West Kelowna Real Estate News!
Welcome to the Shield Real Estate Blog. This is the place to visit when you want the latest West Kelowna real estate news. I share monthly tips on a variety of local real estate topics. Everything from what the market statistics mean to how to amp up your curb appeal! Anything I can share to help you prepare your home and yourself for a potential sale is here. Along with what buyers can expect when they want to purchase a West Kelowna home for sale.
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Canadian home sales edge down from December to January
CREA NewsOttawa, ON, February 15, 2017 – According to statistics released today by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), national home sales were down slightly in January 2017 on a month-over-month basis.
Highlights:
Home sales over Canadian MLS® Sys
tems edged down by 1.3% month-over-month in January 2017, putting them at the second lowest monthly level since the fall of 2015 and only slightly above levels recorded last November when recently tightened mortgage regulations came into effect.
Sales activity was down from the previous month in about half of all local markets, led by three of Canada’s largest urban centres: the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Greater Vancouver and Montreal.
Actual (not seasonally adjusted) sales activity was up 1.9% compared to the same month last year. While sales were up from year-ago levels in about two-thirds of all local housing markets including in the GTA, Calgary, Edmonton, London and St Thomas, and Montreal, they were down significantly in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.
“Canadian homebuyers face some challenges this year, including new mortgage rules that make it harder to qualify for a mortgage and regulatory changes that will push up mortgage financing costs,” said CREA President Cliff Iverson. “It will take some time to gauge the extent to which these challenges will weigh on home buyers in different housing markets across Canada. All real estate is local, and REALTORS® remain your best source for information about sales and listings where you live or might like to in the future.”
“The shortage of homes available for sale has become more severe in some cities, particularly in and around Toronto and in parts of BC,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s Chief Economist. “Unless sales activity drops dramatically, the outlook for home prices remains strong in places that face a continuing supply shortage.”
The number of newly listed homes dropped 6.7% in January 2017, the second consecutive monthly decline. New listings were down in about two-thirds of all local markets, led by the GTA and environs across Vancouver Island.
With the monthly decline in new listings surpassing the decline in sales, the national sales-to-new listings ratio jumped to 67.7% in January compared to 64.0% in December and 60.2% in November.
A sales-to-new listings ratio between 40 and 60 is generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions, with readings below and above this range indicating buyers’ and sellers’ markets respectively.
The ratio was above 60% in about half of all local housing markets in January, the vast majority of which are located in British Columbia, in and around the GTA and across southwestern Ontario. A monthly decline in newly listed homes further tightened housing markets that were already in sellers’ market territory.
The number of months of inventory is another important measure of the balance between housing supply and demand. It represents how long it would take to completely liquidate current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.
There were 4.6 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of January 2017 – unchanged from December 2016 and a six-year low for the measure.
The imbalance between limited housing supply and robust demand in Ontario’s Greater Golden Horseshoe region is without precedent (the region includes the GTA, Hamilton-Burlington, Oakville-Milton, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Brantford, the Niagara Region, Barrie and nearby cottage country). The number of months of inventory in January 2017 stood at or below one month in the GTA, Hamilton-Burlington, Oakville-Milton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Brantford and Guelph.
The MLS® Home Price Index (MLS® HPI) now includes Oakville-Milton and Guelph, and has been historically revised to ensure that all aggregate measures remain comparable.
Prices for two-storey single family homes posted the strongest year-over-year gains (+16.8%), followed closely by townhouse/row units (+15.8%), one-storey single family homes (+14.4%) and apartment units (+13.3%).
While benchmark home prices were up from year-ago levels in 10 of 13 housing markets tracked by the MLS® HPI, price trends continued to vary widely by location.
In the Fraser Valley and Greater Vancouver, prices have receded from their peaks posted in August 2016. That said, home prices in these regions nonetheless remain well above year-ago levels (+24.9% and +15.6% respectively).
Meanwhile, benchmark prices continue to climb in Victoria and elsewhere on Vancouver Island together with Greater Toronto, Oakville-Milton and Guelph. Year-over-year price gains in these five markets ranged from about 18% to 26% in January.
