Myriad businesses serving Nova Scotians from the cradle to the grave have been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis.
Like everyone, those with real-estate needs and the people whose livelihood depends on that industry, must adapt to an evolving public-health situation affecting communities across the province and around the world.
Health officials here are hoping residents, office workers and other employees are complying with social-distancing or self-isolation measures imposed to try to slow and control the coronavirus outbreak.
This time of year is normally when many folks start to look ahead to the Easter long weekend. (Good Friday is April 10.) In the house-buying or property-selling world, the milder, post-Easter period usually sees an uptick in lawn signs announcing homes for sale as demand escalates.
But by any measure, the COVID-19 pandemic means things are at least temporarily not normal.
In this province, the Nova Scotia Real Estate Commission is updating its members on the ever-changing status of the coronavirus. The commission is the regulator of Nova Scotia’s real-estate industry.
A March 18 bulletin on the organization’s website provides licensed real-estate agents links to provincial and federal government websites with virus-related information.
“Licensees are to educate themselves and their consumers about the current COVID-19 situation,” the commission says. It adds all licensed real-estate agents in the province must “follow the directives” of government health experts.
The commission says its licensing exam in April is cancelled. Its office, situated in Bedford, is closed until April 1; staff are working from home.
Under typical circumstances, weekend open houses are opportunities for curious locals and the on-site sales agent to meet at a property. Residents get to check out the home for sale, and the agent can connect with potential clients.
RE/MAX Canada, in a statement issued March 17, has “strongly recommended the postponing of all open houses immediately until a future date where it’s deemed safe.”
The company says its agents are exercising caution and “are committed to using technology” to assist clients at this time, which includes “virtual tours of the home or digital presentations.”
Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, which handles high-end listings in many of the country’s wealthiest real-estate markets, is “strongly discouraging open houses in order to protect public health,” a recent blog on its website says.
Matt Honsberger, owner and president of Royal LePage Atlantic, said for all intents and purposes, the industry’s open houses have been scrapped.
“The risk of having too many people gathered, having it be difficult to control who’s touching what, and things like that,” makes such standard events unworkable at this time, he said Thursday.
Honsberger acknowledged his line of work is “a very face-to-face” kind of business.
But due to the COVID-19 turmoil, he said, visiting a property in person has to be balanced with the greater good.
“That’s the balance that we’re trying to strike right now,” said Honsberger, who’s also the president of the Nova Scotia Association of REALTORS.
“And we’re giving agents advice about that, and deciding who should be out there doing that and who shouldn’t – and what’s right morally, and what’s right economically for people,” he said.
Honsberger said, in his opinion, it could be more difficult for the seller than a buyer in a real-estate market operating during a pandemic.
“Population and employment drive our housing market more than anything.
Employment is the part of that we’re watching most closely right now,” he told HalifaxToday.ca.
As of Friday afternoon, the provincial government says there are five confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Nova Scotia and ten presumptive.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
