Another reason to smile if you are a soon-to-be first time home buyer in Toronto: the province just announced a tax break of up to $2000 for all first time home buyers in Ontario. The rebate will apply to the provincial land transfer tax on all new and resale properties for first time buyers. Previously, this program was only available for first time buyers of new homes or condominiums.

The announcement was part of the Liberal's mini-budget set out last week in light of good economic times of late for the province. This news, combined with the compromise that was reached on the city of Toronto's new land transfer tax will no doubt bring welcome relief to thousands of would-be home buyers currently saving for a down payment.

Unfortunately, the announcement does nothing for you if you are not a first time buyer. You still have to pay the entire provincial and municipal land transfer taxes on all purchases-and that means you end up paying a lot more for a given property if you are a repeat buyer than someone who is a first timer. Using this simple calculator to figure out the math, a first time buyer who buys a $400,000 property in Toronto in 2008 will end up paying $5725 less for that same property than a repeat buyer would. That's a lot of trips to Ikea!

Photo by ethervizion from the blogTO Flickr pool.

Andrew la Fleur is a registered real estate agent and regular contributor to blogTO.