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Average Canadian house price declined again in November, to $632,802

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A sold sign hangs in front of a house in Toronto in November. Sales volumes and selling prices were sharply lower during the month. (Showwei Chu/CBC - image credit)
A sold sign hangs in front of a house in Toronto in November. Sales volumes and selling prices were sharply lower during the month. (Showwei Chu/CBC – image credit)

The slowdown underway in Canada’s housing market continued last month, new figures from the Canadian Real Estate Association showed Thursday, with the average selling price falling to just over $630,000, and the number of home sales off by almost 40 per cent.

The group, which represents more than 100,000 realtors across the country, said that the number of homes sold in November fell by 38.9 per cent from the same month a year ago. November isn’t typically a busy month for home sales, as cooler weather often pushes buyers to the sidelines this time of year.

But the housing market was even chillier than usual this November, with a little over 33,000 homes being sold during the month. That’s down about 10 per cent from the typical November sales pace, and down from almost 50,000 in the same month in 2021.

The average selling price of a home that went on CREA’s Multiple Listings Service was $632,802. That’s 12 per cent below what it was a year ago, and down from 22 per cent from the peak hit in February of this year.

That was before the Bank of Canada started its aggressive campaign of rate hikes, which has taken the wind out of the market’s sails by making it much more expensive to borrow money.

How house prices have changed in Canada’s major cities

CREA says the average selling price can be a misleading picture of the market, since it is easily skewed by sales in big expensive cities like Toronto and Vancouver, so it trumpets another number, the House Price Index, as a better gauge of the market.

The HPI fell by 1.4 per cent during the month to $744,000, and is now down by more than 11 per cent from its February peak, after having fallen for nine months in a row.

“There were no big surprises in the November housing numbers, with the data showing the same trends of lower sales and moderating prices we’ve been seeing for a number of months now,” said CREA chair Jill Oudil.

Philippe de Montigny/CBCPhilippe de Montigny/CBC
Philippe de Montigny/CBC

That price moderation is welcome news for recent buyers like Yildiz Marcelin, who purchased a townhouse in Toronto.

She and her family have owned a condominium in the city since 2016, but with daughters growing up fast, they have been looking for more space for years.

They tried to buy a townhouse earlier in the pandemic, but came up short again and again. It was usually a stressful experience of having to decide whether or not to make an offer based on one rushed visit, and bid way over the asking price or be left disappointed, she told CBC News.

“The first time, in 2016, there was this really nice townhouse that we had seen in the Junction Triangle that we really wanted,” she said, but it went for $100,000 over asking — well out of their price range.

The recent pullback allowed them to get a comparable unit in the same area, “and we were able to purchase it under the asking price.”

Economist Rishi Sondhi with TD Bank says the numbers released Thursday paint a clear picture of a market that is slowing down, and is likely to continue to do so.

“Demand continues to decline under the weight of rising interest rates,” he said, noting that the central bank has already raised its interest rate once since the time period covered in today’s data release. “We think they’ll move their rate slightly higher early next year, [but] all of this points to continued sales declines in the coming months.”

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Japan’s SoftBank returns to profit after gains at Vision Fund and other investments

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TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.

Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.

Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).

SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.

The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.

WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.

SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.

SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.

SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.

The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.

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Yuri Kageyama is on X:

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Trump campaign promises unlikely to harm entrepreneurship: Shopify CFO

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Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.

“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.

“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”

Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.

On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.

If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.

These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.

If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.

However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.

He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.

“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.

Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.

The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.

Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.

Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.

Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.

Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.

Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”

In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.

“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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RioCan cuts nearly 10 per cent staff in efficiency push as condo market slows

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TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.

The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.

The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.

RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.

The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.

RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:REI.UN)

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