Mortgage 101 – Halifax market update from James Dwyer | July 2022 Part 2

In this episode of Mortgage 101 with Clinton Wilkins and Todd Veinotte, as heard on CityNews 95.7 and CityNews 101.1, the guys talk to local realtor, James Dwyer to talk about the Halifax real estate market. Watch or listen to find out about if we’re still in a seller’s market, what price points for homes are available, the average house price in Halifax Regional Municipality, and more!

Mortgage 101 with Clinton Wilkins & Todd Veinotte: Halifax market update from James Dwyer

Don’t feel like watching the video? Check out the transcript below.

Transcript:

Halifax market update from James Dwyer

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:00:07] So we know how hot or not markets are across the country. This has been quite a ride. And in Halifax, we’re going to get a taste of, or an understanding, I guess, of where the market is with the local realtor, somebody you’ve dealt with regularly, correct?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:00:17:06] I have, yeah. We’ve done a bunch of transactions together and I’m really interested to hear his perspective. As you know, many markets across this country are reporting some slowdowns since the interest rates have obviously been creeping up. So I’m interested to see what happens in Halifax.

I’m sure he can report on some of the stats. I heard myself in June that things were starting to maybe not be as hot as they were before. I still think it’s probably a seller’s market, Todd, but I’m certainly interested to see what he thinks. So we will see if we can get him on the line.

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:51:18] James Dwyer, are you there?

James Dwyer: [00:00:53:21] Yes, I am.

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:54:21] Nice to hear from you, James.

James Dwyer: [00:00:56:16] Yes, you too.

Todd Veinotte: [00:00:57:21] Why don’t you introduce yourself? Give a plug for yourself and your business and your experience. A little bio for everybody, if you will.

James Dwyer: [00:01:06:12] No worries, as you know, I’m James Dwyer from Engel & Völkers. Real estate agent here in HRM for the last 11 years, just recently got my Fellowship of Real Estate Institute over two weeks ago. So I’m quite excited about that and yeah, I’m very savvy, driven, focused, real estate agent.

Are we still in a seller’s market?

Todd Veinotte: [00:01:27:01] Excellent. So Clinton and I are going to chat with you about the market. I guess I’ll ask the first question. Seller’s market still? Easy to say. What are your thoughts?

James Dwyer: [00:01:37:14] I’m still a bit of a seller’s market. I mean, the inventory numbers are still low and they, but they are continuing to slowly increase month over month. We kind of had our last big push there in June. We’re entering into a bit of a period now of more of a transitionary period.

Buyers are kind of taking a step back a little bit. Some of our external factors that have been driving our market also are taking a little bit of a step back and we should see kind of an increase in the activities come September.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:02:10:13] That’s really interesting that you say that. You know, I’m certainly seeing some purchases still happening, James. In some ways, I almost feel like some of the people that were on the fence the last two years or some of those first-time home buyers, they’re actually getting some accepted offers. Are you seeing that on your end?

James Dwyer: [00:02:25:26] 100%, yeah. I would say if anybody is benefiting from the market right now, that would have to be primarily local buyers.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:02:32:20] Okay.

James Dwyer: [00:02:33:14] Ones that have been, you know, very progressive and very, you know, constantly moving forward, you know, in the marketplace, getting in competition, you know, they lose that a couple of times. But you know what? They really are starting to make some things happen for them. And, you know, it’s great to see, you know, Nova Scotians, you know, winning these bids.

What homes are available on the market, in terms of price

Todd Veinotte: [00:02:53:14] James, what price point are you starting to see opening up some that perhaps might not have? I know that some of that kind of $250,000 to $450,000 type stuff is very, very sparse. Are we seeing any more of that stuff opening up?

James Dwyer: [00:03:09:00] I would say from an inventory perspective, it seems to be the range stuff. The higher end stuff seems to be chugging along quite well. I was involved recently in a couple of properties that were in that $900,000 to $1 million range and all of them got into competition. That was this week.

The entry level stuff is still has a little bit of aggressiveness, but we’re not seeing those high, you know, 10, 15, 20 offers kind of in that two or three range. And I’ve actually seen a couple of entry level properties with deadlines and they came and went without having any offers. So, you know, the name of the game is always going to be and having patience with the market and you will come at the head for it.

Listing prices closer to market value

Clinton Wilkins: [00:03:51:18] Yeah, that’s interesting. What about, you know, properties that realtors are putting on a program, you know, are we seeing as much of that now as we maybe were before or are properties listed closer to what the vendor thinks that the property is actually going to sell for.

