Moose Jaw’s real estate market is very active at the moment, with plenty of buyers looking to move in from outside of the province.
The problem, according to Vicki Pantelopoulos with Global Direct Realty, is a lack of houses on the market.
“The provincial budget just came out, and of course, we’re in a surplus and what we’ve been finding even over COVID years, is several buyers have been moving from outside of this province, east to west into the province of Saskatchewan,” explained Pantelopoulos.
“We have buyers, and that’s every part of this province. We just don’t have enough houses for sale. If anybody’s thinking of selling a house, maybe it’s the right time to put it up, but certainly, a lot of buyers moving in from out of town which is really a very positive thing for our province.”
She says normally what happens in the spring is homeowners putting their houses up on the market because there are several other choices for them to purchase as a move up or down. The lack of options this year is going to impact that decision for potential sellers.
“This year, what we’re going to find are those people that really just do need to move, because of whatever their life road is taking them to. I think we’ll continue to have this lack of supply of homes for sale for a couple of years now.”
Pantelopoulos says house prices in Saskatchewan remain relatively steady compared to other parts of the country.
“Certainly over the COVID years, where everything was restricted, price values went up in Saskatchewan. I believe that Saskatchewan has never been the same as say Ontario and B.C. You get these big peaks of value increase and down lows of value drops. Saskatchewan stays pretty steady, so that’s a bonus for us. Now I believe, with this provincial budget that came out, our values have increased certainly. I don’t know if they’re going to go up but Saskatchewan has become an ‘it’ province.”
She doesn’t believe rising interest rates over the last year have had an impact on the market here in Moose Jaw.
“I think supply and demand really comes into effect here. If you don’t have the supply and you have more buyers in the marketplace, those values aren’t going to change. Those stay pretty steady. They’ve actually increased in Saskatchewan, compared to the rest of the provinces of Canada. I feel very positive about the real estate market.”
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.