By comparison, home prices were down 2.9% y-o-y in Calgary and by 1.0% y-o-y in Saskatoon. Prices in these two markets now stand 5.9% and 4.3% below their respective peaks reached in 2015.
Home prices were up modestly from year-ago levels in Regina (+3.8%), Ottawa (+3.7%) and Greater Montreal (+3.1%). In Greater Moncton, home prices for the market overall held steady (-0.2%), reflecting an increase in townhouse row units prices (5.8%) that was offset by a decline in prices for one-storey single family homes (-1.0%).
The MLS® Home Price Index (MLS® HPI) provides the best way of gauging price trends because average price trends are prone to being strongly distorted by changes in the mix of sales activity from one month to the next.
The actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average price for homes sold in January 2017 was $470,253, almost unchanged (+0.2%) from where it stood one year earlier.
The national average price continues to be pulled upward by sales activity in Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto, which remain two of Canada’s tightest, most active and expensive housing markets.
That said, Greater Vancouver’s share of national sales activity has diminished considerably over the past year, giving it less upward influence on the national average price. The average price is reduced by almost $120,000 to $351,998 if Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto sales are excluded from calculations.
– 30 –
PLEASE NOTE: The information contained in this news release combines both major market and national sales information from MLS® Systems from the previous month.
CREA cautions that average price information can be useful in establishing trends over time, but does not indicate actual prices in centres comprised of widely divergent neighbourhoods or account for price differential between geographic areas. Statistical information contained in this report includes all housing types.
MLS® Systems are co-operative marketing systems used only by Canada’s real estate Boards to ensure maximum exposure of properties listed for sale.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) is one of Canada’s largest single-industry trade associations, representing more than 120,000 REALTORS® working through some 90 real estate Boards and Associations.
Further information can be found at http://crea.ca/statistics.
For more information, please contact:
Pierre Leduc, Media Relations
The Canadian Real Estate Association
Tel.: 613-237-7111 or 613-884-1460
E-mail: pleduc@crea.ca
Canadian home sales up from November to December
CREA NewsOttawa, ON, January 16, 2017 – According to statistics released today by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), national home sales were up on a month-over-month basis in December 2016.
Highlights:
Activity was up on a month-over-month basis in about 60% of all local markets, led by Calgary and Edmonton where sales rallied following large declines in November.
Actual (not seasonally adjusted) sales activity was down 5.0% in December from a year ago, when it reached the highest level ever for the month. The number of homes changing hands in 2016 was up by 6.3% annually, reflecting strong sales activity in the first half of the year that has softened since.
“Sales set a new annual record last year,” said CREA President Cliff Iverson. “However, tightened mortgage regulations are expected to contribute to lower sales activity this year, though the extent to which they will weigh on housing markets across Canada will vary. All real estate is local, and REALTORS® remain your best source for information about sales and listings where you live or might like to in the future.”
“Home sales are unlikely to benefit the Canadian economy as much in 2017 as they did in 2016,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s Chief Economist. “New regulations mean that in order to qualify for a mortgage, home buyers will either have to save longer for a bigger down payment or purchase a lower priced home. In urban centres where the latter are in short supply, that’s likely to translate into fewer sales.”
The number of newly listed homes fell 3.0% in December 2016 compared to November. New listings were down in about 60% of all local markets, with sizeable declines in B.C.’s Lower Mainland, Calgary and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
With sales up and new listings down, the national sales-to-new listings ratio rose to 63.5% in December compared to 60.3% in November.
A sales-to-new listings ratio between 40% and 60% is generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions, with readings below and above this range indicating buyers’ and sellers’ markets respectively.
The ratio was above 60% in more than half of all local housing markets in December, the vast majority of which are located in British Columbia, in and around the GTA and across Southwestern Ontario.
The number of months of inventory is another important measure of the balance between housing supply and demand. It represents how long it would take to completely liquidate current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.
There were 4.6 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of December 2016 – down from 4.8 months in November.
