Toronto, Calgary only cities to buck the house market slowdown

Susan Pigg – Toronto Star

Canada’s housing market is in Goldilocks mode — not too hot and not too cold, except in Toronto and Calgary which are “bucking the trend of moderation” now taking hold in major cities from Halifax to Montreal and Winnipeg, says a quarterly house price survey from Royal LePage.

Comment: Right. Sales and prices are up in Edmonton, Calgary, Victoria, Vancouver and Toronto. Checking with the Montreal Real Estate Board, sales and prices rose there as well last month, for the 3rd time in 4 months. Winnipeg also saw higher sales and prices. Halifax is the only one of 8 major markets I checked that had falling sales and prices. So where exactly is this market slow down?

Winnipeg Stats – http://www.winnipegrealestatenews.com/Resources/ShowDocument/256
Montreal Stats – http://www.cigm.qc.ca/en/nouvelles_comm.aspx?id=748
Halifax Stats – http://creastats.crea.ca/nsar/
Edmonton Stats – http://www.ereb.com/News&Events/LatestMarketStatistics.html
Calgary Stats – http://www.creb.com/public/documents/statistics/2014/package/res-stats-2014_September.pdf
Victoria Stats – http://www.vreb.org/mls_statistics/current_statistics.html
Vancouver Stats – http://www.rebgv.org/news-statistics/home-sales-activity-picks-pace-september
Toronto Stats – http://torontorealestateboard.com/market_news/release_market_updates/news2014/nr_market_watch_0914.htm

Now look at the national stats from CREA – http://creastats.crea.ca/natl/ – the only measure that has fallen, according to them, is the seasonally adjusted sales. Actual sales have risen, prices have risen, you name it… all up. Oh sorry, listings are down. I wish I knew what RLP was looking at… or smoking!

House prices are still expected to climb in most Canadian cities, but at a far less “robust” pace than has been seen since the 2008 recession, says the real estate company in a review of third-quarter home sales released Wednesday.

That’s with the exception of the Greater Toronto Area and Calgary where home sales are nearing record levels and a shortage of listings continues to drive up prices.

Comment: Except for all the other cities, except Halifax, where sales and prices are rising.

Nationally, the average price of a home climbed between 4.4% and 6.1% year-over-year in the third quarter of this year, “a natural slowing” of price appreciation.

Comment: How is that slow? Prices were rising as little as 3% within the past few years. Heck, June 2012 saw national prices fall by 0.8% – that would make a 6.1% increase a rather major rise from that level only 27 months ago. Not at all a natural slowing by any means, not a slowing at all.

“To be clear, we expect home prices to continue to grow in the months ahead, but at a slower rate than we have seen in recent years,” says Royal LePage president Phil Soper.

Not so, however, in the GTA where condos saw the biggest price appreciation of all housing types after an unusually strong August for sales, up 8% year-over-year to an average transaction price of $383,039 in the third quarter, says the house-price survey.

Detached bungalows were up 7.2% to an average of $618,088, year over year, and standard two-storey homes climbed 7.6% to $733,317.

Calgary continued to outpace everywhere else, with the average condo price up almost 12% in the third quarter, year over year, to just under $300,000. Detached bungalows saw price gains of almost 11%, to an average of $515,844, followed by a 9.2% increase in standard two-storey homes to an average transaction price of $499,811, according to the survey.

Vancouver saw more moderate price gains, with detached bungalows up 6.1% in the third quarter, year over year, to an average $1.135 million. Two-storey homes saw prices climb 5.6% to $1.2 million while condos actually dipped 0.2% to $502,869.

“The brisk pace, sometimes approaching frenetic, that we have seen in recent months in some of Canada’s largest real estate markets is slowing, Slower, yet still growing,” added Soper in a statement.

Comment: But it isn’t.

Low interest rates and an improving U.S. and Canadian economy are expected to buoy the housing market, he added.

“Further, early indicators, such as declines in the number of new listings in some key cities, suggest that as demand slows, so shall supply, further protecting Canadian homeowners’ primary investment.”

Comment: Listings will fall, which will push up prices. That completely contradicts the totally erroneous claims in this report.

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Contact Laurin Jeffrey for more information – 416-388-1960

Laurin Jeffrey is a Toronto real estate agent with Century 21 Regal Realty.
He did not write these articles, he just reproduces them here for people who
are interested in Toronto real estate. He does not work for any builders.
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