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The Manitoba real estate market started to cool off in September, but the province is still expected to smash 2020’s record year.
The Manitoba real estate market started to cool off in September, but the province is still expected to smash 2020’s record year.
There were 1,575 residential properties that were sold last month for total sales of $506.4 million. This is down 12.9% and 9.3%, respectively, from September 2020’s record numbers, but Stewart Elston, president of the Manitoba Real Estate Association said these sales still out-paced September 2019 by 15%.
He said the pandemic push for home offices and bigger yards has died down some but is still a factor. There is, however, an even bigger motivation for homebuyers.
“The pandemic is still playing into it a little bit but by and large it’s interest rates, low-interest rates are still driving the market,” said Elston.
He noted there are consumer protections in place to protect homebuyers in case the low-interest rates shoot up, specifically the stress test required for mortgages.
The sector is still in good shape to improve on the high-water mark set last year for sales, fuelled by a red-hot spring. So far in 2021, there have been 16,013 residential properties sold, up 23.7% over last year and approaching the year-end record of 16,789 sales. The sector has already surpassed total dollars from 2020 with $5.28 billion in total dollars, up 35.3% over the first nine months of 2020, when the year-end total was $5.1 billion.
There have been 20,362 new listings through September, up 0.3%, and the average sale price of $329,998 is up 9.4%.
Elston said the big shift has come in the sale of condos — which includes apartment and townhouse-style dwellings. While single-home sales are still up 21%, condo sales are up 49% as people look for more affordable options.
The average two-bedroom condo is selling for about $200,000, and one-bedroom condos are even cheaper.
“For a number of years the Winnipeg condo market was a little on the saturated side, listings took longer for a home to sell,” he said. “Now what we’re finding, we’re not getting a lot of bidding wars on condos or multiple offers, but they’re selling faster and they’re selling for closer to list price. There isn’t the excess of inventory on condos now there either.”
The market slowdown is good news for first-time buyers. As the sector cools the prices will also start to calm down as well.
“I think that’s a good thing and I think that should give any first-time buyer there’s hope of getting into something,” said Elston, who also recommended expanding their neighbourhood search and to consider condos as an affordable alternative.
jaldrtich@postmedia.com
Twitter: @JoshAldrich03
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.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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