The Real Estate Association of Lloydminster and District says that despite a slump in housing buy and sell nationally, they don’t expect it to be a constant trend here.
The Canadian Real Estate Association says Canada wide housing sales are down 6.5 percent from January to February, and down 16.9 percent compared to last year at this time.
President of the Real Estate Association of Lloydminster and District Louis De Kock says that he has seen a drop in houses being bought in the Border City, but they anticipated it beforehand.
“Part of the decrease is because of the new mortgage rules that came out in January. A lot of pre-approved buyers were pulling their purchases forward to December. So we saw a real increase in December, and expected a drop in January, which we did get and now my statistics are showing me that our February numbers are very on par with the previous year, and with that i’m seeing the market in our area being quite stable. ”
De Kock adds that they are seeing more people interested in buying houses in the Lloydminster area as well, which could bring the market from stable to up soon.
“What i’ve seen in 2017 over 2016, we have transactions as up quite a bit, prices are very similar to the previous year. I do expect our transactions to increase again for 2018, I think our market is very stable. We’ve got different people coming in that we haven’t seen so much. More retired farmers are coming into town, millennials are finding ways to buy and first time buyers and rental properties, transactions are happening.”
De Kock adds that even though there are new mortgage rules in place, interest rates and work done by mortgage brokers are helping to find new ways for people from all walks of life to buy homes.