The tight balance between housing supply and demand in Ontario’s Greater Golden Horseshoe region is without precedent (the region includes the GTA, Hamilton-Burlington, Oakville-Milton, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Brantford, the Niagara Region, Barrie and nearby cottage country). The number of months of inventory in December ranged between one and two months in many of these housing markets, and stood below one month in the Durham Region, Orangeville, Oakville-Milton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Brantford and Cambridge.
Price gains remained strongest for two-storey single family homes and townhouse/row units (16.1% y-o-y and 15.4% y-o-y respectively), followed closely by one-storey single family homes (13.3% y-o-y) and apartment units (12.0% y-o-y).
While benchmark home prices were up from year-ago levels in 9 of 11 housing markets tracked by the MLS® HPI, trends continued to vary widely by location.
In the Fraser Valley and Greater Vancouver, prices continued to recede from their peaks reached in August 2016 but remained above year-ago levels (+27.0% y-o-y and +17.8% y-o-y respectively). Meanwhile, benchmark prices climbed to new heights in Victoria and elsewhere on Vancouver Island, and in the GTA.
By comparison, home prices were down 3.7% y-o-y in Calgary and edged lower by 1.6% y-o-y in Saskatoon, continuing their retreat from peaks reached in 2015.
Home prices were up modestly from year-ago levels in Regina (+5.2%), Ottawa (+4.0%), Greater Montreal (+3.3%) and Greater Moncton (+1.9%). Monthly trends suggest that prices have begun to stabilize in all of these markets except Greater Montreal, where values continue to rise modestly.
The MLS® Home Price Index (MLS® HPI) provides the best way of gauging price trends because average price trends are prone to being strongly distorted by changes in the mix of sales activity from one month to the next.
The actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average price for homes sold in December 2016 was $470,661, up 3.5% from where it stood one year earlier. This marks the smallest y-o-y increase in nearly two years.
The national average price continues to be pulled upward by sales activity in Greater Vancouver and the GTA, which remain two of Canada’s tightest, most active and expensive housing markets.
That said, Greater Vancouver’s share of national sales activity has diminished considerably over the last year, giving it less upward influence on the national average price. The average price is reduced by almost $120,000 to $352,513 if Greater Vancouver and GTA sales are excluded from calculations.
– 30 –
PLEASE NOTE: The information contained in this news release combines both major market and national sales information from MLS® Systems from the previous month.
CREA cautions that average price information can be useful in establishing trends over time, but does not indicate actual prices in centres comprised of widely divergent neighbourhoods or account for price differential between geographic areas. Statistical information contained in this report includes all housing types.
MLS® Systems are co-operative marketing systems used only by Canada’s real estate Boards to ensure maximum exposure of properties listed for sale.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) is one of Canada’s largest single-industry trade associations, representing more than 115,000 REALTORS® working through some 90 real estate Boards and Associations.
Further information can be found at http://crea.ca/statistics.
For more information, please contact:
Pierre Leduc, Media Relations
The Canadian Real Estate Association
Tel.: 613-237-7111 or 613-884-1460
E-mail: pleduc@crea.ca
Canadian home sales cool in November
CREA NewsOttawa, ON, December 15, 2016 – According to statistics released today by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), national home sales were down on a month-over-month basis in November 2016.
Highlights:
Activity was down on a month-over-month basis in about two-thirds of all local markets, including Canada’s most active markets.
“November was the first full month in which the expanded stress-test was in effect for home buyers with less than a twenty percent down payment,” said CREA President Cliff Iverson. “The government’s newly tightened mortgage regulations have dampened a wide swath of housing markets, including places not targeted directly by the government’s latest regulatory measures. The extent to which they pushed first-time home buyers to the sidelines varies among housing markets. All real estate is local, and REALTORS® remain your best source for information about sales and listings where you live or might like to in the future.”
“Canadian housing market results for November suggest that Canada’s housing sector is unlikely to be as strong a source for economic growth as compared to before mortgage regulations were recently tightened,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s Chief Economist. “Housing activity generates a lot of spin-off spending, which makes its weakened prospects an additional source of uncertainty as regards the outlooks for Canadian economic and job growth.”
