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Not everyone is pleased with the changes the Ontario government is making to our taxation system. On July 1, 2010, the Ontario government will introduce the new Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) which will blend the 5% GST and the 8% Provincial Tax. It is true that the overall tax rate will remain 13%, but this new blended tax will apply to everything you buy, both products and services. Services will now be taxable under this new system which could cost you quite a bit more if you are thinking of buying or selling Durham Region Real Estate.  On the positive side, resale homes will continue to be exempt from the HST however all of the services associated with the sale or purchase of a home will be affected by the HST. Legal fees, home inspection, moving services, real estate fees, etc are some of the services that will now have to chage the HST. This could easily add  thousands of dollars in costs for a real estate transaction. The more heavily affected party will be the sellers as the real estate fees are usually paid by them. Could this have an impact on the overall prices of home? Only time will tell. Sellers may be tempted to push up their listing price in order to cover the additional costs but buyers may not agree. Alternatively, real estate agents may face some increase pressure from sellers to lower their commission fee. One thing to keep in mind is that the realtor is not pocketing this extra money, the Ontario government is.