DandNHill

In ON realtors do leases too. So lease market as opposed to buy/sell.

dbd33

It's another word for rental.

bats

Ive seen quite a number of sold signs up locally and we are told that GTA people are moving out of the city. Maybe tgat will have the effect of lowering city prices and raising rural prices. Maybe. I know nothing.

MikeUK

Whilst you have a constant stream of migrants with money coming in the market will be propped up
and given the comparison with other high value markets, you have a lot of headroom for the prices to rise before it becomes a real issue
like many other places peoples dreams of moving up into bigger properties, its just that, a dream!
without a significant change in income the only way of increase the property size is to move to a lower priced area, and fuel the market...

in some countries many houses are multi generational and the mortgage isn't paid off in one life time, but gets passed down as part of the inheritance ...

Tumbling_Dice

The market in Halifax seems to be a bit nuts just now... people queueing up for viewings (at least pre lockdown) and gazumping eachother. I guess it is not helped by the insane increase in rental costs - it is now even more sensible to pay for a mortgage. taxes and maintenance than it is is to rent.

I have also noted the huge new estates being built. Seemingly there are cars on the drive as soon as a house is complete, or cars in the car park as soon as the condo building has gone up. Something doesn't stack up in terms of the amount of people that one would think are coming here and the population (even the net immigration) figures. And, to be clear, these people need to have money - most of these new unimaginative sheds are easily going for upwards of $500k! Will be interested to see how this pans out - it has the feel of when the market went nuts in Northern Ireland for about 5 years, and then came back down to earth with a resounding thud.

MikeUK

I used to live in Brampton in the GTA.. that was normal (back in 2004), the car was on the drive before the tarmac was down
there used to be field at the top of our road, now its houses to the regional boundary my estimate is ~32sq kms of houses added in ~16yrs

dbd33

I don't know if, when in the GTA, you ever had reason to go to such places as Dundalk or Grand Valley. Ten years ago they were one tractor towns. Now there are mile upon mile of $500,000 townhouses and $800,000 barely detached houses there and massive new developments in progress. The demographics are changed completely. I recall being weirdly ethnic in Grand Valley, now there are people from all over.

MikeUK

I certainly remember the boom that took place in Orangeville and then Shelburne, (both now look more like Brampton/Mississauga), but on the trips out to Owen sound and Tobermory, all I remember was tiny little rows of houses on the highway that somehow had been given names, I'd have said many were a bit less than one tractor towns
But I'm not surprised the GTA moved up highway 10 after the 410 was extended and highway 10 improved

we'd move up from Brampton into Caledon into the village of Cheltenham ~ 2007 and watched the next village over [Inglewood] have a great big GTA style housing estate built in it.. just as we left somebody had brought up a huge chuck of land in Cheltenham ~2014 and started to develop it, only to have the planning targets set high enough to stop construction, rumours of wealthy friends in high places

dbd33

I commuted from north of Shelburne to Church and Gerrard when highway 10 was three lanes from Shelburne to Orangeville, it's four now but infeasibly slow, presumably because all the people in those new houses work in Brampton/Mississauga/Toronto.

scrubbedexpat091

It's not just moving into bigger property, more and more places even getting into a 1 bedroom condo is beyond the reach of typical incomes, and then rent is high so people get locked into high rent cycle making saving for the down payment near impossible.

MikeUK

I understand, it drives the market up, the high property prices mean those with income and property to secure against can buy rentals, and guarantee them being filled and with a good return on their investment, and the lower section of the market is secured in to the rental market rather than with first time buyers..

its not fair, but then what is ??

The bulk of the population that votes is sensitive to the perceived value of their property and don't want a down turn, so successive governments do what they can to prop up markets or limit the effect of correction when they can.. they'll only react when they have a shortage of affordable accommodation, not when its about if you own or rent ... they leave that to the market ... and that like any market is controlled by who has the dollars to influence it ...

so your stuck with a short commute and high rent, or long commute and low rent/ own ??
or if you have lots of money desirable out of town property in scenic location and long commute, but offset by knowing your rentals are paying for your commute and new big house
a similar problem the world over with the big cities ...

scrubbedexpat091

Or in the case of BC, high rent no matter where you go really, only places with cheap rent tend to have no employment anymore, reason the rent is cheap...lol

Tumbling_Dice

I guess that at least has some reason behind it given that a large volume of people want to be in the GTA. What I don't get is how it is happening in Halifax and how Halifax has suddenly gone from a buyer's market in most areas to a sellers market. There aren't throngs of people arriving from Toronto or Vancouver, or even Alberta; nor are they arriving moneyed up from rural Nova Scotia. As far as I recall, the net immigration figures were about the 2,200 mark last year, so we are not, as some locals suggest, being invaded by the Chinese.

The only source of people I can see who may be buying are those who have had enough of rent going up. The same apartment I am in, with new workstops, cupboard doors and a silver fridge is $350 more per month than what I am paying. Of course, as Jsmith pointed out, how some of them get the deposit together is another matter.

I can't see how it is sustainable here.

Stumpylegs

This did take me somewhat by suprise, wanting to settle in BC I'd researched property prices - but had never really looked into rentals until COVID hit - as my initial thoughts had simply been to air bnb and then buy fairly soon after. I was a little taken aback compared to rental prices in Saskatoon, compared to say Kelowna/Kamloops -and when you got to smaller towns it was even worse.

scilly

Back about 10 years when the prices in Vancouver suddenly surged, people were accusing "immigrants" for causing the huge demand, especially those coming from Asia. That's when we suddenly became "paper millionaires" because our tiny 70 year old house increased incredibly in value of the land (house worth almost zero). I hasten to add that we are no longer "paper millionaires" as the land values have dropped dramatically in the last 4 years.

However, when a formal study was done of new home buyers ............ the "immigrants proved to be largely from "back east", ie Ontario, escaping from the winters.

I know Halifax fairly well, and I would question your comment that there are not throngs of people arriving from other areas of Canada. I don't see what you base that statement on. But I would postulate that many of these incomers are from other parts of Canada, or people who have saved for years, possibly managed to sell their starter home for more than they paid for it, and thus have a decent down payment.

Remember also that Maritimers are very close knit families, much closer than anything I've ever known in any other community, and people help out their families in all sorts of way.

As for cars appearing on the drive as soon as the house is ready ........... if Halifax is the same as here (and I think it probably is), most developments will have been at least 50% pre-sold before the ground was broken. Here, pre-sold can occur up to 5 years before the first housing is available for move-in. A couple could put down a very low down payment on a house to be ready in 4 years time, for example, and have ample time to gather together all the money they need, including money from family.

This is where developers here are having problems at the moment .......... they are not selling sufficient pre-sold units or houses to enable them to get the loans they need to do the actual development. One industry person said that many developers needed to pre-sell well over 50% before they could even begin to apply for the massive loan(s) they required to proceed. There are a number of apartment and office building developments that are currently on the back burner.

Depending on when you arrived in Haliofax ........... those houses would have been advertising and selling before you arrived.

I do know for a fact that architects were busier 3-6 years ago than they were at the end of 2019 (I'm ignoring 2020!!).