Having insights into market activity specific to a certain region is an advantage for home both home buyers and home sellers, and many of these people will look to their realtor to have that information for them. You should be able to do that for them, and you should also be able to tell them that they can do that themselves too.

 It was only just a couple of years ago that freedom of information access to real estate market activity was possible in most provinces of Canada, but it’s also true that in some of them this information is still not made public.

There’s some degree of good fortune in the fact that most major metro areas do make this information available. Being able to point clients in the right direction with all of that is going to be a part of presenting yourself as the ‘local expert’ these folks will be looking for when they decide to work with a real estate agent.

Generating those clients is the first step and gives you that opportunity, and that’s where our online real estate lead generation system here at Real Estate Leads really provides excellent value. With the power of Internet marketing individuals that might be buying or selling a home in your area are generated, and then you’re provided with the leads to get in touch with them.

That’s enough for that, but what we will look at today is where clients and realtors alike can access real estate sold data in Canada.

Changes Since 2011

It used to be that brokerages, agents or anyone else could publish sold data or historical information about a property. It was in 2011 that the Toronto Real Estate Boards began to allow the publication of sales data and other information. Thing have progressed similarly in other big cities in Canada, but it is still not readily available everywhere in the country.

In countries like the UK and the USA, this information is available everywhere.

So the way it’s been is that where the information is kept private buyers and sellers usually access information through a Realtor or by paying a nominal fee at their land transfer offices. As you’d imagine nowadays there are online portals where sold data can be easily accessed.

Province by Province

New Brunswick – real estate sales data has been available since 2009, and you use a PAN, PID or a street address to get data or you search using a map at the Service New Brunswick website.

Nova Scotia – real estate sales data has been available since 2010 but is restricted to those who have an Assessment Account Number (AAN) or a PIN Number and are able to access the Nova Scotia Property Assessment

Ontario – Smaller brokerage websites started to share information as early as December 2017. Information is not made available in a Provincial resource made available to the public but most real estate professionals will be able to get this information for you.

Alberta – real estate sales data can be found on the Alberta government’s registries site, but you will need to create an account and some specific information may be pay-to-access.

British Columbia – real estate sales data information found on some individual sites, and many real estate brokerages have regularly-updated data made available on their websites.              

Saskatchewan – only paid searches are possible through the Saskatchewan Government website

Manitoba – Among others, the best source for real estate sales data here is ForSold. Manitoba Assessment only offers sold data for cities and towns if you have a Roll number and Winnipeg real estate sales data is excluded.

Quebec – only paid searches available through Government of Quebec for tracking real estate sales

Newfoundland  – information not made available

Prince Edward Island – Only paid searches available through Government of Prince Edward Island

Nunavut – real estate sales information not made available  

Yukon – information not made available

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Real Estate agents in Canada will always be happy to work with clients who have different prerogatives when buying properties. The ones who buy them as investments are afforded the same level of service excellence as clients who are buying a home for themselves to live in. Smaller condominiums and similarly sized housing options are always going to be the most logical choice for first-time homeowners buying in major metro areas, but recent industry analysis and feedback from successful investors is indicating that studio units and the like are actually the better choice for clients buying homes as investment properties.

Investors often continue to work with a realtor in a specific city once they’ve had success working with them in the past. It’s for this reason among many others that brining new clients into your client base is always important, and here at Real Estate Leads our online real estate lead generation system is an excellent way for realtors to do this. And do it more effectively than other realtors who like you are looking to build their business and bring quality clients into the fold who will be inclined to be repeat clients.

Let’s look at why many experts are saying that buying smaller housing units is a better choice for investor buyers, with an eye to making you an even more knowledgeable real estate agent who can offer this expertise to all your new clients.

Cash Flow Advantage to Small

The opinion of economists who specialize in the Canadian real estate industry is that there’s a negative correlation between the size of an investment condo and cash flow. What they’ve found is that larger units erode cash flow, and that alternately while studio units only represent 6% of the market, they produce better cash flow.

A recent study found that studios produced $163 in cash flow. 1-bedroom units produced $86 and 2-bedrooms dropped down significantly to $21. NEGATIVE $122 is what three-bedroom units put investors into the red. It’s exactly as you see – the smaller unit, the better the cash flow return on the investment property purchase.

