Last month’s real estate sales set a another record for the average selling price for a single-family home in Greater Victoria as rising sales of luxury homes, demand for single-family houses, low interest rates and tight supply combined to fuel the market.
July’s average price for a single-family house moved to $1.033 million from the previous record of $1.014 million in June, said the Victoria Real Estate Board.
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Multiple bids are coming in for desirable properties despite worldwide uncertainty about the implications of the pandemic.
Justin Cownden, real estate agent with Pemberton Holmes Real Estate, said a client decided not to make an offer on a Shawnigan Lake house last month because 10 offers had already been submitted. The successful bid came in above asking price with no conditions.
Cownden is seeing a “lot of activity,” in all levels of the market as it rebounds after cooling during the first months of the pandemic.
Similar to last month, sales of $2-million-plus properties in the capital region climbed. High-end sales skew the average price.
In July a total of 30 single-family-homes sold for more than $2 million and of those, four went for more than $4 million. In July of last year, there were nine single-family sales of more than $2 million, the board said Wednesday.
As well, five condominiums sold for more than $1 million.
In June, 23 single-family houses sold for more than $2 million.
Developer Stan Sipos earlier sold 80 per cent of the 57 units in his Customs House luxury condominium project overlooking Victoria Harbour and expects to release the remaining units for sale in the fall. Those will probably be priced at $1.8 million to $6 million. The penthouse sold for $11 million.
“We are getting lots of calls. Lots of interest from all over the place,” including the U.S., Sipos said.
Victoria is appealing because it is quiet, offers a good lifestyle and has fared well during the global crisis, he said.
Sipos has heard of multiple offers for Oak Bay properties and of two sales which took place over video applications without the buyer being present.
Real estate board president Sandi-Jo Ayers said sales numbers in the capital region were unusually high for June and July.
“But we are not in a typical season. We cannot derive an ongoing trend nor forecast by looking at activity because we know the market is subjected to unusual factors amidst a health crisis.”
It is likely that spring demand moved into the summer, she said.
“Time will tell if these factors are resulting in a very compressed cycle of activity or if this trend will persist in the fall.”
The benchmark value for a single-family house in the core area was $910,400 last month, up from $861,100 in the same month a year ago.
A benchmark represents changes in value for a typical home in a specific area, a measure which real estate boards say is more representative than an average price. The core area is made up of Victoria, Saanich, Esquimalt, Oak Bay, and View Royal.
A long-term, low supply of properties for sale is continuing in this area, Ayers said.
“Though we had a good number of new listings come to market this month, many of those listings were snapped up by buyers.
By the end of July, there were 2,653 active listings — 10 per cent fewer properties than in July 2019.
“Right now we have a lot of demand for single-family homes without the numbers to meet demand — prospective buyers are often entering into multiple offer, competitive situations or are unable to find appropriate properties,” Ayers said.
For the area north of the Malahat, Vancouver Island Real Estate Board president Kevin Reid also noted interest in single-family homes.
“An interesting development we’re noting is that there seems to be more demand for single-family homes and less interest in condominiums and townhouses at the moment.
“It makes us wonder whether quarantine and lockdown have instilled a desire for more space among buyers.”
A total of 892 units sold last month, a four per cent decline from July of last year.
The benchmark price of a single-family home board-wide was $545,700 in July, an increase of six per cent from the previous year.
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.
