first-quarter data <\/a>on Thursday, which showed mid-priced markets like Quebec City seeing prices surge over 10 per cent, while big cities like Toronto and Vancouver saw prices drop roughly 4.5 per cent or more from the previous year.<\/p>\n\u201cEvery single city is expected to be up in the low to mid-single digits (percentage appreciation), except Vancouver and Toronto,\u201d says Soper. <\/p>\n
The report shows Canadian home prices dropped two per cent compared to last year, bringing the average price to $812,900. However, things have mostly leveled off recently, with prices barely moving, up just 0.7 per cent, since the end of last year. In Greater Montreal, home prices rose 3.3 per cent compared to last year.<\/p>\n
Soper says resource-based industries in places like Sudbury are causing wages and salaries to move up, which directly correlates with higher local purchasing power.<\/p>\n
But building isn\u2019t keeping up, and that is consistent across Canada, he says, <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s putting upward pressure on prices. Except for Quebec City, we\u2019re not seeing double digit-price increases,\u201d says Soper. <\/p>\n
Too many condos in Toronto<\/p>\n
Toronto remains oversupplied, especially in condos, says Soper.<\/p>\n
He says the condo market was hit hard after the federal government sharply cut back on temporary foreign workers and foreign students in recent years. <\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of their customers simply disappeared,\u201d says Soper, who believes a policy change in the next few years will immediately change the trajectory of condominium demand.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, he says detached and semi-detached homes are starting to recover, even in weaker markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re beginning to eat into that inventory over supply,\u201d says Soper.<\/p>\n
Buyer behaviour has shifted<\/p>\n
For the last two decades, the norm for homeowners was finding and buying a new home first, which was difficult due to supply constraints, and then selling an existing home, Soper explains.<\/p>\n
Now, buyer behaviour has shifted, \u201cwhich is, they look to sell their home before they go shopping,\u201d says Soper. <\/p>\n
He says first-time buyers remain the most anxious about the geopolitical landscape, and so they remain on the sidelines by renting if they can. But even that is becoming more difficult. <\/p>\n
\u201cTypically in Canada, rents are so high that it\u2019s pushing people into ownership,\u201d says Soper. <\/p>\n
He says recent GST\/HST rebate expansions for first time home buyers are being well received by the industry across banks, real estate and builders. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re aimed right at the heart of where the friction is in the real estate cycle,\u201d says Soper. <\/p>\n
He says the numbers haven\u2019t shown up in the data yet, but the impact will likely be visible in the next quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phil Soper, CEO & president of Royal LePage, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss the latest housing data as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-396411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}