Halifax Real Estate - A Modern Approach

This article’s main headline is highly misleading and could lead the Halifax real estate consumer to believe that prices in the Halifax real estate market are cool enough to get the proverbial “deal.” In actuality, as you read further through the article below, the Halifax market remains an anomaly in that, compared to larger markets like Vancouver and Toronto, our prices are continuing to climb, with many homes being sold for a premium.

For Sellers, this is and will be for some time, a great opportunity to offload your current property in the face of a healthy real estate market. Don’t let the tacky headlines scare you.

Roger Talor - Chronicle Herald - March 4, 2013

In technical terms, the Halifax real estate market has “flattened out” from the time the federal shipbuilding program was first announced back in October 2011 to today.

There was a quick uptick in what some might describe as speculative real estate activity in the city in the six to eight months following the announcement that Irving Shipbuilding Inc. had won the right to negotiate for the bulk of the federal shipbuilding work.

Matthew Gilmore says some people were fast to take advantage of what was expected to be an influx of workers looking for employment due to the $25-billion, 30-year shipbuilding program.

We all know now that the work isn’t going to start as quickly as some had anticipated, so the housing market has cooled, says Gilmore, a senior market analyst for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. in Halifax.

If real estate sales climbed by about 20 per cent in the months immediately following the shipbuilding announcement, Gilmore says, the Halifax market today has declined by about the same amount. He says the rise and fall in activity is offsetting over a longer period of time.

“We’re not seeing a lot of strength when it comes to economic fundamentals in Halifax right now,” he says.

“We’ve seen limited employment growth, limited economic growth, in the one per cent range. When it comes to employment growth, most has been in part-time for most of the past couple of years. So that is not as supportive of housing demand as if it was full-time (employment) growth.”

Craig Alexander, senior vice-president and chief economist with TD Bank Financial Group, says Halifax’s housing affordability is the envy of the rest of the country.

“If you compare the average income of individuals in Halifax to the price of homes, there are no signs of excess valuation,” Alexander told me on the phone from Washington, D.C., where he was attending a conference.

Alexander says it only takes about 3½ to four years of income to fully pay for an average home in Halifax. The national average is about five. Toronto is modestly above the national average. In a hot market like Vancouver, it takes 11 years’ worth of income to acquire a home.

Having low affordability works in favour of first-time home buyers, but an economy also needs home prices to grow to allow existing homeowners to benefit from the appreciating value of their home over time, he says.

The worst thing to happen to the economy would be boom-and-bust cycles.

Alexander says he hasn’t identified an economic catalyst that would lead to a significant weakening in the Halifax real estate market.

“I don’t think (Halifax) economic activity will be booming (in 2013). But at the same time, I don’t think there’s anything on the horizon that would suggest a correction in sales and prices is imminent.”

Changes to mortgage insurance rules last year may have discouraged some people from purchasing a home, says Alexander, but he believes that will abate as time goes on and people have time to adjust to meet the new financing requirements.

The shipbuilding work has been slower to happen than most would have hoped, but he says it will happen and the economy will benefit from that activity.

“I just don’t subscribe to the idea that Halifax is headed for a significant economic correction.”

The CMHC’s Gilmore agrees that 2013 will be relatively flat for the economy and, more specifically, the Halifax real estate market. But things should start to pick up closer to the end of the year, and economic activity should really improve in 2014.

Although sales will be flat this year, home prices should grow by two or three per cent, he says.

By David Larock

Statistics Canada recently changed the way it calculates key economic data to bring its methods into line with agreed upon international accounting standards. As a result, the debt-to-income ratio for the average Canadian household shot up 11 per cent, literally overnight, to 163 per cent (a record high).

This has inspired lots of foreboding talk about how our “soaring” household debt-to-income levels are now higher than U.S. debt-to-income ratios were at the peak of their housing bubble. That may be technically true, but it is also totally misleading.

That’s because the standard method for calculating this ratio uses after-tax income, which isn’t a fair comparison because Canadian personal income taxes cover health care costs and American personal income taxes don’t. (To put this difference in perspective, according to my initial research the average American spends anywhere from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of their after-tax income on health-care related costs.)

While it has become fashionable to predict that Canada is headed for a U.S.-style housing crash, most economists still think that is unlikely and they use plenty of data to support their position.

To be clear, I readily agree that our household debt levels are too high and that’s why I have consistently supported the federal government’s attempts to reign in borrowing by changing the lending policies and regulations used by CMHC and OSFI. But that’s a far cry from believing that our debt levels are about to cause our houses to start spontaneously combusting. (Did I just give Maclean’s an idea for their next apocalyptic magazine cover … or have they used that one already?)

