8 elm condos.The Canadian housing market has had a bumper harvest under the epidemic. “it’s so magical, it feels like I’m refreshing my cognition every day,” said Arthur, a real estate agent in Toronto, describing local housing transactions this year.Please Visit: 8 elm condos to Get Your VVIP Registration Today!
In mature markets like Canada, real estate transactions are generally highly seasonal. Home sales were generally low at the beginning of the year because of the cold weather. After that, as the weather became warmer, the market became more active, slowed down again after the autumn “Golden Nine and Silver Ten”, and then began the next cycle.
But this year, the epidemic has changed everything. From the sudden cooling after the announcement of the blockade to the rebound against the market under the shadow, the roller coaster trend of the Canadian real estate market has not only amazed the market, but also quietly changed people’s housing concepts and investment choices.
Robert Kavich, senior economist at the Bank of Montreal of Canada, said 2020 “will be a bumper year for the Canadian housing market”.
On March 11 this year, the World Health Organization officially identified COVID-19 as an international global pandemic. In the weeks that followed, Canadian provinces declared a state of emergency. On March 21, the Ontario Real Estate Association suspended all open house activities.
Jeannie, a real estate agent in Toronto, said: “in January and February this year, the market has been ‘not light in the off-season’. Even second-hand apartments and uncompleted flats are still in demand, and local buyers are generally active.” But after the declaration of the state of emergency, many people were worried, it was inconvenient to see the house, and I didn’t want to take the risk. The market has been depressed for some time.
Ms. Li, a real estate agent in Waterloo, also has vivid memories of the situation at that time. “No one went out to look at the house,” she said. “I stayed at home for two weeks, which I had never seen before.”
After a brief “little spring” at the beginning of the month, property sales in Canada fell sharply in the second half of March, with sales overall down 15 per cent from February, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).
Jason Stephen, president of CREA, said: “March 2020 will be remembered around the world for a long time. Home sales and listings in Canada were on the rise, and it was expected to be a busy spring, but after Friday, March 13, everything went off track.
That’s not the worst news. National home sales in Canada fell by more than 56% in April from the previous month, the worst since 1984.
Sean Kaskart, senior economist at CREA, said: “like many other aspects of daily life, a lot of buying and selling activity in the real estate market across Canada has been suspended.” .
But the pause was quickly revived with a retaliatory rebound. With warmer weather and a slowdown in the epidemic, national house sales rose 57% in May from a month earlier, while actual home sales in June turned from negative to positive year-on-year, an increase of 15.2%. Since July, real estate transactions have been on the rise, and CREA has had to use words like “record” and “record again” to describe the unusually busy market. Until “the busiest October on record”, the volume of home transactions showed signs of stabilizing slightly after four consecutive months of rise. The actual (not seasonally adjusted) housing transaction volume for the month exceeded 14000, an increase of 32.1% over the same period last year, but fell slightly by 0.7% from the previous month.
It is worth noting that despite the sharp ups and downs in home sales, average house prices across the country have not plummeted so far as a result of the epidemic. Even in the cold March-April, the average transaction price is still strong. The MLS (Canadian Housing system) home price index, adjusted for market size and housing type, showed that it rose 10.9 per cent in October from a year earlier, the fastest pace since July 2017.
Ms. Li said that Waterloo is not like a big city like Toronto, but because local universities and technology companies did not stop hiring during the epidemic, the local housing market is still in strong demand and prices are strong. Since June, she has felt a marked rise in the transaction price of the house. Even if the asking price of some houses is lower, it is only the “bait” to attract housekeepers, and the final transaction price is generally the same as that of similar households around, or even exceeds the average price.