A Indigenous real estate agent says that when it comes to home ownership in Alberta, there is a disparity between the number of Indigenous and non-Indigenous buyers.
He wants to change that.
Jason Johnson, a member of Piikani Nation, says that when he received his real estate licence in 2021, he noticed he was one of only a few Indigenous agents in the province.
Looking into Indigenous home ownership even further, he says there are barriers facing Indigenous homebuyers.
“There’s definitely some racial profiling that some of our folks have highlighted … in a scenario with a rental home, ‘I definitely feel stigmatized,'” he said.
He says some agents become impatient with their customers who are taking a little longer to make a decision.
Jason Johnson is hosting an information session this month for Indigenous people who are interested in buying real estate. (Submitted by Jason Johnson)
“It takes time, especially if you’re Indigenous, with all the baggage and all the issues and the distrust and mistrust and the hurt that’s there.”
Johnson is hosting an information session this month for Indigenous people who are interested in buying real estate.
“There seems to be a hunger there with our people … the idea of ‘maybe I could buy my own house’ maybe never donned on folks but was always there.”
“If I can help somebody else do that, I think it’s going to make all the difference in the world,” he said.
Calgary activist and podcaster Michelle Robinson, who is Sahtu Dene, says Johnson is providing important representation.
“I hope that other Indigenous folks see him and say, ‘hey, I want to do that, too,’ because again, this is why we talk about representation matters.”
She says there are a lot of myths that need to be dispelled about home ownership, but there are a lot of barriers, too.
Elisabeth Feltaous, senior specialist in the research division at Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC), said Indigenous households are more likely to rent their dwellings and less likely to own their dwellings compared with non-Indigenous populations across the country.
That’s according to Indigenous-led research funded by CMHC based on 2016 census data.
In that year, 53 per cent of Indigenous households owned their dwellings and 39 per cent rented, compared with 68 per cent of non-Indigenous households who owned their dwellings and 31 per cent of non-Indigenous households who rented.
For some Indigenous people, the discrepancy will take more than one approach to resolve, while for others, home ownership has been relatively easy, said Feltaous.
“There’s a variety of situations,” she said, noting the census data isn’t broken down according to Indigenous identity groups.
“There are additional barriers to accessing mortgage loans, there are additional barriers to accessing insurance for those loans if it’s a modern treaty,” she said.
Many groups have additional challenges accessing adequate credit through their ongoing history of displacement and dispossession of their traditional lands, she said.
“Disrupting their education, disrupting their income. This historical context has led to intergenerational difficulties accessing credit, trusting banks, trusting the financial system, but also providing barriers to them in accessing appropriate financing.”
Johnson’s real estate session is happening at the Piikani Powwow at the end of the month.
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.
