By Michael McCann
With less than month left to go in one of the longest election campaigns in Canadian history, I’m sure we are all anxious to see things comes to an end soon.
Whatever your political stripes I think we are all in agreement that we never want to experience another one of these marathon campaigns.
New election promises come out daily, however in all this rhetoric have you heard one statement regarding real estate or our housing market?
Most likely not. But to be fair there were two announcements:
- The Conservatives said they would increase the amount first time buyers can withdraw from their RRSP’s.
- The Greens promised an energy retrofit of all homes by 2030
Both are minor issues and will have no impact on our Canadian housing market.
Factors that impact prices
The truth is that our housing market is not tied to the success of whether the Liberals, Conservatives or the NDP gets elected on October 19th. In reality here are the key factors that impact housing prices:
1. Bank of Canada’s lending rate
2. Canadian exports
3. Consumer/business confidence
4. Unemployment
5. Household debt
Obviously whoever is in power has no direct mechanism to regulate or manage these metrics.
That said however, what government can do is to provide economic stability.
This does not necessarily mean maintaining the status quo with regards to keeping our present government.
What any government can do is provide strong financial stewardship and vision which will bolster the above key factors.
Our Canadian housing market is diverse. Toronto and Vancouver are hot housing markets and these cities perform very differently than say Calgary and Moncton, which are slower.
Each has their own set of unique drivers and it would be impossible to expect anyone to implement a one-size fits all Canadian housing strategy.
Enough of election chatter – here is a quick look at Birchcliff. This summer continued to see big gains in our housing prices.
Considering the continued demand for detached homes, I don’t expect to see our local housing market to slow down in the very near future.
Here’s a look at Birchcliff’s summer statistics:
Birchcliff – Cliffside Home Sales in July 2015 – 28 homes sold
Birchcliff/Cliffside
- July 2014 there were 27 homes sold while we had 28 sold in July 2015 – statistically no change
- July 2014 the average sold price was $640,733 while July 2015 the average sold price came in at $758,725 – an increase of 18.4%
- July 2014 it took on average 12 days to sell a house and in July 2015 it took 19 days
Toronto Real Estate Board
- 9,152 sales in July 2014 with July 2015 showing 9,880 sales – Up by 8%
- $550,625 average selling price July 2014 with July 2015 coming in at $609,236 – Up by 10.6%
- July 2014 it took an average of 24 days to sell a home where July of this year it was 22 days
Birchcliff – Cliffside Home Sales in August 2015 – 21 homes sold
Birchcliff/Cliffside
In August 2014 we had 23 homes sold and in August 2015 we had 21 – a decrease of 8.7%
August 2014 the average sold price was $602,743 while August 2015 the average sold price was $658,161 – an increase of 9.2%
In August last year it took on average 16 days and this year it took 14 days
Toronto Real Estate Board
- 7,568 sales in August 2014 and August 2015 showed 7,998 sales – Up by 5.7%
- August 2014 average selling price was $546,482 and August 2015 came in at $602,607 – Up by 10.3%
- August last year it took an average of 27 days to sell a home where August of this year 23 days
According to the Toronto Real Estate Board, our local housing market is defined as Birch Cliff/Cliffside and the boundaries can be seen below.
View Birch Cliff / Cliffside in a larger map
