easier for first-time home buyers with various tax breaks and fee waivers, Lascak and Handrigan would both like to see financial incentives for home owners who sell to first-time buyers.