House prices drop; Brandon now a ‘buyer’s market’

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This article was published 07/04/2018 (2751 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s no clear consensus as to why the average housing prices in Brandon have dropped, but Brandon Area Realtors executive officer Jen Pearson said she isn’t raising any alarm bells.

The average house price in March was down eight per cent when compared with the average house price in March 2017, bringing it down to $281,959.

The average condo price in March of this year was $245,666, which is down 8.4 per cent from the same time period in 2017.

It’s still a “pretty decent first quarter,” Pearson said, in that this year’s shift from last year isn’t great enough to signal a significant change from the norm.

With everything cyclical, she said that greater than normal inventory, houses sitting longer on the market and a dip in housing prices “are all indicators of a buyer’s market.”

Year to date, houses have been sitting on the market for an average of 53 days before being sold, which is longer than last year’s 50 and the 42 recorded two years ago.

There were 209 active residential listings last month, excluding condominium units, which is up from last year’s 183 for the same time period.

At the same time, new listings were down last month, with 78 recorded in March compared with 103 noted in March, 2017.

As for the average housing price, Pearson said the numbers can be easily skewed by a handful of outliers.

The greatest chunk of residential property sales in Brandon are between $250,000 and $350,000, she said, with this year finding more lower-cost units selling and fewer higher-cost units selling.

To March 31, 28 homes sold for less than $200,000, which is up from last year’s 21 for the same time frame.

To March 31, 10 homes sold for $400,000 or more, which is down from the 14 sold during the same time frame in 2017.

City of Brandon director of economic development Sandy Trudel said that the local economy is actually on an uptick, with last month’s unemployment rate hitting 5.1 per cent, which is down from the 6.3 per cent recorded in March of last year.

While the housing market is a good indicator of how the economy is faring, Trudel said there haven’t been any significant changes to the region.

“Brandon has a long and steady track record of really stable housing prices, so you don’t see a lot of ups and downs in our market,” she said.

Overall, she said the local economy remains “stable.”

Centum Mortgage Choice Corp. partner and broker Naomi Hamm said there might be some outside factors at play when it comes to local housing prices.

Rising interest rates and an increasing federally imposed stress test, which requires that prospective homeowners qualify at interest rates greater than what they actually pay, have both chipped away at Canadians’ buying power.

While she said it’s unclear what the impact on the local housing market has been, “It has changed the way we buy houses.”

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB