Mortgage 101 – Nova Scotia’s Most Inclusive Neighbourhoods

Clinton Wilkins and Dan Ahlstrand welcome on Blair Patterson to highlight the importance of community and security for the LGBTQ+ community.

Dan Ahlstrand
And welcome back to Mortgage 101. I’m Dan Ahlstrand. He is Clinton Wilkins, and we have a special guest in the studio today. We’re focusing on July being Pride Month, of course, and Pride in home ownership, and that’s kind of our focus today.

Clinton Wilkins
Pride in Halifax happens in July for sure. I think the official Pride Month, maybe across the world, is June. So there was some Pride stuff going on in June, but the actual festival here in Halifax happens in July, and we were saying we have our windows done in Dartmouth and Halifax, so we’d love people to come by and have a look. And we had a local artist do them, and they’re really very beautiful. So they’ll all be wrapped up and all done here before the end of the week, before the festival starts. And we talked on the last segment. We had Blair Patterson here from my Halifax office as our special guest, and we were,e you know, now talking about pride and home ownership- what does it look like to take the title and some legalities that can impact the queer community? But I want to hear some tea that Blair has to share with us. Tell us, Blair, you’re dealing with a lot of queer clients. Tell me where they are buying? What’s the hot spot?

Blair Patterson
The valleys become super popular. It’s become super gay. Lots of wineries. There are spas there, and it’s like 40 minutes to Halifax, so people are really interested in that. Truro’s become super popular, and just again, affordability is much better now post-pandemic. And Halifax and Dartmouth are still popular.

Dan Ahlstrand
What about in HRM or in the in the the urban more urban areas- do we have a scene that’s emerging as they have in other cities, like the village in Toronto or something like that?

Clinton Wilkins
What’s the gay neighbourhood?

Blair Patterson
Oh gosh, I think everyone loves the North End. I’m a resident.

Clinton Wilkins
We are telling all our listeners, hopefully not to come and stalk you, but you’re living in the North End, and I mean, I think traditionally that was the neighbourhood.

Blair Patterson
Yeah, lots of bars there, queer-friendly bars, and again, like shops and all that kind of stuff. People love it.

Clinton Wilkins
That’s awesome. For me, I think what’s so important. I kind of touched on it a little bit in the last segment. Home ownership and having the security of a home is so important. We know lots of wild stories have come out around people who are renting and renovictions. You don’t have control over your domain, and that’s where I think home ownership is so important, especially for ueer people. We put down roots in the community and get involved and join organizations, and be able to give back and build the community up; I think that’s really, really so important. At least from what I see from my perspective.

Dan Ahlstrand
And neighbourhoods are important, right? When you’re living with like-minded people, no matter if it’s being gay or if it’s a more ethnic kind of thing, that creates a neighbourhood and that creates a happy place to live.

Blair Patterson
Yeah, exactly. I’m a veteran as well, and Eastern Passage huge community of veterans out there in Eastern Passage.

Clinton Wilkins
Traditionally, this would have aired on the radio, and I said we’re not talking about the radio anymore. Right, but it would have aired Saturday and Sunday at 11 a.m. So, I think we’re going to try to get this out ASAP. Like, we’re going to try to get this rolling out by this weekend, and we’ll put the show out in four different parts. So when you’re listening to us, we’re going to try to get a lot of this out in the first couple of weeks here, or before the end of July. We’re going to get the most of the content out rolling into August.

Dan Ahlstrand
We know that July is Pride. What about home sales? We know that it’s the dog. This is it’s been steamy. It’s been hot. It’s been humid. Yes. Does that deter people from going out and hunting for that house, and kind of wait till things cool down a little bit?

Clinton Wilkins
I’ll comment, and I want to hear what Blair has to say. I think the spring was muted. Someone wrote a comment on one of my videos. I don’t know if it was on TikTok. I said it’s really delayed. Typically, from the middle of March to the end of March, that’s when we start seeing a lot of uptick in house sales and listings. I think there were a lot of listings. We had Megan from the agency on our show here recently, and she said that there is, I think, nine months of inventory of houses that are listed above $1 million. So that price point certainly has slowed down. I think there’s still a lot of activity in that 600,000 and less price point, but it’s certainly becoming more of a buyer’s market. And Blair, I don’t know. Do you have any comments on that from your perspective? Because you’re dealing with a lot of first-time homebuyers.

Blair Patterson
Yeah, definitely a delayed start with the spring market. I do a lot of open houses with realtors, and even in the 337-degree heat, it’s been a pretty busy summer. Time just brings out the buyers, and I feel like there’s momentum now that the weather’s getting nicer.