Many agree that the end price of a studio unity is likely the most affordable brand new housing product you can buy in terms of condos in any major metropolitan Canadian city. End prices will be anywhere between 500 and 600K for desirable downtown locations in places like Vancouver and Toronto, but the supply / demand end of things makes it so that these units can be rented out for rates that will support the investment and cash flow interests.

Price Appreciation

Another factor is how end users have also figured out that studio units are a good first step up and onto the property ladder. That’s because there’s very favourable price appreciation for these studio / micro units in big urban areas. Studios have room to appreciate more because you can get them for maybe slightly more than ½ a million,  and that alone makes them incredibly inviting for first-time buyers and investors alike. Affordable studio units will be in demand for renters who are working at good career positions in city areas.

As entry-level price points in metro areas of cities like Vancouver and Toronto continue to climb, often times the most favourable price point is going to be with studio condo units. This is then paired wit the fact that when a price point is driving the value of a property this is when it usually has the most opportunity for appreciation.

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Sign up for Real Estate Leads here and receive a monthly quota of qualified, online-generated buyer and / or seller leads that are delivered only to you. You’ll be the only realtor to get these leads, and with them you’ll have an exclusive opportunity to be in touch with people who have shown a willingness to make a move in local real estate. It is a proven-effective and well recommended means of either getting a new realtor to hit the ground running or build up the client base of an established realtor who wants to get more out of their client prospecting efforts.

You’re going to struggle to find any industry expert who doesn’t agree that Canada’s housing market is overheated right now, and perhaps that’s even an understatement. Even cities and towns that have never seen a homebuyer frenzy in their entire existence are seeing one now, and obviously to say that makes for a seller’s market in an emphatic way is also an understatement. That has its positives and negatives, and it’s not always entirely a plus for realtors either.

That’s because it becomes increasingly common for realtors representing buyers to have their client’s very fair offer for a home be beaten by others, time and time again. This is happening routinely in desirable metro cities, but again it’s also a phenomenon that’s spreading out to smaller-town Canada too. If you’re the listing realtor you may be guaranteed of sitting pretty, but if you’re trying to put you clients in a new home as buyers then it may be increasingly difficult to earn your commissions the way you used to in that capacity.

It’s for this reason – and many others – that our online lead generation system for real estate agents here at Real Estate Leads is such a beneficial resource for realtors who really need to get more out of the client prospecting efforts. It puts you directly in touch with would-be clients, and does that before other realtors have the same opportunity. We’ll stay on topic here, but it is absolutely 100% effective for this aim.

Many of these same industry experts have said that a temporary ‘cooldown’ of the market would be a good thing in the big picture. And it seems that is exactly what has happened now as indicated by the numbers recently put out by the CREA (Canadian Rea Estate Association) for last month, April of 2021

Dip from Massive March

The average selling price for a home in Canada is up by nearly half from the lows it hit in the early days of the pandemic. That’s great, but the number of homes sold in April dipped down 12.5% compared to March  – the busiest month ever for Realtors in Canada statistically!

Further, overall sales were down in nearly all markets across the country, including just about everywhere in Ontario and British Columbia. (85% of the country as a whole). The hope for many is that this is something of an invisible hand that’s stabilizing and normalizing the market and maybe keeping it from being overheated to the point that it’s about to burst into flames.

What’s behind it all of course is the COVID-19 pandemic pushing interest rates to record lows and then many buyers also feeling that it’s now or never if they’re ever going to buy a home.

No Normal with Seasonal Patterns

We can also now safely say that COVID-19 has taken the usual seasonal patterns of Canadian real estate and thrown them right out the window. What’s standard is for the housing market to start off the year slowly before heating up as the weather gets warmer. Then sales tend to slow down at the end of summer / start of school year and continue to go down all through the remainder of the year.

No this year, and not even close. COVID-19 shutdowns in the early days of the pandemic caused sales to completely flop in March and April of 2020, but they then exploded once May brought something of a reopening.

Sales should also usually be higher in April compared to March, but as we mentioned March 2021 was the busiest month for real estate on record. So April’s slowdown could be one of two things; a pause in the continuing upward or momentum or a more lasting cooldown.

What we do know is that sales are expected to trend lower in the second half of this years as rising interest rates and stricter stress test regulations begin to be introduced or more firmly in place. Some believe more simply that sales are way down because so many would-be homeowners have scrapped that plan given the financially daunting realities a lot of them would face.

