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/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.”
HALIFAX – Ottawa is negotiating a $500-million bailout for Nova Scotia’s privately owned electric utility, saying the money will be used to prevent a big spike in electricity rates.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement today in Halifax, saying Nova Scotia Power Inc. needs the money to cover higher costs resulting from the delayed delivery of electricity from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant in Labrador.
Wilkinson says that without the money, the subsidiary of Emera Inc. would have had to increase rates by 19 per cent over “the short term.”
Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg says the deal, once approved by the province’s energy regulator, will keep rate increases limited “to be around the rate of inflation,” as costs are spread over a number of years.
The utility helped pay for construction of an underwater transmission link between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but the Muskrat Falls project has not been consistent in delivering electricity over the past five years.
Those delays forced Nova Scotia Power to spend more on generating its own electricity.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
