Real estate sales across the province have skyrocketed since the beginning of the pandemic, says real estate agent Cory Reid. (Mark Quinn/ CBC)
Like many others, Trevor Hickey and his partner spent a lot more time at home in 2020 than originally planned.
They had been living in their Rabbittown-area house for a while, but after months of staying at home they decided it was time to look for a bigger space in which to grow their family.
The couple did not want to hold two mortgages at once, so they decided to sell their house before buying a new one, said Hickey in an interview with CBC News.
When the couple sold their house in December, they thought the housing market had reached its peak and buying a new home would be relatively easy — but they were wrong.
“That’s when the market really started to kind of heat up,” Hickey said. “We couldn’t find a house in the interim between when we sold our house and when our house closed [in January], and since then, the market kind of skyrocketed.”
Eight months later, the Newfoundland and Labrador housing market is still hot, and Hickey and his partner are still looking for a new home.
“Everything we looked at has just gone through the roof by basically the equivalent of what a down payment was,” he said.
Hickey’s partner is pregnant, and the couple hopes to settle into a new home before the baby arrives.
‘Home is home’
The Newfoundland and Labrador housing market broke records in 2020, and this year it is breaking records again.
In an email, a spokesperson for the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Realtors said real estate sales across the province in July were 25 per cent higher than July 2020, which itself was a record month.
In an interview with CBC Radio’s Newfoundland Morning, Deer Lake real estate agent Cory Reid attributed the busy market to an influx of buyers from other provinces, including Ontario and Alberta.
He says buyers are attracted to Newfoundland and Labrador because of how the province has weathered the pandemic.
“If you’re Newfoundlander you’re always a Newfoundlander, and home is home,” he said. “I think people reflected on that and felt, you know, ‘Maybe it’s time for me to consider retiring and going back to [my] roots.'”
He said the market in towns like Deer Lake is particularly hot because of their proximity to recreational activities like snowmobiling and fishing, activities which are harder to find in urban areas.
An unpredictable market
Hickey and his partner are living with family while they continue searching for a new home. They’ve placed a few bids above asking price but have still been outbid every time.
The couple looked into building a house, but the high cost of lumber made that option untenable for them too, said Hickey. They hope the market will calm down soon, but Hickey says there’s no way to know when that will be.
Reid says the influx of buyers is coming from other provinces, including Ontario and Alberta. (Submitted by Cory Reid)
“Anyone who answers that question confidently is lying to you,” he said.
Reid agrees the real estate market can be unpredictable but said he expects it to die down in the fall, since people usually prefer to move during the summer.
For now, Hickey and his partner will keep looking for the right house, which they hope will show up before the baby. After more than a year under the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, they’re used to dealing with the unexpected.
“Anyone who … in 2019 came up with a plan for what they want to do and who they want to be and where they want to be in 2021, you know, that’s out the window.”
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.
