When it comes to buying a new home, the majority of Canadians are sold on safe neighburhoods.

There's a lot to consider when looking for a new home besides the price and the features it has to offer.

In fact, a safe neighbourhood is the big sell for homebuyers, according to a survey by BMO Bank of Montreal.

How do you know you've found the right home? Well, it's love at first sight of course.

According to a new report by BMO Bank of Montreal, 80 per cent of prospective homebuyers are sold on a home when they first set eyes on it.

The Psychology of House Hunting report, conducted by Pollara, also found that while 80 per cent know right off the bat that it's the perfect home for them, another 68 per cent say they are willing to settle for a home that's less than perfect.

Is there an ideal price tag attached to the dream of home ownership?

Well, first-time homebuyers in Canada think so. In fact, they are zooming in on the $300,000 price range when looking for a new house.

And, they plan on putting down about 16 per cent ($48,000), according to a new BMO First-Time Home Buyer's Report.

For many Canadians, the dream of home ownership is just that -- a dream.

Buying your first home is probably one of the biggest financial decisions you will ever make.

So before you jump into making the dream a reality, it is important to do your research and find out the true costs of home ownership before you get trapped in a financial nightmare -- much like the movie Money Pit.

I remember my father with his neat stacks of coins lined up on the kitchen table, ready to roll up into coin wrappers of every denomination.

Quarters, nickels, dimes and, of course --- lots and lots of pennies!

He had a lot of patience sorting and counting the change and I admired how he managed to stuff those neat stacks of coins into the little paper wrappers with expert precision.

Now, many banks across the country are rolling out coin counting machines to offer convenience for all that spare change laying around the house.

With proposals from both U.S. presidential candidates to broaden the tax base, it seems likely that some cherished income tax deductions will need to be fiddled with, and one possible candidate is the tax deduction for mortgage interest -- a perk longed for by many Canadians.

The mortgage interest deduction requires the government to essentially write an annual cheque to everyone who owns a house, at the same time encouraging people to take even bigger mortgages. It will cost the U.S. government more than $90 billion this year.

Mitt Romney, for instance, suggested that such a change could be part of a plan that includes a 20 per cent cut in tax rates across the board. And the Democrats definitely want to appeal to middle America.

Cutting tax breaks is often highly progressive, hitting higher earners more than people earning less, the Wall Street Journal points out. That's because upper-income taxpayers are more likely to make greater use of benefits by "itemizing" deductions and listing them separately.

It seems that everybody wants to be a landlord these days. Some are thinking duplexes or doubles, but  others are actually looking to split up the house somehow or convert the basement with a separate entrance. 

While reactions to the latter type of rental can vary widely by community, it's certainly not the "you're kidding, right?" decision it once was. And being a part-time landlord may have more appeal as boomers age and look for ways to supplement their incomes.

Easy money? Well, that's what many people, including Scott McGillivray, the host of Income Property, would have you believe. 

In case you haven't seen it, Income Property is an HGTV home-improvement show in which McGillivray  rescues cash-strapped homeowners and teaches them how to supplement their mortgage payments by adding a rental unit to their house.

Seemingly in the blink of an eye and for little money, he creates beautiful income suites which usually end with dazzled homeowners pocketing an extra $1300 a month in rent.

But that's where it stops (it is TV, after all).

Retired Canadians may be holding a bit less debt than the rest of Canada, but they’re also taking fewer measures to pay it off, according to a recent CIBC survey.

Paying off the house has always been a strong part of any family money management plan since, for most people, the mortgage is an enormous debt that hangs over them -- forever, it seems, according to some commentators. 

Nearly 60% of retired Canadians hold some form of debt, compared to 76% for those still working. However, only 27% of retirees said they've made an extra lump sum payment toward their mortgage debt in the past 12 months — compared to the national average of 42% for non-retired Canadians.

If you had to stick it to your bank, how would you do it?

Would you … spray paint the windshield of its CEO’s Bentley? Maybe. Would you … march into your branch and take a dump on the teller’s desk? Perhaps.

But what if it had to be appropriate and without threat of legal action? What would you do then?

Maybe you’d pay your final mortgage payment in a few hundred pounds worth of pennies.

43% of Canadians say that a 2% hike in interest rates would leave their ability to afford their home on unsure footing, according to a recent BMO report. Which is why it makes sense to cut that principal where you can.

The good news is that 36% of Canada's mortgage holders are making accelerated mortgage payments, according to data from the Canadian Association of Mortgage Professionals.

That includes 16% who increased their monthly payments, 17% who made lump-sum payments and 5% who increased the frequency of their payments. A few even used used more than one of these approaches to whittle things down. 

Numbers on those who've renegotiated altogether are a bit harder to come by, largely because most financial institutions are in no hurry to talk about consumers rewriting deals.

Now, however, new guidelines on the penalties for getting out of an existing mortgage may make that process a bit clearer.