The Housing Market in North Bay appears to be improving.
Century 21’s Ed Valenti says the numbers indicate prices are going up in 2016.
See related story: Sudden rise in interest rates could cause home prices to drop 30 per cent: CMHC
He believes that’s more of a sign of stability.
“At 1.3 percent it doesn’t mean the prices have increased, it just means that they have remained relatively stable,” stated Valenti.
Waterfront property continues to be popular but those numbers can be skewed due to the low number of property sales on Lake Nipissing.
That area saw an increase of 13% in sales; a price increase of 13.6%.
“There were only 35 (waterfront) sales in 2016 so high-end homes will skew the numbers due to the low sample size,” he said.
While other areas of the city like West Ferris and Airport Hill are seeing good numbers, the same can’t be said for downtown and the College Heights area.
“In the central core area from 2012 to 2016, there’s been a drop in sales of 38%, it’s actually greater as I went back further,” Valenti noted.
Valenti says that lower priced homes should be positively affected by the changes in mortgage rules imposed recently by the Canadian Government
“For a first time buyer (or buyer requiring CMHC insurance), the new mortgage rules mean that the buyer’s mortgage qualification is based on the Bank of Canada’s five-year fixed posted rate (average of the posted rates of the big six banks in Canada). That rate currently stands at 4.64%. However, the actual mortgage payment for that buyer will still be based on the best rate out there - currently hovering around 2.5%,” he said.
As for the College Heights area, Valenti’s statistics indicate sales are down 32% since 2012.
Valenti believes the fact that it has become more of a student housing area, has hurt the market in that area despite all the new commercial development in the area north of the city.
