Increasing mortgage rates slowed home sales in April from the frenzied pace they started the year at, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Monday.
The association found the number of homes sold dropped by 25.7 per cent to 54,894 last month from 73,907 in April 2021, when the country set a record for the month.
On a month-over-month basis, sales in April were down 12.6 per cent compared with March, but still ranked as the third-highest April sales figure, just behind 2021 and 2016.
“The demand fever in Canadian housing has broken and, who would have thought, all it took was a nudge in interest rates by the Bank of Canada to change sentiment,” said BMO Capital Markets senior analyst Robert Kavcic, in a note to investors.
CREA attributed much of the slowdown to fixed mortgage rates, which have been on the rise since 2021, but have been more impactful in recent months. The association pointed out that typical discounted five-year fixed rates have leaped from about three to four per cent over the span of a month.
The rate is also weighing on how buyers fare with the mortgage stress test, which once required those with uninsured mortgages – borrowers with a down payment of at least 20 per cent – to carry a mortgage rate of either two percentage points above the contract rate, or 5.25 per cent, whichever is greater.
For fixed borrowers, CREA said the stress test just moved from 5.25 per cent to the low six per cent range, another roughly one per cent increase in a month.
“People are nervous. They are thinking, ‘if I take on this mortgage, when mortgage rates are going up and the price to (live) is more, what is going to happen?” said Anita Springate-Renaud, a Toronto broker with Engel & Volkers.
She noticed that many homes were still getting multiple offers last month, but instead of 20 offers, two or three was becoming the norm.
Properties are also taking longer to sell. Homes that used to find a buyer in three or four days are now sitting for two weeks, in some cases, she said.
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Many other realtors have found buyers and sellers holding off on purchasing or listing properties until they see how much of an effect mortgage and interest rate changes have on the market.
“For buyers, this slowdown could mean more time to consider options in the market,” said Jill Oudil, CREA’s chair, in a news release.
“For sellers, it could necessitate a return to more traditional marketing strategies.”
This shift in sentiment was reflected in the number of newly listed homes, which, on a seasonally adjusted basis, fell by 2.2 per cent to 70,957 last month from 72,557 in March.
On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, new listings amounted to 91,559 last month, down 10.5 per cent from 102,294 in April 2022.
Even though CREA reported slowing sales and fewer listings, Canadians were shelling out even more for homes than they did in 2021.
The national average home price was a little over $746,000 in April, up 7.4 per cent from about $695,000 during the same month last year.
Excluding the Greater Toronto and Vancouver areas from this calculation, cuts $138,000 from the national average price, CREA said.
However, on a seasonally adjusted basis the national average home price slid by 3.8 per cent to $741,517 last month from $771,125 in March.
The home price index benchmark price hit $866,700 last month, down 0.6 per cent from a month ago but up 23.7 per cent from a year ago and 63.9 per cent from five years ago.
The benchmark price was lowest in Saskatchewan, where it totalled $271,100 and highest in B.C.’s Lower Mainland, where it amounted to more than $1.3 million.
Kavcic found Ontario markets “weakening most and fastest, especially further outside the core of Toronto (these were also the hottest markets in the country during the pandemic).”
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Ontario’s suburban markets are the “shakiest” because of how prices have fallen from February peaks, but he said single-detached and townhomes look to be cooling quickest.
“Sales in the province slid 21 per cent in April and are now back in-line with pre-pandemic activity levels,” he said.
“The market balance has gone from drum tight with ‘not enough supply,’ to one that resembles the 2017-19 correction period.”
Within the province, TD Economics economist Rishi Sondhi found Toronto be an outlier because sales and prices dropped more there than in the country overall.
Sondhi believes the Toronto market is now close to tipping in favour of buyers, but in the coming months, expects prices to continue falling nationally, reflecting the cooler demand backdrop.
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.
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.
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.
