Mortgage 101 – Real Estate Growth in Halifax

Atlantic Canada, and Halifax are all working together to keep up with the demand for the growing housing industry! Clinton and Todd dive into the real estate market trends, mortgage lending trends and the observed changes in Nova Scotia, this episode. The two chat about some great locations for buying, and the importance of having a solid pre-approval before house hunting.

Todd Veinotte
Alright, welcome back to Mortgage 101, your guide to homeownership with Clinton Wilkins and myself, Todd Veinotte. Is there any more prolific songwriter? In just about any genre? There probably is. But, she’s amongst those most prolific songwriters, Dolly Parton that is, out there. Amazing.

Clinton Wilkins
Honestly, best in class!

Todd Veinotte
Yeah, amazing body of work when you look at what she does, and the depth of songs, the type of songs. And she’s still working, and looking great at her age! Unbelievable!

Clinton Wilkins
And you know what? She’s working with Beyonce, obviously. I think, is she the godmother of Miley Cyrus? There’s some connection there too. Yeah.

Todd Veinotte
Interesting. Okay, in the last little bit that we have, I want to talk about the spring market, I think we’d be remiss to not talk with the spring market.

Clinton Wilkins
That’s what our people are here for!

Todd Veinotte
So what about inventory? What are your realtors telling you? What are you hearing?

Clinton Wilkins
The realtors are telling me that there certainly is more inventory. And you know what? We had a couple of people snap back at us on TikTok and Instagram recently with us talking about inventory in the real estate market. They’re like, “that’s what every realtor says,” well, first off, we’re not realtors! But I can tell you that there are certainly more units of inventory on the market, and a unit is someone’s home. I know we talk about these as deals and mortgages and transactions, but it’s a home. There are more homes on the market, which is good for homebuyers first time or otherwise. And they are sitting on the market for more days on average. Okay. So this is important to know. Specifically, if you’re entering the real estate market, I think there’s going to be more negotiating going on, I think there’s going to be more conditions, I think there’s going to be more days for due diligence; which is really good news for home buyers! Yeah, honestly, seek the advice of a licensed real estate professional. You know, your dad, your mom, your uncle, whoever, you know, they might not have done a transaction for 20 years, a lot changes. Seek the advice of a realtor. They know what’s going on. They’re doing this every single day. And it’s exciting for us, we have so so many people pre approved. I think we’ve done more pre approvals in the last four months than we have done in the last 12, probably. People are getting motivated again, because you know the rates are starting to soften. Maybe not so much fixed rates and variable just yet, there has been even a little uptick in the fixed rates, that bond market, it’s a pesky little bugger isn’t it? But, you know, I think going into Spring things are going to be stable. And we’re really in prime time. Between now and the end of June, middle of June, I think it’s going to be gangbusters. And I can tell you I was away last week, it was nice to have a little bit of reprieve. The week before I saw just so so many people. And I just had to come up for a little bit of air. I love it because I love helping people and trust me if I can get them in, I’m gonna get them in. But it was nice having a break and I’m so refreshed. I just saw, you know, this week so far. I’ve seen someone on every half hour and I just love it. There’s nothing that motivates me more than helping people. And let me tell you between purchases, renewals, refinances and getting some people pre approved. It is gangbusters out there. And people are like, Oh, these rates are going to be prohibitive from people getting approved. Yes, it’s tough. It’s tough. And you know, I might have said some discouraging words here to some people and maybe some first time homebuyers. They won’t like us very much. But I think we’re realist, and I think that’s why people listen to our show. This is real talk.

Todd Veinotte
Yeah. What parts of the of HRM do you think are the most attractive right now for first time homebuyers?

Clinton Wilkins
Honestly, I think I love Sackville for first time homebuyers. Yeah, I love Cole Harbour, I love anywhere that is just outside of the core. I think there’s more opportunity. And I think there’s more homes for sale in that price point.

Todd Veinotte
What about Tantallon?

