There are plenty of things in life that will be disconcerting for you but you have no real control over. That may well be the case for homeowners who were hoping to sell their home sometime soon and realize some of the equity they’ve built up in it. The Canadian housing market has done more than just cool over the last 9 months, it has dipped quite considerably with regards to median home prices and what that is doing is making some of these would-be home sellers postpone the move and not put their home on the market.
That’s very much an is-what-it-is scenario and the unappealing news for any who is disconcerted by dropping home values is that the continuing declining in those home values may continue much more emphatically than first anticipated. We are getting towards the end of 2022, and recent news that caught our attention here is that the Canadian Housing and Mortgage is now sharing their belief that the home price decline foreseen for next year may be much more pronounced than they originally thought it would be.
This is something that definitely comes up on the radar here at Real Estate Leads, and if this works out to more home sellers postponing their move then that does have a trickle-down effect that constricts the amount of business out there to be had for real estate agents. It’s for that reason among many others why our online real estate lead generation system is so advisable for agents that want to maintain their flow of new real estate clientele.
With that said, let’s turn our attention with this entry to more about how expectations have changed with regard to the extent home prices are going to continue to decline into next year.
Inflation / Rate Hikes Factoring In
The CHMC is predicting a steeper decline in the Canadian housing market, and the primary reasons for that are higher-than-expected inflation and interest rate hikes. Their update housing outlook that came out on Thursday of last week shares their indication that the national average home price in Canada will likely go down by 14.3% by the second quarter of 2023, and that’s start in comparison to the historical peak of $770,812 that we saw in the first quarter of this year.
It was earlier in July of this year that they said that a high interest rate scenario would result in average home prices declining 5%per cent over the same period. The inflation context is central behind all of this, and StatsCan’s numbers on this showed prices rose annually around 7% in August, along with core metrics staying hot. The Bank of Canada has been emphatic that its benchmark rate will need to rise higher still before the end of the year to tame inflation.
The central bank’s policy rate is going to go up to 4% by year’s end, while at the start of this year we were at 0.25%. What this means is that those inflation figures and inflation pressures have been stronger than expected, and the BoC has had no choice but to be more aggressive with their policy rates. This means even more extensive home price declines are now a possibility moving into next year.
Potential Recession Role
The CMHC also concurs with many economists that Canada will fall into a recession in the near future, and with the prediction that the national economy will have a downturn before the end of 2022. A recession could reduce demand in the housing market, based concerns of job losses and lower earnings dampening buyer activity.
An independent report by a major national real estate brokerage shares that fears of a recession are prompting more than 1/3rd of Canadians to put their plans to either buy or sell a home on pause, and adding to that the CHMC believes that drops in sale prices will not improve housing affordability much.
On the other side of that, buyers can have more confidence in price dynamics going forward, with Canadian real estate not being likely to experience more sudden interest rate shifts like those see in early 2020 or so far through 2022.
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