Clinton Wilkins
I typically find that July and August are slower for us. We actually found that our June was not as busy as it traditionally was. Typically, June 30 is our biggest. If it’s a business day, it’s our biggest funding day of the year. It wasn’t this year, but I can tell you we have a rockin’ pipeline for July and August, so I think it just delayed a month or two, and I think that we’re going to see a lot more activity going into the fall. That’s my perspective, anyway. I don’t know. We’ll see what the results, what what the results say once NSAR and some of these brokerages start putting out their results. It’ll be interesting to see what actually happens with these sales. There are certainly a lot of homes for sale.

Dan Ahlstrand
Prime Minister Carney was in town earlier this week and made a big announcement about a submarine deal, although to be determined yet if it’s actually going to if the contract gets signed. But besides the point, speaking with some experts, the mayor and the premier all saying that this is going to be a massive boon for HRM and Nova Scotia, and some people telling me that there could be 15,000 jobs that are created as a result of this submarine deal, and those 15,000 people are going to need a place to live. Clinton, do we have the stock to support that?

Clinton Wilkins
I would say it’s going to be very tough. There are certainly a lot of cranes in the sky here, so I think there are going to be more rental units. I think when it comes to purchasing a home, I think it’s going to put more demand on the marketplace. We can handle a little bit more demand today than we could maybe a year or two ago, so that’s positive. So I think we’re going to see more buyers, and I think these are jobs. I think it will come to fruition, but when it comes to fruition, it’s going to bring a lot of good-paying jobs to this region, which is awesome. We need more industry, we need more of these jobs, and we need more people who can bring more revenue and spend money here in our community. We weed that, so I think that’s really, really good. I remember here in the early 2000s, like maybe it was early 2010s when the shipbuilding was just starting to be announced, and let me tell you, we saw a huge, huge, huge, huge spike in people buying homes, specifically on the peninsula, because they were buying them even speculatively. And then things go back to normal, and I think the economy was kind of not as great maybe after that piece. So I think then maybe things dipped a little bit, but the people bought that bought those homes then, that then hold on, held on to these homes into 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. They did very, very well. We kind of joked to say people who bought their home in 2020 or before doubled their home value from 2019, maybe to now, in the last five years or six years. I think those people, the 2010 people, probably tripled their value. I know maybe triple extreme, but they more than doubled their value for sure.

Dan Ahlstrand
With that being busy, Blair, like that, you deal with first-time homebuyers, people in the gay community, and you mentioned that they’re looking at affordability-wise outside of the peninsula. Do you think, with a crush of people coming into the urban areas of Halifax and Dartmouth, do you think that that we’re going to see those first-time home buyers and and those and others who are going to look away to find a place to live?

Blair Patterson
Yeah, for sure. I think whatever you can do to get in the market, even if it means commuting for a couple of years, is worth doing. You mentioned living in a very changing world. A lot of these clients are going to use AI, using ChatGPT, they’re getting their advice from there, and then find out it’s not true. So the advice of a broker now is more valuable than ever, especially when you’re looking to enter the housing market.

Dan Ahlstrand
For a lot of problems with people who are doing their research and coming to you with an AI-generated response.

Blair Patterson
For sure, people are going there as their first stop, I think, rather than Google, and then they might get the wrong information. And when they come to see your broker, I almost.

Clinton Wilkins
Find like, and I’ll just throw this out there: any information from the U.S. and Canada when it comes to mortgage lending is completely different. And I think sometimes when people are doing these searches, or they’re doing these queries, maybe the parameters are just not that good yet to get precise information. I can tell you we come up on on ChatGPT quite a lot, so I think our content is good, but maybe all the sources that they’re actually getting the information from aren’t 100% and it just so needs to be Canadian, and and I would say even more than just Canadian, it needs to be advice that’s here locally in our region, because a mortgage here in Atlantic may have different lenders, different rates, maybe different policies than maybe someone getting a mortgage in Toronto. It’s it, although it is likely going to be similar, it won’t be the same.

Dan Ahlstrand
So the sage advice here is that, yeah, sure, go ahead. Your research, but before you make a big decision, talk to somebody on the ground, right? Because they have the local tech, the local knowledge.

Clinton Wilkins
The local knowledge. I think, regardless, even further than just mortgage lending, I think if you are going to use a realtor, which I recommend everyone use, you should use a realtor that lives and works in the community that you want to be doing business in. Are you using a realtor who lives in downtown Halifax, and you want to buy a property in Truro? Well, they’re not going to have that. market information, investment knowledge. They can still transact, but are they going to be as skilled as someone who’s living and working in Truro? If that’s where you want to buy, I always recommend dealing with someone who lives and works in that community. I think you’ll always get the best advice.

Dan Ahlstrand
Time for us to take another break here on Mortgage 101. Stick around. We’re back in minutes.