Before you start loading up on canned soup and fire extinguishers, consider this sampling of recent comments from the experts I read:

* A report by BMO economists in January 2012 first pointed out the flaw in using after-tax income to compare Canadian and U.S. debt-to-income ratio levels. Instead, they argued that using a debt-to-gross income ratio would provide a better apples-to-apples comparison. Using this revised methodology, BMO economist Sal Guatieri reported recently that Canada’s debt-to-gross income ratio (121 per cent) is still well below both the current (146 per cent) and peak (166 per cent) U.S. levels. That presents a very different comparison from the popular one being bandied about in much of the mainstream media.

* David Rosenberg, a well-known Canadian economist, wrote recently that our ratio of housing starts to the civilian population is “not far off the average of the last 10 years, whereas as in the U.S. back in the 2006-07 peak, that ratio was 25 per cent above the long-run norm.” In other words, Canada has not seen the kind of short-term spike in speculative real-estate investing/borrowing that we saw in the U.S. during the latter stages of their housing bubble.

* Mr. Rosenberg also notes that Canadian policy makers and regulators have been pro-active in responding to our rising household debt levels while their U.S counterparts were basically asleep at the switch until it was too late (hyperbole mine).

* Further to that last point, Benjamin Tal, an economist with CIBC, recently noted in an interview with Rob Carrick that overall Canadian household debt is now rising at its slowest pace in 10 years, while consumer debt levels are actually falling for the first time in 20 years. That kind of momentum makes for a trend in the right direction.

* In a separate report, Tal notes that the crash in U.S. house prices was far more extreme in cities with above-average levels of sub-prime lending, where prices corrected by an average of 40 per cent. This is more than double the average decline seen in U.S. cities with below-average levels of subprime loans.

“Eradicate subprime from the U.S. housing market and, instead of the most severe house price meltdown since the Great Depression, you get a soft landing.” By comparison, Canadian subprime loans account for about seven per cent of our total mortgage debt outstanding while U.S. subprime loans peaked at a little under 25 per cent of their total mortgage debt outstanding before their housing crash.

The bottom line: Like any informed observer who can see beyond his own short-term self interest to what is best for the whole economy over the long term; I am concerned about how ultra-low interest rates have pushed our household debt levels to record highs. But I reject the implication that we have driven over the debt cliff to financial ruin and are now in free fall just waiting to hit the ground.

David Larock is an independent mortgage planner and industry insider specializing in helping clients purchase, refinance or renew their mortgages. His posts appear weekly on his blog,

We are fast approaching the busiest market place for real estate in HRM. Despite talk from the nay sayers and others, the Halifax Real Estate market is still alive and well.

Starting in January 2012, the dynamism of listings and sales has never ceased or abated. Coupled with an excess of inventory and low interest rates, combined with a tick of demand as result of the ship building announcement and discovery of oil off our beautiful coastline, the housing market is both hearty and strong. 

Though there was a small dip in the summer, as expected due to vacations and the exceptional weather we’ve been having, the Fall market is springing up even before a seasonal change. On MLS the number of homes listed daily is now equal to those with conditional offers. What’s more, even more inventory continues to flood the system in an attempt to grab more market share. 

Though sales are up across the municipality, the highest demand rests on peninsular Halifax. I have had the pleasure of working with clients, after my recent breakthrough in this market, who have each sold their properties for 98% of asking price within two days on the market. This kind of demand is, heretofore, unprecedented. 

My advice is, if you’re looking at selling your property and relocating, do so now. With the markets overseas continuing to be volatile and unstable, now is not the time to be greedy and wait. Take advantage of current market conditions and move now. You may make an additional 4% in a year, but that’s only if the market continues. Lessons learned, while situations that are benevolent last, more often than not they have a habit of tanking out. 

Fortune Favours the bold.

I’ve known Andrew for several years on a friendly level and when it came to purchasing our first home, he was our first choice. We had to move within a fixed budget and timeframe as we were expecting a new addition to our family, but he made sure our first house purchase was not only a great fit for what we wanted, but was genuinely a good purchase and investment.

He showed great dedication to our interests by selecting houses that fit our specific needs and he made sure we found a place that we were truly satisfied with. All aspects of the transaction happened smoothly and we were in our new home very quickly. He also made sure we understood the intricacies of the entire process and did not hesitate to explain everything.

He recommended some fantastic people to work with as part of the buying process and corresponded on our behalf, whenever necessary. He ensured all parts of the process were taken care of, which made our lives much easier.  Andrew is definitely a realtor who places professionalism and customer satisfaction as his highest priority, and we would not hesitate to recommend him to friends and family who are looking for an amazing agent.

Jamie, Alycya and Brody