Poor policy choices have led to a comically large gap between Canadian and US home prices. Canadian home prices generally move in line with US home prices, but disconnect in 2005. Instead of falling, prices accelerate in growth through to today. The result is prices have now grown over 25x faster than US home prices over the same period. Most surprising though, is half of these increases occurred in just the past 5 years.
Canada’s central bank sees real estate softening “gradually” in the coming years. They believe the recent surge is due a shift in buying preferences, due to low interest rates. Sudden demand for single-family homes is due to this temporary shift. As these purchases normalize, the organization expects sales driven by the preference swap to fade. Along with the slowing sales, they expect “price growth will soften.”
The number of Canadians collecting unemployment benefits surged to a record high. There were 1.24 million unadjusted claims in November, up 200.9% from a year before. The previous month represented the bulk of the increase, due to CERB ending. That means the bulk of these claims were a result of unemployment earlier this year. However, the fact that it’s still rising indicates there’s still more people getting hammered by this recession.
The Bank of Canada’s affordability index shows real estate is the most affordable in years. No one’s buying that narrative, so what gives? The index shows households require 31.5% of their disposable income for housing in Q3 2020. The past two quarters have been the lowest since 2015, raising some eyebrows. It has to do with how it’s calculated, and the CERB driven boost to disposable income. In other words, the indicator is broken during the pandemic.
The pandemic is encouraging people to stay put, but the BoC is encouraging people to buy. The combination is leading to very high demand, in a low inventory market. Small cities like Trois Rivieres, Sherbrooke, and Gatineau are seeing inventory sell almost at the rate it’s listed. Western Canada is still slower than the national average, but are still unusually busy for this time of year.
Ontario’s most popular real estate market isn’t a new hip urban area, it’s the country. Outside of census metropolitan areas (CMAs) saw a net intraprovincial increase of 10,392 people in 2020. The rural increases were unusual, until the surge of young people exiting Toronto over the past few years. Toronto’s net loss of population to other parts of the province works out to 50,375 people in 2020. This is the largest net loss in decades of data, and possibly goes back much further. Despite the pandemic contributing to the trend, it actually started a few years ago. Right around when home prices took off.
The pandemic has Vancouver residents seeking more space in rural B.C., but the trend goes back further. There were 45,481 people that left the Greater Vancouver region in 2019 for other parts of Canada. Rural B.C. is the number one place for those migrating, which saw a net inflow of 5,751 of residents. The trend is believed to have accelerated due to the pandemic, which has led to a distinct surge in rural home sales. It didn’t start during the pandemic though, with the trend going back a few years now, to when home prices took off.
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.
