Real eState
Vancouver real estate: listed $17.3 million, sold at 60 percent discount for $7 million, villa cited best deal in 2020 – The Georgia Straight
The heavily discounted sale of a French-inspired villa may be the best deal in Vancouver in 2020.
That’s according to Adam Major, managing broker with Holywell Properties, a real-estate company that also runs Zealty.ca, an online property-information site.
When asked by the Straight to name the most interesting transaction in the city for the year 2020, Major pointed to 3688 East Boulevard.
The listing details of the property located in the tony neighbourhood of Shaughnessy were tracked by Zealty.ca.
The mansion was listed on January 23, 2017 for $17,388,000. The price was reduced to $14,880,000. It did not sell, and the listing expired July 29 of that year.
The property came on the market again on August 1, 2017, with a price of $14,880,000. The listing by Macdonald Realty – Manyee Lui expired on January 1, 2018.
A week later, on January 9, 2018, the same agent listed the property again, this time for $14,689,000. It spent nearly a year on the market without getting sold. On January 1, 2019, the listing expired.
After two days, on Junary 3, 2019, Macdonald Realty – Manyee Lui listed the property once more. The price was reduced to $13,980,000.
Finally, on February 20, 2020, the villa sold for $7 million.
Major noted that the sale price of the 3688 East Boulevard property represents a nearly 60 percent discount from its original 2017 list price of $17.3 million.
As well, the buyer offered and paid a $30,000 bonus commission to the buyer’s agent, Multiple Realty Ltd.
“The seller end up with a fair bit less,” Major told the Straight.
There’s more to the story.
The mansion also sold below its assessed value.
Major noted that the 2020 B.C. Assessment value of the two-story-plus-basement home totalled $9,370,000.
“So at $7 million, it also sold for a 25 percent discount to assessed value,” Major explained.
According to the Holywell Properties managing broker, this was one of the lowest sale-price-to-assessed-value ratios in 2020.
The home has five bedrooms and eight baths. Luxury features include manicured gardens and a golf putting green.
As for Zealty.ca, Major said that the site had over two million visits last year.
Also, his company made enhancements for the real-estate-information portal in 2020.
These include adding bonus commissions for buyer’s agents, expired listings, daily sales, information of live-stream open houses, and others.
Real eState
Short supply, GTA migration boosts Hamilton real estate market 15 per cent – TheSpec.com
Hamilton’s housing and rental market continued its hot streak even as a second wave of COVID-19 hit the city in December.
The price of a home in Hamilton increased 15.3 per cent year over year to $659,409 in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to a survey released Friday from Royal LePage.
That’s higher than the national aggregate price of a home in Canada, which increased 9.7 per cent to $708,842 year over year.
The median price of a two-storey home increased 17.1 per cent to $698,511, while the median price of a bungalow increased 11.8 per cent to $604,827. The price of a condominium increased 0.7 per cent to $381,008.
Overall, Hamilton’s real estate market saw double-digit gains in home prices in 2020.
Joe Ferrante, broker of record with Royal LePage State Realty, said he expects this trend to continue well into 2021.
“Multiple-offer scenarios have become commonplace and buyers are offering tens of thousands of dollars above the asking price to secure deals,” Ferrante said in a statement.
“With inventory at an all-time low, some sellers held off on listing their properties in 2020 on account of having little or no purchase options.”
Ferrante attributes the rising prices to a “combination of two things — interest rates and a definite shortage of product.”
“It’s a simple supply and demand issue when you think about it,” he said. “People are just not putting their houses up for sale like they used to, while the amount of people into our market outside the Hamilton area and from around the GTA seem to be buying up whatever we have, thus driving the prices up.”
The rental market has become quite competitive as well, noted Ferrante, as many people who can’t find property to buy are renting in the meantime.
“The lack of inventory is causing first-time buyers, who want to take advantage of low borrowing rates, to be priced out of the market,” he said. “These buyer hopefuls now find themselves competing for rental properties instead.”
The pandemic has created an “untraditional” year for the real estate market. After slow sales in April, the ripple effect of the pandemic on consumer behaviour resulted in more residents working and schooling from home.
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According to a recent report from the Realtors Association of Hamilton-Burlington (RAHB), sales of single-family homes in the area increased in December by 38 per cent compared to December 2019, while the average price rose by 29 per cent to $829,226.
In comparison, Ancaster in 2019 was the local area with the highest average home sales price at $772,811.