Actual (not seasonally adjusted) sales activity held 1.6 percent above where it stood in November 2015 – the smallest year-over-year increase since October 2015. Y-o-y activity gains in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and environs were offset by declines in B.C.’s Lower Mainland.
The number of newly listed homes edged down 0.4 percent in November 2016 compared to October. New listings were up from the previous month in close to half of all local markets, led by the GTA but offset by declines in B.C.’s Lower Mainland.
The national sales-to-new listings ratio declined to 59.8 percent in November compared to 62.9 percent in October.
A sales-to-new listings ratio between 40 and 60 percent is generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions, with readings below and above this range indicating buyers’ and sellers’ markets respectively.
The ratio was above 60 percent in almost half of all local housing markets in November, the vast majority of which are located in British Columbia, in and around the Greater Toronto Area and across Southwestern Ontario. In Greater Vancouver, the ratio has moved out of sellers’ market territory and into the mid-50 percent range.
The number of months of inventory is another important measure of the balance between housing supply and demand. It represents the number of months it would take to completely liquidate current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.
There were 4.8 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of November 2016 – up from a six-year low of 4.5 months in October, and the highest level since March 2016.
The tight balance between housing supply and demand in Ontario’s Greater Golden Horseshoe region is without precedent (including the GTA, Hamilton-Burlington, Oakville-Milton, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Brantford, the Niagara Region, Barrie and nearby cottage country). In November, the number of months of inventory ranged between one and two months in many of these housing markets, and stood below one month in the Durham Region, Orangeville, Oakville-Milton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge.
Benchmark prices for two-storey single family homes and townhouse/row units posted the biggest y-o-y gains in November 2016 (16.3% and 16.0% respectively). Price increases were not far behind for one-storey single family homes (13.7%) and apartment units (11.5%).
While home prices rose on a y-o-y basis in 9 of the 11 markets tracked by the MLS® HPI, gains continued to vary widely.
The Fraser Valley (+29.7%) posted the largest y-o-y gain in November, while gains of around 20% were recorded in Greater Vancouver, Victoria and Greater Toronto (+20.5%, +20.6% & +20.3%, respectively). Vancouver Island also registered a double-digit increase in home prices (+16.8% y-o-y).
By contrast, home prices were down 4% y-o-y in Calgary, and edged lower by 1.2 percent y-o-y in Saskatoon. As a result, home prices are off their 2015 peaks in these markets by 5.5% and 3.9% respectively.
Meanwhile, home prices posted y-o-y gains in Regina (+5.4%), Ottawa (+3.4%), Greater Montreal (+3.1%) and Greater Moncton (+3.5%). (Table 1)
The MLS® Home Price Index (MLS® HPI) provides the best way of gauging price trends because average price trends are prone to being strongly distorted by changes in the mix of sales activity from one month to the next.
The actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average price for homes sold in November 2016 rose 7.3% y-o-y to $489,591.
The national average price continues to be pulled upward by sales activity in Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto, which remain two of Canada’s tightest, most active and expensive housing markets.
That said, Greater Vancouver’s share of national sales activity has diminished considerably of late, giving it less upward influence on the national average price. Even so, the average price is reduced by almost $130,000 to $361,260 if Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto sales are excluded from calculations.
– 30 –
PLEASE NOTE: The information contained in this news release combines both major market and national sales information from MLS® Systems from the previous month.
CREA cautions that average price information can be useful in establishing trends over time, but does not indicate actual prices in centres comprised of widely divergent neighbourhoods or account for price differential between geographic areas. Statistical information contained in this report includes all housing types.
MLS® Systems are co-operative marketing systems used only by Canada’s real estate Boards to ensure maximum exposure of properties listed for sale.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) is one of Canada’s largest single-industry trade associations, representing more than 115,000 REALTORS® working through some 90 real estate Boards and Associations.
Further information can be found at http://crea.ca/statistics.
For more information, please contact:
Pierre Leduc, Media Relations
The Canadian Real Estate Association
Tel.: 613-237-7111 or 613-884-1460
E-mail: pleduc@crea.ca