We also continue to recommend an exemption to the stress test where borrowers have paid as agreed through their initial term and wish to move their mortgage at renewal. Maintaining the current requirement is anti-competitive and, frankly, anti-consumer. Canadians with a proven payment history should not be tied to their incumbent lender's renewal offer.
Also, while the program is in its infancy, the newly implemented first-time home buyers incentive plan seems not to be providing the level of support the government had projected. Numbers published recently describe funding of roughly 50% of the projected take-up rate.
We acknowledge that the winter months are traditionally a slow period for home purchases, but given the feedback received from our member mortgage brokers across Canada, we do not expect to see much of a change in the overall level of activity. We contend that the income multiples are the largest deterrent to the program's overall success, if success is defined as having the $1.25 billion allocation actually issued in equity mortgages.
Program participants are limited to four times their income, up to a household maximum of $120,000. If purchasers decide not to take a shared equity mortgage and instead simply use the existing mortgage insurance option, all things being equal and in today's low interest rate environment, they'll qualify to borrow significantly more than four times their income.
Our members also note that the program as currently structured does not assist anyone to qualify to purchase a home who would not otherwise already have qualified. The election campaign promise to increase the income limit and its multiplier to five times, and $150,000 in greater Toronto, greater Vancouver and Victoria, will go some way to increase participation and invites a discussion on regionalization of mortgage policy through the future design of this program.
Our ongoing primary recommendation to assist first-time home buyers is for the government to reintroduce an insurable 30-year amortization exclusively for first-time buyers. As a practical alternative, it would also reduce monthly carrying costs for the purchasers, who are traditionally the cohort with the highest propensity for income growth. Our own research has confirmed year after year that Canadians pay off their mortgages much faster than their original amortization schedule requires.
If a reintroduced insurable 30-year amortization is not deemed appropriate at this time, even though unlike the first-time homebuyer incentive it would receive 100% participation from mortgage lenders, we recommend increasing the qualifying maximum income multiple to 4.5 times. While we don't believe this will be as supportive a change as the reintroduction of the insured 30-year amortization, it will increase the number of would-be first-time buyers, would-be owner-occupiers and generally young and aspiring middle class Canadians benefiting from the program.
It would also place the limits more in line with commentary from the IMF that loans greater than a 450% loan-to-income ratio present the greatest risk. Increasing the income limit to 4.5 times nationally, therefore, should not raise the ire of the international financial community.
Thank you very much indeed. We welcome any questions.