Increasing valuations and surging rents had been the hallmarks of the Toronto real estate market, particularly for condominiums, in the years following the 2008-2009 Great Recession. The staggering demand for dense downtown housing, as well as investor speculation and short-term rentals, contributed to one of the hottest housing markets in the world.
Then the COVID-19 public health crisis happened.
Like other major urban centres, the coronavirus pandemic has altered the residential landscape in Toronto, which has become associated with an enormous inventory of tiny and ultra-expensive condominiums. North America’s fourth-largest city is enduring a two-pronged problem. The first is that Airbnb hosts are selling their vacant short-term units, with borders closed to non-essential travel, and short-term rental rules tightened last year. The second is that people are fleeing the hyper-dense city for green pastures in rural communities.
This begs the question: can condo owners sell their units in a market plagued by dwindling demand and surging inventory? Many savvy investors who got in on the ground floor in the last decade will likely turn a profit when they secure a buyer. However, somebody who acquired a one- or two-bedroom suite in the last couple of years may find it harder to make money off the property and use the proceeds to upgrade to a detached or semi-detached house.
Ultimately, some Toronto condo owners may be feeling trapped by a large inventory of condos, most of which had been erected in the last few years. Or, as Dale-Paul Jordan, who listed his Toronto condo, told Reuters: “One of the things we’re handcuffed to is selling our condo to help with the down payment.” But does the data reflect the notion that condo owners in the Toronto real estate market are handcuffed? Let’s explore!
Condo Owners in the Toronto Real Estate Market
Sales activity and prices slowed down in the fall, while condo stocks intensified across the city.
According to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB), average Toronto condo prices tumbled 4.7 per cent year-over-year in December to $625,828, a contrast to the 8.1-per-cent growth in the average detached home price ($1,475,758).
Could this be the new norm, at least temporarily?
Recent TRREB data highlights that condo inventories more than doubled in the Greater Toronto Area. This has been a remarkable turn of events, because the broader real estate sector is booming in Toronto and the surrounding areas.
TRREB’s Chief Market Analyst Jason Mercer noted in the report, “there was a dichotomy between the single-family market segments and the condominium apartment segment. The supply of single-family homes remained constrained resulting in strong competition between buyers and double-digit price increases. In contrast, growth in condo listings far-outstripped growth in sales. Increased choice for condo buyers ultimately led to more bargaining power and a year-over-year dip in average condo selling prices during the last few months of the year.”
For now, it seems as though Toronto condo owners looking to leave the city have two options: stay put or sell the unit at a deep discount. But perhaps 2021 will offer more options for “handcuffed” homebuyers.
A Rebound in the Condo Market in 2021?
It is widely expected that many of the public policy health guidelines will remain intact in the first half of 2021. This includes immigration controls and a crackdown on short-term rentals (Airbnb). But the second half of the year could see heated market activity, with more Canadians immunized with the coronavirus vaccine and consumers holding about $200 billion in savings.
Although there has been some speculation that the Bank of Canada (BoC) could be the first central bank to tighten monetary policy, the institution has yet to send any signals that it would raise interest rates anytime soon. In other words, the BoC’s benchmark lending rate of 0.25 per cent and the five-year mortgage rate of below five per cent are unlikely to change in 2021 and possibly in 2022. Put simply, borrowing has never been cheaper, which is allowing new homebuyers to delve into the real estate market.
Another lingering question impacting the direction of Toronto real estate: if life returns to some semblance of normalcy following widespread vaccinations of Canadians, will corporations maintain their work-from-home policies? Google recently announced that the company would have employees return to the office in September and only experiment with flexible telecommuting a few days per week. This matters because many professionals have been enjoying newfound freedom over the last several months and some have migrated to regions further from their place of employment, soaking up the luxury of no daily commute coupled with quieter rural living.
But this could potentially change toward the end of 2021, with businesses returning to their commercial workspaces. Will this translate to a wave of homebuyers (and condo seekers) returning the big cities? Should this wave start to trickle back to the city sooner rather than later, this along with the other strong demand trends forecasted for the coming year, should provide some relief for handcuffed condo owners in Canada’s largest real estate market.
Real eState
Quebec's Real Estate Market Performed Well in 2020 With Historic Sales Records – GlobeNewswire
L’ÎLE-DES-SOEURS, Quebec, Jan. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers (QPAREB) has just released its residential real estate market statistics for the province of Quebec, based on the real estate brokers’ Centris provincial database.