Clinton Wilkins
I love Tantallon! Spryfield, let’s talk about it. You know? I can tell yo u when I started this 19 years ago, yeah, wasn’t that popular to be buying a new home and sprains, brightfield there was some construction going on but it wasn’t too popular to be living around there right now. It’s a place to be Yeah, honestly. You know Armdale. There’s so many places where there’s just so much construction! Which is exciting for this 30 year am, so new construction, first time homebuyer, under a million dollars. There’s a lot of reasons why things are getting a lot more exciting in terms of real estate. You know, we’re first time homebuyers are buying, resale, homeowners are selling and maybe buying more expensive houses or less expensive houses. There are going to be more transactions out there. More transactions, more activity, is going to be good for the market. And at the end of the day, we need more units coming on hand. By units, I mean homes. And you know, I think the builders are really here for it. I do have a concern, though, I’m concerned that, you know, we don’t have enough skilled trades. I’m concerned about, you know, liquidity for builders, I’m concerned about supply chain issues. So it’s going to be really interesting the programs that the federal government is going to bring out, I’m going to be really here for it. We’re gonna be reporting it here on our show. You know, we’re going to talk about some of these hard issues. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns, when we talk about real estate and mortgage lending, there are some downsides. There are some things that are not that exciting, or that motivating or could be scary for people. But I think that we need to talk about it. There’s a lot of taboo things that we talk about every day.

Todd Veinotte
Yeah. What’s your take on densification? Because there’s a lot of discussion about it.

Clinton Wilkins
We need it! Urban sprawl is not good. But a lot of this construction is going to be in more sprawl areas. That’s just reality. There is no land to build townhomes on the peninsula, that just doesn’t exist. We need more density here, we need transportation. And I’ll say this, again, all of Robie Street needs to be towers. All of Wyse Road, where our Dartmouth office is, needs to be towers, and it will be in the next 20 plus years. It’s going to be a long time for us to right our supply issues in terms of homes here in Halifax. We’re behind. And we all need to work together, we need to do what we can. There’s so many little old men and little old ladies that are sitting on homes that’ll be great for first time homebuyers that don’t have a place to go and rent. That’s the challenge. We need all types of real estate. And you know, it’s going to be a bit of a vacuum for the next few years. A lot of the inventory that’s going to come on is going to be sucked up. But we’re going to get there. The one thing about Halifax, Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada, we are resilient, and we will make it happen, and we will work together. And you know, there’s nowhere that I would rather work and be a part of the conversation, Todd, here on our show. Or being part of this real estate industry. I’m glad that I’m able to be involved. And to be able to help as many people as we help every month and year, you know, really achieve those goals.

Todd Veinotte
Are we still seeing a lot of multiple offers out there? So is that happening? Bidding wars?

Clinton Wilkins
I am going to say not as many. They’re happening, but not like to the tune of what was happening in 2021 and into 2022. I do want to report and mention that there was a report that BC home prices were down 10%. We’re not seeing that here. You know, I think some of the stuff that’s reported on the news is not Halifax centric. Has there been some softening? I think the longer real estate sits, it’s more negotiable. People listed it so they probably want to sell it. So you know, I think we’re gonna be watching. And I think we’re gonna see a lot more activity. I think that very first time the rate drops. And we haven’t talked about the Bank of Canada at all this show, because we’re gonna have a lot to talk about here in June, I suspect. You know, the first time that we see a rate drop, I think we’re gonna just see a ton of people just dive into the real estate market. And I think there’s no time to enter, like there was yesterday.

Todd Veinotte
Like always, have a pre approval when you’re going out hunting for a house. I mean, you talked about a solid pre approval, what is a solid pre approval?

Clinton Wilkins
You know, it’s a credit review, income review, assets review, that’s certainly what we do in our office. And, you know, there’s certainly pre qualifications out there where you can get a pre approval in five minutes or less, that’s probably not going to be solid. And we it every day. I got two clients today that were previously working with another lender. And I guess that pre approval just didn’t work out. We’re going to turn it around or do our best. So if you’re listening, we’ll make it happen.

Todd Veinotte
People that want to know more about what you’re all about to give them all the deets!

Clinton Wilkins
I think check us out online at Teamclinton.ca/radio. We have hundreds of blog posts. We have an online application, a secured portal on there. I think we might have been one of the only mortgage lenders that has a secure portal for an online application on their website. We have a mortgage calculator and all the links to our social media. So you can see what Todd and I look like in real life, pretty handsome. We don’t look too shabby most days, hopefully. And there’s links to our TikTok our Instagram, Facebook and anywhere where you want to consume our social media, we’re probably there.

Todd Veinotte
Alright, great! Clinton always a treat my friend thank you so much!

Clinton Wilkins
Thanks for having me Todd!

Todd Veinotte
All right that is Clinton Wilkins, I am Todd Veinotte. This is Mortgage 101 your guide to homeownership thanks so much for tuning in and listening.