Statistics Canada is reporting that new home prices fell in July for the first time in 13 months. But while the average decline in new home prices in July was 0.1 per cent, Waterloo Region was home to Canada's largest new home price increases at 0.6 per cent.
"It just confirms what we've always believed that Kitchener-Waterloo, compared to some areas across Canada where prices have gone down, it just shows that we have a lot of confidence in our marketplace," Ted Scharf, President of the K-W Real Estate Board, says in response to the surge in new home prices here. "There are a lot of positive things happening and those things are leading to people buying houses, people buying cars, people buying any number of consumer goods."
As for the increase itself, Scharf believes it simply reflects what is available in the local real estate market. Home builders are merely building what buyers are demanding and, right now in Waterloo Region, buyers seem to be attracted to more expensive homes.
"It's not that there aren't people buying lower-priced houses or that people aren't out in the marketplace in other price ranges," Scharf muses. "It's just that, in general, the type of housing we have available right now is a little bit more expensive in July than it was in June."
The fact that buyers seem to be attracted to these higher priced homes is equally unsurprising to Scharf. He looks at the local economy and the positive jobs numbers (unemployment is down to 7% from 7.3) and sees consumer confidence.
"We're creating more jobs so more people have the ability to buy houses," Scharf says by way of analysis. "I think that's what's pushing people into the marketplace, too. Employment is really important and (we have) lots of jobs. And they're good-paying jobs."
The July home price declines were led by Vancouver (down 0.8%) and the Ontario centres of Greater Sudbury and Thunder Bay (both down 1.9%), and London (down 1.8%).
No comments:
Post a Comment