Canadian house price rate of appreciation dropping
Resale home prices in most major Canadian cities continued rising in the summer quarter, “in stark contrast to the housing market woes that continue to plague the U.S.,” Royal LePage Real Estate Services reported Monday.
While the rate of price appreciation is dropping, the national real estate sales company said Canada’s housing market is on an entirely different track than the American meltdown.
“Boasting still-affordable homes, resource-rich Regina and St. John’s (N.L.) posted significant double-digit gains, while home prices in Alberta corrected downwards slightly after experiencing a period of unprecedented growth,” Royal LePage reported.
“It is not surprising that the regions that had experienced the largest and quickest rise in home value are now experiencing easing price appreciation trends as their markets return to more balanced conditions.
On average across Canada, condominium prices in the July-September quarter were up 0.2 per cent from a year earlier to $243,529, according to the Royal LePage tally. Standard two-storey properties edged up 0.1 per cent to $408,927, while the average bungalow price was flat at $240,000.
Regina’s housing market posted the steepest year-over-year appreciations with gains as high as 49 per cent for standard condominiums; St. John’s condo prices swelled 26.9 per cent.
“Canada’s housing market is holding up well, with resilient buyer demand supporting house prices that continue to inch upwards,” stated Royal LePage president Phil Soper.
“While rate of price appreciation is obviously tempering across the entire country, it’s important to underscore the fact that Canada’s housing market is supported by markedly different, and stronger, economic fundamentals than those that American homeowners are wrestling with.”
He cites solid employment and population-growth fundamentals and the continuing availability of affordable financing.
“Credit-worthy Canadians continue to have wide access to fairly priced mortgages,” Soper said.
“While we are not immune to the serious problems facing global credit markets, our financial institutions are in much better shape than mortgage providers in the U.S. In Canada, subprime or high-risk mortgages account for a small portion of our banks’ portfolios and the mortgage approval process has many more checks and balances in place. As such, we should expect stability in Canada’s real estate market.”
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