Latest news with #KingsleyMa
Edmonton Journal
31-07-2025
- Business
- Edmonton Journal
Strong resale homes market forecast for Edmonton this fall
Article content Edmonton's resale real estate market has been a leader nationally in recent months, and a new report suggests that it will continue to be one of Canada's hottest markets for the rest of the year. Albeit it will not be as hot as it was even a few months ago, with the Royal LePage House Price Survey and Market Forecast predicting slowing growth. Article content 'We are now following a very normal trajectory where peak pricing happens in the spring and then comes off through the summer while picking up in the fall,' says Tom Shearer, broker/owner of Royal LePage Noralta Real Estate. Article content Article content Article content The report shows that Edmonton was a top market for percentage price growth in the second quarter of this year (ending June 30) with the aggregate price of a home up 7.5 per cent year over year, reaching $484,500. Yet quarter over quarter, growth slowed to 1.2 per cent. Article content Article content The national aggregate price is expected to gain about 3.5 per cent to reach about $848,000. The pace of price growth is an acceleration from the second quarter when prices gained 0.3 per cent, year over year, the report shows. Article content Toronto and Vancouver weighed on the national picture with both cities seeing aggregate price declines. The Greater Toronto Area saw its aggregate price decline three per cent to about $1.15 million year over year. In Greater Vancouver, the aggregate price fell 2.6 per cent to about $1.22 million. Article content Article content Canada's largest cities are expected to see growth, however, by the end of the year. Toronto's aggregate price is expected to grow two per cent to reach $1.17 million over prices at the end of 2024. Vancouver's aggregate price is forecast to climb 1.5 per cent to reach about $1.25 million. Article content Even with the recent price declines, both markets are still unaffordable for most families — at least if they are seeking a single-family home, says Kingsley Ma, area vice-president for Re/Max Canada. Article content 'Even if both parents are working, your chances of buying a detached home are slim.' Article content The median price for a single-family detached home in Greater Vancouver was about $1.74 million at the end of June, declining about two per cent year over year. Article content Ma adds more families seeking to purchase a first home are looking to the condominium and townhouse markets. Even townhomes, however, can carry $1 million price tags, he adds.
Calgary Herald
26-06-2025
- Business
- Calgary Herald
Hot properties: Calgary's multi-family is a commercial real estate hotspot
Article content Multi-family residential real estate is among Canada's hottest commercial real estate sectors, which should come as no surprise in Calgary and other major cities where housing supply has been in short supply in recent years. Article content Yet a new report further cements this thesis, illustrating that residential real estate is front and centre for developers and investors, especially in Calgary where high migration from other provinces has driven housing demand. Article content Article content Article content 'If you look at Calgary, population continues to increase rapidly because, simply, people want to live there,' says Kingsley Ma, regional vice-president for Re/Max in Vancouver. Article content Article content Although the Re/Max Canada's 2025 Commercial Real Estate Report points to economic uncertainty driven by trade strife with the United States dampening commercial real estate investment in Canada, residential real estate — new homes for rent and ownership — continue to stand out. Article content The main driver is Canada remains deeply underhoused even with international migration pared back from peaks in previous years. Article content As the report notes, Calgary's multi-family purpose-built rental market has still seen very high investment with 3,000 starts in the first quarter of this year (ending March 31), of which nearly 65 per cent were rental units. Article content Article content Transactions among existing purpose-built rental assets also remained highly active with several high-value sales, including Boardwalk REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) a 295-unit high-rise for $80 million. Article content The report adds that vacancy remains attractive at 4.8 per cent, according to a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. report from earlier this year. As well, rents are increasing, up nine per cent year over year to $1,900 a month in Q1 for a two-bedroom. Article content The past few years of high demand have pushed the industry to look to creative solutions for housing, including office conversions downtown to rental, Kingsley says. Article content 'The result of all this activity is that you are bound to face more competition.' Article content In particular, individual investors seeking to purchase condominium apartments and other dwellings to rent out in Calgary are facing more competition from new purpose-built projects, which can add several hundred new rent units to the market.
Edmonton Journal
15-05-2025
- Business
- Edmonton Journal
Edmonton luxury homes' sales surge to start 2025
Article content It's hot at the top. Edmonton's luxury resale real estate market is having its moment in the sun, a new report shows, finding that Alberta's capital is seeing among the fastest year-over-year growth to start 2025. 'Edmonton has just been crazy,' says Kingsley Ma, area vice-president with Re/Max Canada in Vancouver. The Re/Max Collection 2025 Spotlight on Luxury report, released in mid-April, shows that the city's $1-million-plus resales grew nearly 70 per cent in the first two months of the year compared with January and February in 2024.
