Regardless of whether your groundhog saw its shadow, spring may arrive early this year—at least when it comes to the housing market. What’s causing this already-busy buying season to kick off ahead of schedule? Low inventory and rising home prices are spurring house hunters to come out of hibernation months before they previously would have. With that in mind, whether you’re bu...Read More

During last year’s federal election, the stricter mortgage rules introduced by the Trudeau government were a hot debate topic when it came to the issue of affordable housing. The Progressive Conservatives under Andrew Scheer made headlines for their proposed modifications to the Liberal policy that, in 2018, introduced mortgage stress testing for uninsured mortgages, which require a minimum...Read More

A consensus is emerging among economists tracking the trajectory of Canadian interest rates for 2020: rates are heading down in the first half of the year. TD is the latest bank to add its voice to the growing chorus of experts who believe the Bank of Canada will move its mortgage-market influencing overnight rate down by 25 points this spring. Previously, TD said it anticipated that the central...Read More

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Toronto region new home sales returned to the land of the living in 2019 after declining to a 22-year low only a year earlier. There were 36,471 new homes sold across the GTA in 2019, a 47 percent increase over 2018’s total, which was the region’s lowest result since 1996. The full-year sales figure, along with a wealth of other market data, was released today by the Building Industr...Read More

The Bank of Canada announced this week that it would leave its mortgage market-influencing key interest rate unchanged again. This development — or lack thereof — did not come as a surprise to economists who pay close attention to the central bank’s moves. It was, after all, the fifteenth straight month that the interest rate did not change. What did catch experts off-guard was ...Read More

According to the Royal LePage House Price Survey released today, the aggregate price (based on a weighted model using median prices and includes all housing types) of a home in Canada increased 2.2 per cent year-over-year to $648,544 in the fourth quarter of 2019. Similar to the third quarter, potential buyers are continuing to come back to the real estate market. In the first half of 2019, b...Read More

Are you a little restless when icy conditions keep you indoors? If you're thinking about selling your home, ready it for the spring market by completing these tasks now:   Declutter/tidy. Begin packing up tchotchke and personal items. Buyers want to see themselves in the space and imagine their belongings in the rooms. By streamlining the number of photos or artwork on walls, you'...Read More

It was a busy December in housing markets across the country, suggesting that when compared to last year, not as many house hunters stayed home for the holidays. They bought them instead. While the nearly 23 percent increase in total Canadian home sales as reported by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) for the month made for an attention-grabbing figure, it was Toronto’s tight hous...Read More

If you have any questions about the above, please reach out to me by e-mail or give me a shout at 416-804-5258.    ...Read More