Introduction
It used to be that relocation was an expected part of career advancement. But in today’s housing market, even senior executives are saying no. Across the U.S., and increasingly in cross-border moves from Canada, home sale gridlock is prompting a re-evaluation of traditional relocation support. The result? A quiet comeback of Guaranteed Home Sale (GHS) programs and the occasional resurgence of MIDA (Mortgage Interest Differential Assistance). These aren’t broad-based benefits for the masses, but targeted solutions for critical talent.
The Case for a Return to Guaranteed Home Sale in the U.S.
In many American cities, real estate is frozen. Sellers are anchored to 2-3% mortgage rates, but buyers face 7% or higher. The delta between those figures makes it hard to sell and even harder to justify buying. That friction is stalling relocations. Enter Guaranteed Home Sale.
GHS is expensive and has been in retreat for years, but it serves one purpose perfectly: it removes the uncertainty of a sale. When you’re relocating a CTO, a CFO, or a principal investigator for a research lab, the cost of delay or refusal is greater than the cost of assuming inventory risk.
We’re not talking about mass adoption, but smart, selective deployment. RMCs and in-house mobility teams are increasingly recommending GHS as a surgical tool to protect business-critical relocations.
Why MIDA May See a Revival
Mortgage Interest Differential Assistance (MIDA) is a targeted benefit that helps bridge the affordability gap when employees are moving from low-interest-rate mortgages to significantly higher ones. In a typical scenario, the employer provides a monthly taxable subsidy to offset the difference in mortgage costs at the destination.
This benefit is increasingly relevant in cross-border relocations, such as from Canada to the U.S., where an employee may be leaving behind a 2.5% mortgage only to face 7% rates on arrival. Even if the relocation is essential to the business, the cost burden on the employee can be a deal-breaker.
MIDA doesn’t remove the market friction, but it softens the impact long enough to make the move financially tolerable—especially for senior-level or high-demand employees. As mortgage rates remain elevated, MIDA may quietly become one of the most important tools for securing yes decisions.
Does This Apply in Canada? Yes, But Differently.
While the Canadian mortgage market differs fundamentally from the U.S. (most notably with 5-year terms and portability), relocation frictions are showing up here too. Canadian home prices have softened in many regions and days on market are increasing.
However, Canadian homeowners are less mortgage-rate locked due to the shorter fixed-rate structure. Instead, the challenge is the regional price gap: relocating smaller centers to Toronto or Vancouver can mean major price diferentials, and even challenges in some markets selling homes in a reasonable 90-120 day sales period.
This means that while GHS or MIDA (or rather home price differential assistance) isn’t as critical structurally in Canada, the rationale can still hold for senior-level roles or hard-to-fill positions. The employer may need to step in to preserve equity or remove downside, not because of a broken market, but because of slower regional markets and regional disparity.
A Note for Canadian HR Leaders
While these challenges are most acute in the U.S., they may have implications for your choice of relocation provider—especially if you’re working with a U.S.-based RMC. Many American RMCs still rely heavily on real estate referral fees for revenue. With transaction volumes falling, those revenue streams are under pressure.
It’s worth asking: how much of your RMC’s financial model is exposed to the U.S. resale housing market? If the answer is significant, you may want to understand how sustainable their support structure really is. Transparency into their revenue mix—whether from service fees, referral fees, or tech—matters more than ever.
Conclusion
Guaranteed Home Sale and MIDA are not relics of the past. In 2025, they are back in the relocation toolkit—but with new rules. Use them sparingly. Use them surgically. But don’t ignore them. Because if the housing market is stopping your most important people from saying yes to a move, the solution isn’t to wait for lower rates—it’s to solve for certainty.