Edmonton Journal
28-04-2025
- Business
- Edmonton Journal
Questions about economy rein in home buying, selling
Article content Economic uncertainty could be putting a damper on the spring real estate market as many Canadians, Edmontonians included, feel less wealthy and secure. The on-and-off again United States administration's trade policy has sent markets careening downward, and then upward on every real or inferred announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump. 'Uncertainty can make people put plans on hold even if interest rates are coming down and expected to come down even more because if you can't pay the bills, it doesn't matter how cheap a mortgage is,' says Kingsley Ma, area vice-president with Re/Max Canada in Vancouver. Although the impact may be more acute in Canada's most expensive markets, where in March the average price of a single-family home in Vancouver exceeded $2 million, Edmonton is not immune to the ongoing uncertainty either.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What the Bank of Canada interest rate decision today could mean for a housing market hit by Trump tariff uncertainty
Homebuyers, wrestling with the same tariff-fuelled uncertainty as the Bank of Canada (BoC), are unlikely to act even if the Bank cuts its overnight interest rate today, industry experts say. The housing market slowed to a crawl as the tariff threat began to take shape earlier this year, a pace likely to persist through the usually active spring season regardless of the BoC's decision. 'I don't think it will be the usual spring market, as much as I hope it would be,' Kingsley Ma, an area vice-president at RE/MAX Canada, told Yahoo Finance Canada. 'All the buyers are on the sidelines because of the uncertainty, right? If you can't pay the bills, it doesn't matter what the interest rate is, because they're all worried about their job security and things like that.' 'If there's uncertainty about the ability to pay sizeable mortgages, then that throws everything up in the air,' said Kelly Ho, a certified financial planner at DLD Financial Group. The limited activity happening in the market is largely by people earning significant salaries who can handle economic turbulence, says Ron Butler, a mortgage broker at Butler Mortgage. 'We see very, very little of what you would call average people purchasing homes,' he said. According to Reuters, market odds following Tuesday's inflation data release suggest there's a roughly even chance the BoC will stand pat at 2.75 per cent. But that likely won't matter — the BoC's previous cut in March did little to move the market anyway, Ma says. 'Obviously, March was a slow month, and we likely will continue to see a slower market overall,' he said. 'Because, I mean, even if you look at the stock market — it's not good, even though it kind of bounced back a little bit' after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs. Data published by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) on Tuesday showed March sales down 4.4 per cent from February. Non-seasonally-adjusted March figures were 9.3 per cent lower than March 2024 and the lowest March numbers since 2009, CREA says. The decline in activity was most pronounced in B.C. and Ontario, according to CREA's data and generally down in "all but a handful of small markets" Canada-wide. "In short order we've gone from a slam dunk rebound year to treading water at best,' Shaun Cathcart, CREA's Senior Economist, said in a statement. CREA now projects 482,673 home sales in 2025, essentially the same number as in 2024, and "a large downward revision" from the 8.6 per cent increase in annual sales it had forecast in January. The situation is slightly less grim for those looking to renew, Ho, the financial planner, says. 'Those who were initially nervous about their upcoming renewals are no longer nervous because it seems like we're in a rate environment where there's some stability, or perhaps even rates going down,' she said. In a speech in Calgary last month, BoC governor Tiff Macklem said the 'pervasive uncertainty' meant the Bank would focus less on a specific economic outlook because 'several outcomes can all look plausible.' From a mortgage standpoint, Butler says two scenarios look plausible at this point — one in which rates are cut significantly lower as the economy sputters, and one in which rates rise in response to significant inflation. If unemployment spikes and GDP crashes, Butler says, the BoC might cut rates down to, say, 1.75 per cent, and variable mortgage rates would follow a similar path. 'It may not pull fixed [mortgage rates] down, because fixed has to exist in a world of government bond trading that is receiving some unique pressures,' he said, referring to the uncharacteristically turbulent bond market to which fixed rates are tied. 'Another scenario is inflation does perk up,' Butler said, to somewhere above three per cent, 'at which point the Bank of Canada could say, 'Oh, geez, we're definitely not cutting, and fixed rates could rise based on this obvious inflation.' The overall economic uncertainty also changes the stakes around choice of mortgage. Butler says fixed rates have been fairly consistently coming in below four per cent in recent weeks, a number at which more people opt for the stability of a fixed rate. The proportion of people choosing variable rate mortgages for a home purchase was as high as around one-third in the second half of 2024, he says, but that has retreated to around 20 to 25 per cent as fixed rates fall. Ho says she counsels her clients to think about fixed versus variable in the same way they think about their investments. 'How are you going to react if you know the markets drop this much, you know, are you going to hit the panic button? And variable versus fixed, it's the same concept,' she said. If the trade war is resolved in some way, the market will likely remain quiet for a while, Ma says. 'I think you're still looking at probably a couple months before consumers gain confidence in making any purchases,' he said. The sheer scale and size of the tariffs, when announced, took markets and individuals largely by surprise, Ma says. 'So, people need time to settle in, even when the tariffs and everything are over, to build that confidence back up, you know, to plan.' John MacFarlane is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jmacf. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android. Sign in to access your portfolio