Big Price Gains

The one thing that will look good no matter what to homeowners with a house on the market is that enormous price gains continue to be the norm for homes sold in Canada. The average price of a Canadian home that sold in April was $696,000, and that’s up 41.9% from 2020.

And if you’re inclined to say that the House Price Index is a better indicator for median pricings, we can say the same thing there as even the HPI rose by 23%. That jump is the highest since 2005.

Reality is that demand is extremely strong and the market is still extremely strong and resilient and so it’s unlikely we’ve seen peak momentum, even if it might temporarily look that way right now.

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Sign up for Real Estate Leads here and receive a monthly quota of qualified, online generated buyer and / or seller leads that are delivered to one realtor only – you! We will provide these leads to you exclusively and they will be for individuals in your area who have indicated a genuine interest in making a move in the real estate market and will be looking for a real estate professional like you to guide them through the process. It’s a great way to add to your client base and build your real estate business.

It’s definitely true that if you live in one of the few major metro areas in Canada you certainly experience day-to-day life much differently than people who reside in less populated parts of the country. The most prominent parts of that difference have nothing to do with homes themselves, but there’s definitely something profound in understanding that what would get you a 2-bed condo in downtown Vancouver or Toronto would buy you a detached house with huge backyard and lots of space elsewhere in Canada.

Reality is most people live in major metropolitan urban areas because their careers and livelihoods necessitate them being there, and that demand is what’s at the ongoing heart of the hot housing market in Canada. One that has – as we’ve seen – gotten even hotter throughout the Coronavirus pandemic and then of course with houses selling for more than ever before in many areas you will inevitably have more people considering becoming a real estate agent in Canada.

Getting a leg up on increasingly high levels of competition is never easy, and that’s why our online lead generation system for realtors here at Real Estate Leads is as highly recommended as it is. What it does is take the power of polling within Internet Marketing to find participants who meet the criteria in determining whether or not they are genuinely ready to make a move in the local real estate market.

We can get to more about that later, but where we are now in all of this is seeing that there may be something a ‘pause’ now in the Toronto real estate market, and how the consensus is that’s not a bad thing at all.

Calm Before ‘Small’ Storm?

There are reasons to believe the Greater Toronto Area’s housing market is cooling, but that it’s only a brief reprieve. But let’s state what needs to be said right away; seeing some air come out of the bubble is probably a good thing as we have a situation where many who’ve left the cities may be joining a resumed flow of new immigrants into cities that will boost prices again in the not-too-distant future.

But in the interim, this may be a chance to others to more judiciously decide if it’s time for them to get into the housing market. Now the reason we say judiciously is because recently many buyers have been putting pressure on themselves to find a home to by because of – in large parts – what’s abbreviated to be ‘FOMO’ or Fear Of Missing Out.

The belief was if they didn’t get into the housing market now, they might never have the same chance again. There might be some truth to that for some people, but it’s never good to make really BIG decisions under duress.

So perhaps it’s time that you – as a realtor – provide some of those same assurances and advice to clients.

Data Shows a Slowing

Data from the TRREB makes clear there were 13,663 sales in the GTA in April, and that’s a dip of 12.7% from a month prior, which indicates a flattening of the selling price during that period, but one that’s still up 36.6% above the 10-year average of 10,000 transactions for the month between 2010 – 2019.

We then see further that the number of sales last month was more than 4x higher than what occurred for April 2020, which was of course the 1st full month of COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdowns.

New listings went down by 8.4% to 20,825 in April from March, but were still than 3x the number of new listings at this time last year.

Huge Sales Growth with Small Pop. Growth

This torrid pace for home sales since the summer of 2020 all occurred while there was very little in the way of population growth. Some realtors are saying that what is happening now is the pool of potential buyers within the GTA right now is dwindling. With sustained growth in population that might occur in the future that could change, but this is the way it is right now.

Let’s keep in mind that Canada has plan to welcome 1.2 million new Canadians by the end of 2023, and 60% of them will be economic class migrants who will be the types of workers and family heads that will both needs homes and be able to purchase them – with the help of a realtor like you of course!

For all these reasons it’s very likely that this is a short stall in the market, but if you have clients who are in a unique position to turn this into an advantage for them then you should definitely be making them aware of it if they’re not already.

