Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
New rules make condos harder to sell | Inman News
This does not apply to Canada yet but it is interesting and something I am sure we shall be looking at soon.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Winnipeg Real Estate housing market update
Manitoba Merv saw his shadow and predicted 6 more weeks of winter. If you’re a seller - you can only hope we have 6 more weeks of real estate market like we did in February!
Despite the unseasonably cold February, 1,313 sellers put their houses on the WinnipegREALTORS® Multiple Listing Service® in the month (up 12% from last February) … and 781 sellers sold their properties through the MLS® (up 10% from February 2010).
As a result of 1313 new listings being added in the month – the listing inventory available for sale in Winnipeg rose to 2,450 units – up 16% from last year’s inventory. So there are more houses to choose from for buyers – the second highest inventory of resale homes in the past 5 years.
And with all those sales and home values escalating – the dollar volume for the month is also up 14% from last year at $171 million – and last February was a record February for dollar volume!
With great February numbers, the impact on year-to-date is nothing but positive. Listings in January and February are up 14% from the first two months of 2010. 2,454 homes have been listed on Winnipeg’s MLS® since the start of the year, and there have been 1,347 sales – up 12% from last year.
Dollar volume is already at $296 million – up 17% from last year’s two month activity.
20% of all residential detached sales were under $150,000. On the upper end of the scale, 22% of the sales were above $300,000 (including 5% over $500,000).
That leaves 58% of the residential detached market selling between $150,000 and $300,000. (22% between $150,000 and $200,000. 20% between $200,000 and $250,000. 16% between $250,000 and $300,000.)
And days on market for residential detached dropped to 26 days – 3 days fewer than February 2010.
The condominium market is healthy as well. There were 96 condo sales in February – 20% were under $150,000 … 18% were over $250,000 … 62% were between $150,000 and $250, 000. Days on market for condominiums averaged 24 days compared to 29 days last February.
The highest priced condo sale in February was $383,000 and the lowest priced was $72,000. The highest priced residential detached sale was $880,000 and the lowest was $25,000.
WinnipegREALTORS® president Ralph Fyfe reported on the positive February and year-to-date numbers. Fyfe said, “We never put too much stock in one or two month’s numbers. We wait for the results of a quarter or two to start to try to identify trends. But this year’s February numbers and year-to-date stats seem to be an early confirmation of what our analysts predicted in our January forecast breakfast for 2011.
“In January our forecasters predicted home sales will increase 0-2% over last year, Home prices will be up 7-9% (condos up 6-8%) and total dollar volume will increase 9-11%. January and February activity has certainly pointed us in that direction.”
The recently released discussion paper on Manitoba’s Rental Housing Shortage identifies that the absence of an active rental market can do nothing but continue to ensure that housing demand will outstrip housing supply and positive numbers for sales, dollar volume and average sale price will continue to climb. (Study available at www.winnipegrealtors.ca under “Position Papers”.)
Despite the unseasonably cold February, 1,313 sellers put their houses on the WinnipegREALTORS® Multiple Listing Service® in the month (up 12% from last February) … and 781 sellers sold their properties through the MLS® (up 10% from February 2010).
As a result of 1313 new listings being added in the month – the listing inventory available for sale in Winnipeg rose to 2,450 units – up 16% from last year’s inventory. So there are more houses to choose from for buyers – the second highest inventory of resale homes in the past 5 years.
And with all those sales and home values escalating – the dollar volume for the month is also up 14% from last year at $171 million – and last February was a record February for dollar volume!
With great February numbers, the impact on year-to-date is nothing but positive. Listings in January and February are up 14% from the first two months of 2010. 2,454 homes have been listed on Winnipeg’s MLS® since the start of the year, and there have been 1,347 sales – up 12% from last year.
Dollar volume is already at $296 million – up 17% from last year’s two month activity.
20% of all residential detached sales were under $150,000. On the upper end of the scale, 22% of the sales were above $300,000 (including 5% over $500,000).
That leaves 58% of the residential detached market selling between $150,000 and $300,000. (22% between $150,000 and $200,000. 20% between $200,000 and $250,000. 16% between $250,000 and $300,000.)
And days on market for residential detached dropped to 26 days – 3 days fewer than February 2010.
