Last month little known Home Capital Group Inc, one of Canada’s most successful non-bank mortgage lending enterprises, took a $2-billion emergency loan, with an interest rate of more than 22%, causing major concerns whether the impact would trigger a housing crisis in Canada. While the mortgage provider is a fraction of the size of Canadian banks, it is an important player for those who do not qualify for a mortgage from a bank.
“Canada’s reputation as a boring-but-stable financial system took a bit of a hit this week,” Alex Bellefleur, head of global macro research and strategy at Pavilion Global Markets Ltd. in Montreal, wrote in a note Friday. He predicts lending will slow across the industry, hurting cash flow into housing, and weakening inflation and the Canadian dollar. Read more here.
“A plunge in Home Capital and other stock prices isn’t any indication of house prices, and even if there’s some shift in Toronto and Vancouver, it’s very easy to liquidate property in those markets because supply is so tight, said Paul Taylor, CEO of industry group Mortgage Professionals Canada.” Read more here.
The same can be said for Westmount with such low inventory of homes on the market and steady sales.
As we continue into the peak of the spring market, there are only 66 single-family homes for sale in Westmount as of May 1st, 2017.
This is a sharp decrease from:
73 available listings in April 2017
80 available listings in March 2017.
The numbers we see going into May are a further indication of how low inventory is driving many buyers to jump on properties right away with multiple bids, and deals being done with no conditions.
The Greater Montréal Real Estate Board (GMREB) has just released its most recent residential real estate market statistics for the Montréal. In total, 4,798 residential sales were concluded in April 2017, a 1 per cent increase compared to April of last year. This was the most active month of April since 2012.
“Price increases were more sustained for single-family homes, as market conditions for this property category once again give sellers the upper hand,” said Mathieu Cousineau, President of the GMREB Board of Directors. “The number of active listings has dropped significantly over the past year for single-family homes, which helped create a certain rarity,” added Mr. Cousineau.