The price of the average Canadian home that sold in June was $679,000, an increase of 25 per cent in the past year. While sales have risen sharply, too, both figures were lower last month than in the month before.
The Canadian Real Estate Association said in a release Thursday that home sales have now fallen for three months in a row after setting an all-time high in March 2021.
Just over 50,000 Canadian homes changed hands during June. The average selling price, $679,000, was down from $688,000 in May, $696,000 in April and $716,000 in March.
On a monthly basis, home sales fell by 12 per cent in April, by seven per cent in May and then by eight per cent in June. But they were still 13 per cent higher than this time last year and in fact were still the strongest June on record — a sign of just how red-hot housing was earlier this year.
“While there is still a lot of activity in many housing markets across Canada, things have noticeably calmed down in the last few months,” CREA chair Cliff Stevenson said. “There remains a shortage of supply in many parts of the country, but at least there isn’t the same level of competition among buyers we were seeing a few months ago.”
Markets in Ontario and British Columbia are among the hottest in the country, with annual increases in both provinces topping 30 per cent. Interestingly, the gains are lower in both Toronto and Vancouver than in the rest of each respective province. The annual increase in Vancouver came in at around 14 per cent, while in Toronto it was 20 per cent.
Some parts of Ontario are currently clocking increases of more than 50 per cent.
If there’s a broad trend across the country, it’s that suburban communities continue to be a lot hotter than the downtown cores they are next to. For example, home sales in Cochrane, Alta., just northwest of Calgary doubled in June.
“It’s been absolutely insane,” local realtor Kendra Watt said in an interview with CBC News. “I love absolutely every part of it [but] we’re just exhausted.”
Booming suburbs are a recurring theme across the country as buyers from big cities are taking their price gains and moving farther afield in search of more bang for their bucks.
Ryerson University professor Murtaza Haider says the pandemic has obliterated some of the usual forces that drive real estate, but it remains to be seen if those trends last. (Greg Bruce/CBC)
“This is because people are working from home and there’s a greater preference for space,” said Murtaza Haider, a professor at Ryerson University in Toronto who studies the housing market closely.
Haider said he wonders how much longer that trend will continue, as offices reopen and millions of people return to work.
“I would expect that this change will result in a slowdown in the appreciation rate of prices in the periphery,” he said. “It would slow down, I would expect but by how much I wouldn’t be able to to wager a guess at that.”
The flight to the suburbs is definitely still a factor in Cochrane, Watt says, as about half of buyers right now are out-of-towners — far more than usual.
That is hurting some local buyers, even those who are lucky enough to already own. Dawn Granley said she loves the Cochrane area and would like to buy something similar to her existing bungalow, but with a bit more garage space. She’s thinking of selling but is worried about what might happen if she does.
She has friends who sold and weren’t able to buy back in. She’s heard other stories of houses selling sight unseen, so she’s reluctant to dive in until things calm down.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” she said in an interview. “Yes we’ll get more money for our house but at the same time … it’s like we’re gambling to sell this house.
“We may not be able to find anything comparable to live in for even the same price, which makes no sense to my brain.”
Still hot
Economist Robert Kavcic with Bank of Montreal agrees that the June numbers still paint a picture of an extremely hot housing market by any historical metric.
“Don’t be fooled — this is still an extremely strong level of demand,” he said. “Home sales have backed off extreme levels seen in recent months, but demand is still historically strong and driving strong price growth. We believe that sales activity will continue to gradually cool in the year ahead, but it’s going to take higher interest rates to soften the market in a meaningful way.”
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.