The condominium market is healthy as well. There were 96 condo sales in February – 20% were under $150,000 … 18% were over $250,000 … 62% were between $150,000 and $250, 000. Days on market for condominiums averaged 24 days compared to 29 days last February.
The highest priced condo sale in February was $383,000 and the lowest priced was $72,000. The highest priced residential detached sale was $880,000 and the lowest was $25,000.
WinnipegREALTORS® president Ralph Fyfe reported on the positive February and year-to-date numbers. Fyfe said, “We never put too much stock in one or two month’s numbers. We wait for the results of a quarter or two to start to try to identify trends. But this year’s February numbers and year-to-date stats seem to be an early confirmation of what our analysts predicted in our January forecast breakfast for 2011.
“In January our forecasters predicted home sales will increase 0-2% over last year, Home prices will be up 7-9% (condos up 6-8%) and total dollar volume will increase 9-11%. January and February activity has certainly pointed us in that direction.”
The recently released discussion paper on Manitoba’s Rental Housing Shortage identifies that the absence of an active rental market can do nothing but continue to ensure that housing demand will outstrip housing supply and positive numbers for sales, dollar volume and average sale price will continue to climb. (Study available at www.winnipegrealtors.ca under “Position Papers”.)
Monday, March 7, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Manitoba's Rental Housing Shortage 03-01-11
A discussion paper on Manitoba’s acute rental shortage, released today by WinnipegREALTORS®; calls for action now to turnaround a long protracted shortage of rental housing. Winnipeg’s .8% rental vacancy rate (lowest vacancy rate of 34 census metropolitan centres surveyed in the nation by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in fall 2010) is a contributing factor in making Winnipeg’s housing less affordable. It is also limiting good housing market choice and flexibility since rental is so scarce.
“ There are some areas of Winnipeg where there is virtually nothing to rent so invariably any house that becomes available for sale becomes the only choice for someone to bid on,” said Mel Boisvert, chair of the WinnipegREALTORS® task force that produced this discussion paper. “First-time buyers in particular are finding it difficult because the entry level market under $200,000 is shrinking noticeably due to escalating house prices.”
The 7th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey has for the first time dropped Winnipeg’s ranking from affordable to moderately unaffordable. We need to unclog the impediments and barriers to creating more rental supply. How can you continue to increase the number of immigrants without a plan to provide them with accessible and affordable accommodations?
The discussion paper raises a number of issues such as rent regulation and also looks at what role each level of government can play in helping solve Manitoba’s rental shortage.
“There is no magic wand or quick fix,” said Boisvert. “Hopefully, some of the solutions we put forward in the discussion paper will be considered. Doing more of the same is not an option.”
A good place to start is to bring housing stakeholders together to discuss how Manitoba can address the rental shortage in a manner fair to all parties concerned. More regulation is not the answer if you want to encourage the private sector to invest in and build more rental units.
The discussion paper can be found at http://www.winnipegrealtors.ca/positionPaper/Paper2011March.pdf
For further information, contact Peter Squire at 786-8854.
“ There are some areas of Winnipeg where there is virtually nothing to rent so invariably any house that becomes available for sale becomes the only choice for someone to bid on,” said Mel Boisvert, chair of the WinnipegREALTORS® task force that produced this discussion paper. “First-time buyers in particular are finding it difficult because the entry level market under $200,000 is shrinking noticeably due to escalating house prices.”
The 7th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey has for the first time dropped Winnipeg’s ranking from affordable to moderately unaffordable. We need to unclog the impediments and barriers to creating more rental supply. How can you continue to increase the number of immigrants without a plan to provide them with accessible and affordable accommodations?
The discussion paper raises a number of issues such as rent regulation and also looks at what role each level of government can play in helping solve Manitoba’s rental shortage.
“There is no magic wand or quick fix,” said Boisvert. “Hopefully, some of the solutions we put forward in the discussion paper will be considered. Doing more of the same is not an option.”
A good place to start is to bring housing stakeholders together to discuss how Manitoba can address the rental shortage in a manner fair to all parties concerned. More regulation is not the answer if you want to encourage the private sector to invest in and build more rental units.
The discussion paper can be found at http://www.winnipegrealtors.ca/positionPaper/Paper2011March.pdf
For further information, contact Peter Squire at 786-8854.
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