James Dwyer: [00:04:08:05] Yeah, exactly. So as we were kind of going through the transition, I mean, you know, what has been the protocol for the last couple of years is kind of that, you know, starting price point to kind of generate that competition, right? To create that activity. And so what we’re starting to see now is a good mix of that.

And as we’re slowly transitioning to market rates, so the only I guess the correction within that space is a lot of buyers now and they’re slowly coming around, where they see a price and they, you know, like three months ago they would see a price and they would automatically add a certain amount to that: $80,000, $100,000, $100,500 and they go, “Oh, well, I can’t compete for that because that’s not my budget line.”

But now we’ve shifted that from the initial price to the market rate, you know, the objective now is to get that one buyer and negotiate, you know, and come at it from that perspective because, you know, at the end of the day, yes, the buyer public is definitely decreased, but the inventory hasn’t really kind of picked up steam strong enough to kind of offset that, to balance things out a bit better. But I think ultimately at the end of the day, I think this is better for the market and for the public to see a price and to be able to negotiate with it.

Less buyers from outside of Nova Scotia?

Todd Veinotte: [00:05:26:02] Are we seeing a decline in buyers from outside of Nova Scotia?

James Dwyer: [00:05:31:05] Yes. Yes, we are. I think the big catalyst for them is that the Toronto market is expected or at least is seeing right now much more sharp declines in their real estate prices right now. And the train of thought would be that a good majority of them that were kind of coming this way, you know, they were getting priced out of the GTA and so Halifax and surrounding areas that are really, really appealing to them and now they’re kind of sitting back and waiting because guess what? There’s a good chance by September that the areas that they wanted to get into that they couldn’t afford before, are now becoming more affordable.

Clinton Wilkins: [00:06:09:08] Interesting. And I wonder if some of the Ontario buyers because, you know, I think it’s no secret that one in three clients that I really had calling our office the last two years was, probably were probably from Ontario. Are we seeing that maybe that slowing a bit because they are having a hard time selling their existing real estate in Ontario to be able to make that move east?

James Dwyer: [00:06:32:28] Yeah, we’re definitely seeing that. I’ve had a couple of Ontario clients that were ecstatic to hear talking about their listing story in Ottawa and in Mississauga, and they’re just not getting the viewings. They’re like, it’s not existent.

And so, you know, they’ve been a bit more aggressive with their price reductions and stuff to kind of, I guess, get underneath the downward trend that they’re having right now. And yeah, I guess the shift for them has been much more dramatic. I mean, it was essentially overnight that they went from this strong seller’s market to almost a complete stop, temporarily. Right?

So the aggressive price point and it kind of makes sense when you’re looking at their average sale price up there. You know, at that price point, I mean, my goodness, it’s you know, it was already high to begin with. So I think that’s why they’re going to see a bit more of a sharper decline as it comes in line more with income levels in the city there.

What’s new home construction like right now?

Todd Veinotte: [00:07:27:26] All right. Just quickly, what can you tell us about new home construction in the market, James?

James Dwyer: [00:07:32:20] Need more of it. We definitely, definitely need a lot more of it. I think CMHC just came out with, you know, the quantity of homes that are required. You know, we really need the province to push forward on creating opportunities for tradespeople. That seems to be the big holdback. I mean, everybody would like to be building more as well.

But, you know, talent is the king right now. And that’s what’s required to get these developments moving forward, you know, from a material side of things, you know, woods come back down to more realistic price points. So we’re starting to see those kind of things drop considerably. But it comes back to labour. Manpower is the key to all of it.

Average home price in Halifax

Clinton Wilkins: [00:08:14:00] Oh, yeah, for sure. One last quick question for you, James, before we let you go. The last stat I heard was the average house price in Ottawa was almost $900,000. Any insight on what the average home sale price is now in Halifax?

James Dwyer: [00:08:28:11] Yeah, median sale price right now is at $507,000 and now that’s, the high point of this year was $580,000. So the decrease of 12 per cent. That was set in March. So over the last two months, we’ve dropped 12 per cent. Now, keep that in mind, although that value has come down when you look at it from a little bit of a bigger timeline and is still substantially up over the last 2 to 3 years.

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:50:16] James, great stuff. We’re just out of time. Thank you so much for your insight. We appreciate it.

James Dwyer: [00:08:55:04] Take care, guys.

Todd Veinotte: [00:08:55:21] James Dwyer, a local realtor here in Halifax. We’re going to talk about what’s next, Clinton?

Clinton Wilkins: [00:09:00:29] We are going to talk about refinancing to put you in a better position. And is that the right time to do it here this summer?

Todd Veinotte: [00:09:08:12] Okay. We’ll be back.

If you have any questions, get in touch with us at Clinton Wilkins Mortgage Team! You can call us at (902) 482-2770 or contact us here.