Mortgage 101 – Pride, Politics, and Property

Todd Veinotte and Clinton Wilkins discussed the impact of political uncertainties, such as trade wars and interest rates, on the housing market.

Todd Veinotte
Welcome back to Mortgage 101, your guide to home ownership with our mortgage guru, Clinton Wilkin, and myself Todd Veinotte.

Clinton Wilkins
I had fun answering those questions from the street. I could have kept going. I felt like it was like the old days when we were live on the air and taking questions from consumers, and it was so nice to be able to talk about pride and home ownership. Anyways, as we know, Pride is right around the corner here next week.

Todd Veinotte
And thanks, thanks, of course, again, to the production staff that went out and did the work, and of course, to the people who asked questions.

Clinton Wilkins
Thoughtful and good questions, but it does, I think, ring true to me. Todd, there’s a wide range of knowledge and understanding out there in the world around mortgage lending and personal finance.

Todd Veinotte
Of course, moving the needle is part of what we do right. Move the conversation. Move the needle.

Clinton Wilkins
And I think we have, we’re going to continue doing it. So you know, hopefully we’ll see you down on the waterfront in August, and we’ll get some more questions.

Todd Veinotte
Sometimes we’ll do a show live from the waterfront. What do you think? I mean, that would be cool.

Clinton Wilkins
And then we can bring some consumers right in to see us, right, uh, right out of a little booth. We could do live on location down at George Street 5151.

Impact of Politics and Trade Wars on Housing Market

Todd Veinotte
So let’s talk a little bit about politics and what’s going on with this trade war and uncertainty, and Donald Trump. Look, it’s not good for the markets. It’s not good for anybody. Well, the markets have done pretty well, but this plays into the housing market, would it not?

Clinton Wilkins
I think for certain, I think any uncertainty is not necessarily great overall, but some people will benefit from it. Do you know what I mean? I think that there’s a lot of demand in the market right now, and I think there’s pent-up demand over the last two years because the rates have been high now, the rates are going down, but I plateaued. But you can’t have low rates and a high market, right? High rates, high market, low rates, low market. They don’t always correlate. And the challenge is that right now, what’s going on in the market and what’s going on with the rates are misaligned, so things are going to settle out here at some point. And you know, we need to look at what’s going on with our portfolio and what’s going on with interest rates. And typically, high market, high rates, low market, low rates. So you can’t have everything all at once. And I know we want it all, I do. I would love to see rates start with a three. I think that would, you know, psychologically be very motivating to a consumer. I know people are just so focused on the rate that it’s optics more than it is the finance, that being said. We’re being squeezed everywhere. Todd, we’re being squeezed at the grocery store. We’re being squeezed at the pumps. Everything is more expensive than it was five years ago, not just interest rates, everything.

Todd Veinotte
Claudia, the tender, leader of the NDP and official opposition leader this week was blaming the government, because the report was out, which says that when you combine housing and a few other metrics, we are as if we are as costly as Toronto for the first time.

Clinton Wilkins
I am not shocked by that. I do think overall, it’s less here. But the one thing, our incomes are not exactly as high over exactly. I think, overall, things cost less here, but we also make less. And, you know, I think living in Halifax is more of a luxury city, where before it was more of a budget city. So we definitely have kind of changed that perspective over the last couple of years. And Halifax really has done a glow up, if you think about it, look about look at these cranes in the sky. We have luxury hotels. This wasn’t the Halifax that I knew 20 years ago. It’s different. And I even have friends who come home, like right now, in the summer. It’s a great time for friends and family to be visiting, and they don’t recognize the city anymore. And I think that has its pros and also has its cons, because it is more expensive here than it once was.

Demographic Shifts in Home Ownership

Todd Veinotte
Yeah, for sure, younger buyers. Are you seeing a lot of younger buyers, a lot of young people coming in, and if so, how are they getting their how are they making their down payment?

Clinton Wilkins
The young buyers that I see are coming in with big gifts, family gifts. We’re talking big gifts to the tune of like $100,000 already. When I first started, people were getting family gifts of like 20,000; now it’s not unusual to see $100,000 gifts. Not saying it’s everywhere. Every day we see this, but it’s not unusual, and a more and more and more first-time home buyers are putting down 20% because they need to qualify. And I almost feel like they’ve waited, and they could have bought a home at a lower price, if they just would have done a high-ratio insured mortgage and put down that 5% when they could have. If I look at the math on what a customer paid five years ago, putting down 5% and what a customer would pay today, putting down 20% it was cheaper for them to buy five years ago and get that high ratio insurance.

