WINNIPEG —
Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Winnipeg experienced a record month for real estate sales throughout July.
According to a news release from WinnipegREALTORS, multiple listing service (MLS) sales for July reached 1,898, which is ever so slightly up from 1,897 in June. The previous record month was 1,705 sales in May 2019.
Compared to July 2019, last month’s sales were up by 32 per cent and dollar volume – which reached $596.1 million — was up 36 per cent.
WinnipegREALTORS reported year-to-date, the city has seen MLS sales of 8,672, which is five per cent ahead of the same period last year.
Catherine Schellenberg, president of WinnipegREALTORS, said in the news release that Winnipeg is seeing a different market this year.
“While WinnipegREALTORS forecasted another strong year following a successful 2019 with an expanded rural area, we did not expect such a significant recovery from the drop off in April and May sales activity due to the economic shutdown,” she said.
While real estate sales have seen a significant recovery since the start of the pandemic, the same cannot be said for listings, which has a larger deficit to recover from.
In July 2020, the number of new listings entered into the MLS was down by nine per cent compared to the same time last year, and down 10.9 per cent year-to-date.
According to WinnipegREALTORS, at the beginning of August Winnipeg’s real estate inventory was at 4,408, which is a 27 per cent decrease from 2019 and a 15 per cent decrease from the five-year average for this time of year.
Due to the deficit in listings, over 31 per cent of single-family detached homes sold for over the list price in July.
“Less inventory suggests sellers have been reluctant to participate in our real estate market as opposed to buyers, which has created inventory shortages in a number of MLS areas,” Schellenberg said.
“This market change has resulted in multiple offer situations.”
Another first for the Winnipeg real estate market was a shift in the most active price range.
WinnipegREALTORS reported the most active price range moved to $300,000 to $349,000, with nearly 18 per cent of total sales. This replaced the $250,000 to $299,999 price range, which had a 15.5 per cent share of all sales.
“Our local market continues to show a strong recovery with buyers taking advantage of historically low interest rates and some of the most affordable house prices in the country,” Schellenberg said.
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.
