Jennifer Handley is a real estate agent in Nanton, a town about an hour drive south of Calgary.
She is also the town’s mayor.
According to her, the Nanton housing market is hot right now.
“We haven’t been able to catch our breath that’s for sure, for about three of four weeks,” Handley said.
Handley said when COVID-19 hit Alberta back in March, sales were halted, not unlike any other real estate market.
But since the middle of May, she has sold about 15 houses — a pretty big number when you consider the size of the rural market in a global pandemic.
I think there is that appeal that we are a little bit isolated from what’s going on in the city.– Jennifer Handley, Nanton mayor and realtor
And a big chunk of the buyers are coming to the town, which has a population of 2,300, from Calgary. They’re telling Hanley they want out of the big city.
“They felt, especially if they were living in a condo apartment and they wanted to sell their place there, come here and not be as close to people — and we’ve heard that story time and time again,” Handley said.
While Calgary is still considered the hot spot for COVID-19 cases in Alberta, Handley said there have been no cases reported in Nanton. There were just 14 cases in the entire municipal district where the town is located, as of Sunday.
“I think there is that appeal that we are a little bit isolated from what’s going on in the city,” Handley said.
Anne-Marie Lurie is with the Alberta Real Estate Association, which tracks data in rural areas.
Lurie said she’s not surprised by Handley’s experience.
“The trend has been the same in areas like Airdrie as well, where their numbers improved much more in June than what we saw in the city.”
According to the Calgary Real Estate Board, Airdrie’s sales rose above last year’s levels this June, following declines from the previous three months. Inventories were also below last year’s levels as well.
Other small municipalities in the Calgary region also saw sales improve slightly (Cochrane) or remain stable (Okotoks), despite the economic conditions.
Lurie said something to keep an eye on is a shift in consumer demand preferences .
“If people aren’t having to come into the office as much what does that mean?” she said.
“Do we see people considering living in different, more further out places? So I’m really curious to see if there are any fundamental shifts that will come with you know, essentially COVID-19.”
For now, small town realtors like Handley are happy to ride the rural real estate wave for as long as it sticks around.
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.
