WINNIPEG —
Real estate is booming in Winnipeg, and with bidding wars and high prices, some buyers are having a tough time locking down a new home.
Buying your first home can be an exciting time in life, but for Michael Hill and his partner, it has been stressful.
“I think we started to figure out why it’s so difficult. The houses are sparse, the good ones are sparse, and the rates are so low where everybody’s able to just basically bid on kind of what they want,” Hill said.
Hill said they’ve been house shopping for the last couple of months, and despite putting down offers on two houses, they haven’t had much luck.
“A combination of being outbid and also having no conditions for the other bids,” said Hill. “One bid literally just said they didn’t have a finance condition, essentially meaning here’s $350,000 in cash.”
Jayesh Guliani, a realtor for Royal LePage, said this year has been extremely difficult for buyers.
“The low inventory, the low-interest rates, and of course pent up demand of people waiting to make their move. Now people are ready to make their moves but unfortunately, so are 30 to 40 other home buyers who are just as qualified and writing just as good offers,” Guliani said.
Numbers released by the Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board show a 48 per cent increase in sales for Feb. 2021 compared to Feb. 2020. Year-to-date sales for 2021 are up more than 38 per cent compared to this time last year.
Peter Squire, vice president of external relations and market intelligence for the board, claims there’s been a decrease in the number of available listings as well.
“Essentially, demand’s outstripping supply, so that’s why those listings are depleted,” said Squire. “Our actives are down about 40 per cent.”
Squire said the historically low-interest rates happening right now are contributing to the increased demand.
Even with less than perfect timing, Hill isn’t being deterred from finding a home.
“We had our savings built up; we wanted to establish that and make sure that we wanted to do this. It just so happened to be at the time where everybody else is competing for this,” he said.
The Winnipeg Regional Real Estate Board said the city is a very steady market and even if there is a dip in sales later in the year, it doesn’t predict a severe drop-off.
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.
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.
