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CategoryReal Estate Trends

Posted Real Estate Trends

MLS changes not enough according to Competition Bureau

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) members voted for some changes in it’s annual meeting in Ottawa.   The changes were brought in after the Competition Bureau challenged CREA that rules to list on the MLS were too restrictive…..

There were 2 major changes:

-a property can be listed on MLS for a flat fee.

-the agent must now pass along the seller’s phone to the prospective buyer, if the seller chooses.

But the Competition Bureau said these changes didn’t go far enough… click here to read more as reported on CTV.ca.

We’ll be following this story closely… this appears to be a first step in making the MLS more public….stay tuned.

Posted Real Estate Trends

CMHC Chief Economist forecasts a rebound in 2010

Good news release ….CMHC’s Chief Economist, Bob Dugan, says new housing starts for 2010 will be around 172,250…. and 175,150 in 2011…. this is much higher than 2009’s 140,081….

The strong resale market is not expected to continue it’s record setting pace…. Existing home sales are forecast to total 486,700 in 2010 and taper off to 469,950 in 2011. But this is a good thing.. we really don’t want to see a red hot market as this always leads to a sharp decline…. slow and steady.. that’s always a better trend.

Posted Real Estate Trends

January Home prices up…sales down…really?

January stats are in… According to a report in CBC News, the average price of a home sold in Canada on MLS was $328,537.   This is up by 19.6% from January 2009.  But sales seemed to taper off from December’s record high by declining 2.8%.    The supply of homes for sale is also down around 18% with 170,000 homes listed for sale on MLS.

It’s amazing how statistics can be tossed around and can be manipulated or misunderstood…  If you look deeper, you will see that 2009 started off very rough for house sales as the U.S. Mortgage crisis was just starting to take it’s effect… but then as we approached May and June, interest rates dropped and house sales started to increase….  A sort of pent-up demand was being fulfilled.

Watch for a traditional Spring market with good resale figures as buyers take action to benefit from record low interest rates and before the new HST comes in effect this summer.

Posted Mortgage News

Tighter Mortgage Rules…Higher house prices…Higher home sales..

TIGHTER MORTGAGE RULES

Too many articles this week about possible changes coming from the Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty, on budget day March 4th.   Globe and Mail and CTV.ca Where there’s smoke, there’s fire… or at least there is some serious consideration being given to changes in mortgage lending. If you’re a first time homebuyer that’s looking to buy this year, you may want to get your mortgage preapproved sooner than later… talk to your Mortgage Broker.

HIGHER HOME SALES AND HIGHER HOUSE PRICES

And how about the effect of CREA making the MLS public or more accessible?  Will this affect house prices?  Some think it will fuel house price increases…. Read this article from the Financial Post.

Here’s an article from The Star that shouts out ‘home sales skyrocket 87%’.  Wow, that’s a scary number…And here’s another article from The Star that paints a clearer picture… ‘Some encouraging news and numbers’ they say…it can be confusing … but here’s an article with a good graph from  The Financial Post .. look at the figures.. we are still below pre-recession figures…  January 2010 sales were about the same as January 2008 sales..   maybe the market isn’t on fire, maybe it’s just active?