In total, 112,476 residential sales transactions were concluded in 2020 in the province of Quebec. This represents a 17 per cent increase compared to 2019. It was also the highest number of sales ever registered since the real estate brokers’ Centris system began compiling market data in the year 2000.
“The fourth quarter brought an extraordinary year to a close, one marked by an unprecedented health crisis. Exceptional government financial assistance programs, rock-bottom interest rates, a renewed interest in acquiring a property adapted to the new reality of teleworking, as well as new needs have helped accelerate the increase in transactions beyond large urban areas,” said Charles Brant, director of market analysis at the QPAREB. “This has further reduced the already limited number of properties for sale on the market, pushing property prices to levels never before seen across the province,” he added.
Here are some of the highlights of 2020.
Sales
- By property category, single-family homes stood out with a significant 18 per cent increase in sales across the province. Sales of plexes and condominiums also registered strong increases of 17 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively.
- Among the province’s metropolitan areas, Quebec City (+28 per cent), Sherbrooke (+22 per cent) and Gatineau (+15 per cent) registered the largest increases in sales.
- Overall, sales in regions outside of the metropolitan areas experienced an even more dramatic increase in sales (+31 per cent), all property categories combined.
- More specifically, several small urban resort areas registered phenomenal sales increases in 2020, including the agglomerations of Charlevoix (+94 per cent), Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts (+64 per cent), Mont-Tremblant (+59 per cent) and Sainte-Adèle (+57 per cent).
Active listings
- There was an average of 39,848 active listings on the Centris system in Quebec in 2020, a 29 per cent drop compared to 2019. This was the fifth consecutive annual decrease in active listings.
Prices
- The median price of single-family homes in Quebec stood at $295,000 in 2020, up 13 per cent compared to 2019.
- The median price of condominiums also registered a notable increase, rising by 11 per cent to reach $272,000.
- The median price of plexes (2 to 5 dwellings) remained relatively stable compared to 2019, inching up by 1 per cent to reach $425,000.
Market conditions and selling times
- Market conditions tightened in the vast majority of areas of the province. Many agglomerations located outside of the metropolitan areas experienced the most rapid tightening of market conditions in favour of sellers.
- Selling times across the province shortened compared to 2019: for all property categories combined, it took an average of 86 days for a property to sell (-11 days).
In the context of the current pandemic, the QPAREB reminds you that working with a real estate broker means more security and less stress, as all members are subject to the Real Estate Brokerage Act as well as strict rules and a code of conduct. Learn more about the health measures that are in effect.
Additional information:
Quarterly statistics – Barometer for the province of Quebec
Detailed monthly and 2020 cumulative statistics for the province and its regions
About the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers
The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers (QPAREB) is a non-profit association that brings together more than 13,000 real estate brokers and agencies. It is responsible for promoting and defending their interests while taking into account the issues facing the profession and the various professional and regional realities of its members. The QPAREB is also an important player in many real estate dossiers, including the implementation of measures that promote homeownership. The Association reports on Quebec’s residential real estate market statistics, provides training, tools and services relating to real estate, and facilitates the collection, dissemination and exchange of information. The QPAREB is headquartered in Quebec City and has its administrative offices in Montreal. It has two subsidiaries: Centris Inc. and the Collège de l’immobilier du Québec. Follow its activities at qpareb.ca or via its social media pages: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.
About Centris
Société Centris provides real estate industry stakeholders with access to real estate data and a wide range of technology tools. Centris tools are used by close to 14,000 real estate brokers, as well as other industry professionals. Centris also operates Centris.ca, the most visited real estate website in Quebec.
Click on the links below to consult the regional press releases:
Montreal CMA
Quebec City CMA
RMR de Gatineau
RMR de Sherbrooke
RMR de Saguenay
RMR de Trois-Rivières
Agglomération de Granby
Agglomération de Joliette
Agglomérations des Laurentides
Agglomération de Saint-Hyacinthe
Agglomération de Drummondville et de Victoriaville
Agglomération de Val-d’Or et de Rouyn-Noranda
For more information:
Image bank (credit QPAREB) available free of charge.
Marjolaine Beaulieu
Publicist
Communications and Marketing
1-888- 762-2440 or
514-762-2440, ext. 238
media@qpareb.ca
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