Photo: Contributed
There is nothing in the statistics in the Okanagan Shuswap real estate market that shows us it will be be anything but flat … yet.
However, you can smell the recovery in the rest of the country, which will help our consumer confidence. Two years ago you could not find a single piece of positive news about the real estate markets in most of the major cities in Canada. Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver were all in a tailspin. Banks were clamping down on lending. The stress test made it tougher still to get a mortgage. B.C. and Ontario were clamping down on foreign investment. Interest rates were rising.
These are all indicators that the executives that sit in the banks’ ivory towers did not look favourably on the major markets in Canada.
However, notice what is happening now. On Sept. 2 the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. is bringing in a very aggressive first time buyer’s program in which they will loan people partial down payments. Interest rates are coming down. Toronto and Vancouver are starting to show increased sales in certain segments of their markets.
It is too early to really to shout from the rooftops, but take a deep breath.
You can smell the recovery coming.
Bill Hubbard is a real estate broker and the owner and broker of a four-office real estate firm in the Okanagan-Shuswap. He has been in real estate for 28 years and has been an owner and broker in Vernon for 20 years. At almost 60 years old he is just as passionate about real estate as the day he started.
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