Todd Veinotte
And the demographics, of course, of home ownership have changed. As you mentioned, you get a lot of seniors who are new clients, yes, people my age, who are new clients for the first time buying their first home, right? So, so why is that? Why do you think that’s changed?

Clinton Wilkins
I think the culture shifted, Todd. I think at one time, a young person could buy their first home as a single buy their first home. I bought my first house, house when I was 19. But again, that was a long time ago, Todd and I was a unicorn, and that’s just not available to 19-year-olds anymore without a lot of cash, credit and income behind them. But back then, you could buy a home for $169,000; there’s nothing you can buy in that price point anymore, and the incomes just haven’t kept pace as quickly. And I think why we’re seeing seniors and adults who are getting closer to retirement buy homes. They’re looking for security. The rental markets changed a lot too and I think that people want to put down roots, whether we’re talking about pride and home ownership or whether we’re talking about a retiree. They want to build roots in their community. And typically, people who own homes are more invested, and they’re more invested in what is going on in their community, their streets. They get involved. And you know, I think it’s really important to have that sense of community, no matter where you live.

Immigration and Skilled Trades

Todd Veinotte
Well financing with heat pumps to solar panels. Have you seen much of that?

Clinton Wilkins
We’re not seeing as many Purchase Plus Improvements as we once did. I think one is like the access to contractors. It’s tough just to get a quote and get people to do work. There’s a fellow that’s working that works for us, and he’s getting a new deck, but he’s been trying to get quotes from contractors, and it’s tough just to get a contractor out to do a quote. And a lot of the contractors that he’s talked to are just full up with work for the season. If he wants work done, it’ll be in 2026, which I think can be frustrating, like if you need your deck done. Now, hopefully, we can find a contractor. So you know, if there are some contractors out there and they want to give a quote, they can certainly write me and I’ll pass along your information. But I think it’s tough getting contractors, and I think, again, there’s more demand than their supply or the resources, and it’s a people problem. And I think, when we’re talking about the province and the leader of the NDP talking about affordability, I think that we need to reverse engineer this. We need to be working with the community or continuing education, and work with NSCC to get more people into the trades. Let’s start at the grassroots. Let’s build more homes. Let’s get more labour out there, and that’s going to lower the cost overall of building some of these homes and getting more people in the homes. We need to start with NSCC. Where is the first step? I think international trade barriers and bringing them down is something. Bring in skilled trades. Skilled Trades. We still need immigration. Let’s be honest. Let’s bring in doctors. Let’s bring in plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and nurses. Let’s bring in people for health care and for people to build homes. That’s really what we need. I think in the past, some of our immigration policies have been flawed, like we got the golden ticket type ones. I know some of the provinces have given you $250,000 in liquid, and if you start a business, you can get in. I don’t think that was the right call. We need the medical angle, and we need the housing angle.

Todd Veinotte
And, of course, like you said, with these trade barriers, people can come in with a red-sealed carpentry designation or an electrician ticket designation and be ready to go, hit the ground running.

Clinton Wilkins
I think there would be some argument to say the rules and the regulations in different countries are gonna, are gonna be different. Let’s spin up a recertification, then again, through NSCC, that we can get these people through a fast-track program to say you’re a Red Seal carpenter in another province. You come here, we do a 330-day intensive course and exam, whatever, and you’re ready, and you have a job coming out.

Todd Veinotte
Well, I think we had a ton of great things today on the show. I think it was a fantastic Pride show.

Pride in Homeownership

Clinton Wilkins
I love it. It was a great job done by everyone. Again, our production staff went out and hit the streets and asked people questions. It’s not easy. No, it’s not. We answer questions all the time on the radio and broadcast, and whatever. But I think going out and on the streets, I think is important. And again, talking about pride, I think it is important. We’re going to be in the parade. You can keep an eye out for our new defender, we just picked it up and got a wrap. So our team is going to be out in the parade.

Todd Veinotte
How do people get hold of you?

Clinton Wilkins
They can check us out online@teamclinton.ca radio. We have hundreds of blog posts on there. We have a secure online application linked to all our social media. And you can see what Todd and I look like on TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook, wherever you want to consume your social media. And you can also hear our podcast on. Anywhere you’d get your podcast, on Spotify, Apple Music, and CityNews.

Todd Veinotte
Thank you. Mortgage 101: your guide to home ownership. Thanks for listening.