The journey from home seeker to home buyer can be challenging – unless you have a well-defined plan and guidance from the right professionals. You can use the time now, to build a plan to buy your dream home. The next step is to keep informed of what is going on in the real estate market.
Whether we battle unknowns in the economy through the Coronovirus, increased unemployment, or the looming possibility of a recession, one thing that Canadians have always had in their corner is rising real estate prices. But will this pot of gold stay shiny this time around?
At the end of March 2020, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver strongly recommended its 14,000 realtors not to hold open houses based on comments from government authorities. Some Realtors were encouraging buyers and sellers to hold off on the market if there isn’t a necessity, but the reality is that some people are still in a position where they need to find a home.
Needless to say, we are currently living through history. The immediate future for Canada’s housing market is uncertain. Real estate and residential development leaders across the country are trying to find solutions for their sales and marketing teams.
The Chief Economist with the BC Real Estate Association released his own predictions a couple of weeks ago and he isn’t too surprised by what’s in the RBC forecast. ‘We’re expecting at least a one-or two-month real estate stoppage of activity, and for the housing market that means not a lot of face-to-face interactions and probably not a lot of sales the next few months.’
According to RBC, property prices are expected to fall briefly in the second half of this year by about 3%.
Affordability in the Vancouver area still remains a problem. While the pre-tax median household income to housing costs ratio has fallen about 6 percentage points in the region in the past year, it’s still the highest in Canada at 80.4%. The BC Real Estate Association Chief Economist doesn’t expect a lot of change in housing prices in the Vancouver area, because supply and demand have fallen off. All the demand is really still there and we just need to get past this current unusual situation, he said.
The best-case scenario is we see an improvement in activity in the Fall. The industry observers expect the market to rebound strongly once the virus is beaten back with so much as an estimating home resales of more than 40% in 2021.
We believe that your best mortgage advice comes from a Mortgage Broker and we will keep you informed of the latest developments in the industry. If you need to have a look at your mortgage options, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Original Articles: www.bc.ctvnews.ca and www.business.financialpost.com
