Real eState

Real estate sales expected to dive – CTV News

Published

4 years ago

March 31, 2020

Buying and selling real estate involves a lot of personal interaction, but COVID-19 has put a stop to that. There are no more open houses, property owners don’t want strangers in their homes and buyers aren’t out and about viewing listings.

A new RBC economic report says the pandemic is a temporary blow to Canada’s housing market. The report projects housing sales across the country will dive by nearly 30 per cent this year to a 20-year low.

The chief economist with the B.C. Real Estate Association, Brendon Ogmundson, had released his own predictions a couple of weeks ago and isn’t too surprised by what’s in the RBC forecast.

“We’re expecting a recession. We’re expecting at least a one or two month real stoppage of activity, and for the housing market that means not a lot of face-to-face interactions, (and) probably not a lot of sales the next few months,” Ogmundson said.

According to RBC, property prices are expected to fall briefly in the second half of this year by about 3 per cent. However, affordability in the Vancouver area still remains a problem. While the pre-tax median household income to housing costs ratio has fallen about six percentage points in the region in the past year, it’s still the highest in Canada at 80.4 per cent.

Ogmundson doesn’t expect a lot of change in housing prices in the Vancouver area because both supply and demand have fallen off.

The housing forecast from RBC is also predicting that once the crisis has ended, there could be a 40 per cent surge in real estate sales next year.

“All that demand is really still there. We just need to get past this current kind of unusual situation,” Ogmundson said, “A lot of those jobs hopefully will be coming back and we’ll be coming back into very low interest rates and a lot of pent up demand. We should see a pretty big bounce back once this does end.”

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Real eState

National housing market in ‘holding pattern’ as buyers patient for lower rates: CREA

Published

11 hours ago

September 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

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.

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Real eState

Two Quebec real estate brokers suspended for using fake bids to drive up prices

Published

5 days ago

September 11, 2024

Anne Joseph

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.

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Montreal home sales, prices rise in August: real estate board

Published

1 week ago

September 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

MONTREAL – The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers says Montreal-area home sales rose 9.3 per cent in August compared with the same month last year, with levels slightly higher than the historical average for this time of year.

The association says home sales in the region totalled 2,991 for the month, up from 2,737 in August 2023.

The median price for all housing types was up year-over-year, led by a six per cent increase for the price of a plex at $763,000 last month.

The median price for a single-family home rose 5.2 per cent to $590,000 and the median price for a condominium rose 4.4 per cent to $407,100.

QPAREB market analysis director Charles Brant says the strength of the Montreal resale market contrasts with declines in many other Canadian cities struggling with higher levels of household debt, lower savings and diminishing purchasing power.

Active listings for August jumped 18 per cent compared with a year earlier to 17,200, while new listings rose 1.7 per cent to 4,840.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.

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