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Sign up for Real Estate Leads here and receive a monthly quota of qualified, online-generated leads that are delivered to you – and ONLY you – to provide you with an exclusive opportunity to be first in touch with these people and much more likely to sway them into seeing you as the best real estate professional to help them with the purchase or sale of a house, condo, or vacation property in the same area of the country where you’re working as a real estate agent. It works, and it’s recommended to realtors who are new to the business or inexperienced in it.

We’ve been told that no matter what the subject matter may be, change is the only constant. When it comes to the realities for would-be homebuyers in Canada, things have changed a lot over the last little while and we’re not talking only about the hot real estate market in Canada that’s been caused in large part by the COVID-pandemic itself. In short, the reasonings that lead people to buy the homes they buy and all sorts of scenarios that factor into the decisions are always changing.

And in a roundabout way, this is a part of what make working as real estate agent in Canada as challenging as it is. The success that successful realtors enjoy is often a product of a long, long time of learning the industry and then being able to reflect that ‘in the know’ quality to prospective clients. You get to that point by learning as you go and learning from working with clients. Now of course in order to do that you need to have those clients, so if you’re new to the business then our online real estate lead generation system here at Real Estate Leads is a solid choice for starting your career on the right foot.

What we’re seeing now here in the spring of 2021 is that yes, we know more and more buyers than ever feel they need to buy a home while interest rates are low and the currently lacking supply of home becomes even more lacking. But there’s much more in the way of prerogative specifics too, and after reading an interesting client insight profile prepared for the industry we thought we’d share what we’ve learned there about these new ‘realities’ for people who may be working with a real estate agent in the not so distant future.

Close Split

Canada has been regarded as a seller’s market in real estate for a long time now, and that has everything to do with demand outstripping supply in a big way. But the biggest thing to note in these new perspectives is that there’s been a real shift there and many people don’t quite see it the same way anymore. A recent RBC Home Ownership Poll found that 36% of Canadians feel the market benefits buyers, while 34% feel it is more beneficial for sellers.

Next up is a move away from the long-time standard of homes being bought by couples, either on their own or with children as part of a nuclear family. Home buyers are moving away from the traditional trend of buying a home with a spouse or partner. 28% of poll respondents indicated their intention to purchase a home with extended family members. 32% state they are preferring to purchase a home alone. The numbers of those looking for home ownership with their spouse or partner has gone down in the past few years.  Non-traditional trends like that one – buying a home entirely on your own –  have increased.

What we’re seeing is more of people at either end of the spectrum – more confident, in-control solo home buyers and then others who can’t do it alone and require someone in the family to assist them financially or be a part of a collective purchase.

Home Ownership’s Financial Strain

The housing affordability crisis that is nationwide in Canada is as prominent as ever. New homeowners are diverting ever-increasing portions of paycheques to cover housing costs. ‘House poor’ is a term for those that spend over 30% of their income on home ownership costs, and estimates are that around 39% of homeowners who’ve purchased in the last 5 years qualify as being house-poor homeowners. Or roughly that some four out of every 10 Canadian homeowners are financially strained because of owning their home. 

Such an abundance of house-poor homeowners has to be a cause for concern, both for economists as well as for anyone who works in real estate. 92% of homeowners say this causes them a great amount of mental stress and then nearly half of those respondents have said that they actively discourage friends, family and / or workplace associates from buying homes at this time because of it.

On the other end of that 47% still believe that home ownership is worth it in the long term, and a full 80% say they’re still okay with the investment of it. Do they wish that investment was a lot less taxing on them financially and mentally though? You can be sure they do.

Sufficient Enthusiasm

The difficulty of home ownership in the current market is very real, but many prospective buyers work with the understanding that if it’s your right time to buy then it’s smart to look past those hardships and try to focus on the bigger picture. 8 out of 10 participants in that same RBC poll said that a home or condominium purchase is still a good investment. More than 2-thirds of those same people still feel that it makes more sense to buy a home rather than renting one and not building up any equity for yourself.

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Sign up for Real Estate Leads here and receive a monthly quota of qualified, online-generated buyer and / or seller leads that are delivered to you and ONLY you. You’ll be the only realtor to receive the leads, and they’ll be leads for would-be buyers and sellers living near you who have shown themselves to be genuinely considering making a move in the real estate market. It’s a proven-effective way to get much more out of your client generation efforts, and most realtors quickly see it as a very good investment in the growth of their real estate business.