Latest news with #realEstateMarket
CTV News
7 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
Vancouver home sales continue to weaken; inventory builds: board
A real estate sign is pictured in Vancouver on Tuesday, June, 12, 2018. (Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian Press) VANCOUVER — Vancouver home sales activity fell again in May as buyers continue sitting on the sidelines, the city's real estate board says. Greater Vancouver Realtors says residential sales in the region totalled 2,228 last month, an 18.5 per cent decrease from the same month a year earlier. Sales levels are 30.5 per cent below the 10-year seasonal average. There were 6,620 newly listed properties on the market in May, a 3.9 per cent increase from May 2024, but still 9.3 per cent above the 10-year seasonal average for the month. Greater Vancouver Realtors director of economics and data analytics Andrew Lis says year-to-date sales rank among the slowest to start the year in the past decade. The board says total active listings rose 25.7 per cent year-over-year to 17,094. The composite benchmark price in May was $1,177,100, down 2.9 per cent from a year earlier and 0.6 per cent lower than April. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 3, 2025.
CTV News
21-05-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Barrie has a strong retail market this year
Barrie's house sales are up 20% over this time last year according to the Barrie and District Association of Realtors.
Bloomberg
20-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Toll Maintains Home Sales Forecast as Luxury Demand Holds Up
Luxury builder Toll Brothers Inc. reaffirmed expectations for home sales in its full fiscal year, citing resilience among its affluent buyers.
The National
17-05-2025
- Business
- The National
Dubai property buyers become more picky despite thriving market, experts say
Many Dubai property investors are getting more selective about where to put their money, experts have said. The Covid-19 pandemic instigated a boom that has eased off with buyers now thinking long-term about amenities, location and proximity to transport, they said. The National spoke to developers, salespeople, agents and more on the sidelines of the 'game-changers 2.0 real estate summit' in Dubai on Friday to gauge how the red hot market was going. Firas Al Msaddi, chief executive of Fam Properties and event organiser, said the market was at an "all-time high" with strong demand for both the resale and off-plan market. But he said people were becoming more selective as more off-plan units came on-stream as many developers had come to the UAE on the back of the boom and not everyone was 'producing the best of the best'. 'Every property buyer, every investor, [and] every broker are very sensitive to the overall value that product offers,' he said 'People are really … digging and understanding and learning before making a decision. Even if the market cools down a bit because of the supply, this is only temporary – it's only a matter of time for the demand to catch up.' Mohamad Abbas, sales manager at Dubai Holding Real Estate, said he had been in the market for 12 years and couldn't see an end to the boom. 'Maybe it will be stable in a couple of years from now, but it will never go down,' he said. Mr Abbas said in the past quarter they had sold villas for hundreds of millions of dirhams and the ultra-luxury market was strong. At the other end of the market people who wanted to buy cheaper units were willing to move to remote locations but people from across the world were buying. "I can say the United Nations are buying with us,' he said. 'The whole market is buying with us.' The National earlier this week reported on the unforgiving property world, with one agent stating only about 20 per cent of agents are doing really well – a sobering note far removed from the glitz on Friday. Dubai's housing market surpassed annual sales of Dh500 billion ($136.1 billion) for the first time in 2024, with huge demand for villas, town houses and apartments. The surge is being driven by liberalised visa rules, safety and security, more infrastructure, increased companies setting up, lower interest rates and the unrelenting population increase in the emirate. Consultants ValuStrat said about 90,000 new residents arrived in Dubai in the first quarter of 2025. According to Dubai Statistics Centre, the population of the emirate on Friday stood at 3.94 million. Top performing areas in Dubai include Jumeirah Village Circle, Business Bay, Dubai Hills Estate, Dubai South and Motor City. But what is more difficult to assess away from the headlines of lavish launches and unending booms is when the property market is going to cool. The event on Friday was a sell-out, with 2,000 tickets sold and some even shelling out Dh30,000 for VIP seats at the front. It aimed to share the latest trends, rules and regulations for brokers and agents, in partnership with the Dubai Land Department. Artificial intelligence was prominent with a report by Fam Properties stating AI was encouraging more younger buyers into the market as they could access data more easily. But questions about the boom were front and centre. Manan Law, managing partner at Dubai-based mortgage firm, Equifirst, said the surge that started in 2020 had ended as the world was no longer emerging from the major global event that was Covid-19. He said that in these scenarios Dubai and the UAE has always prospered as a haven. But he cautioned people expecting 50 per cent returns from that era would be disappointed, as this was now down to between 10 per cent to 12 per cent. 'In 2020, you could have closed your eyes and bought anything. And it would have yielded you a good return,' he said. 'Now you have to start looking at who is the developer; what is the community; what are the amenities; and what is being built around.' Mr Law said people in their keenness to get on the property train were forgetting that property was a 'fixed illiquid asset and it takes time'. 'It is not a stock. You're not supposed to buy a property today and it'd be up 15 to 20 per cent in a year," he said. 'That's not how real estate works. it is a long-term investment.' Mr Law confirmed the market was maturing and mortgages accounted for 40 per cent of sales in Dubai with lower interest rates helping. "To make the investor feel more comfortable, there's more and more heavier lean towards financing,' he said. 'It's just the normal progression.'
News.com.au
13-05-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
How much it costs to sell a home in Australia
As the old adage goes, you have to spend money to make money – and in the world of real estate, this certainly rings true. But just how much will you really be up for when you put your home on the market? AGENT, MARKETING AND LEGAL Ray White head of Performance and Recognition Bianca Denham says there are essentially three main costs when it comes to selling a home: the agent's commission, marketing costs and legal costs. In Australia and New Zealand, real estate agents generally set their sales commission within the range of about 2-3.5 per cent, she says, though this can sometimes vary. 'If I was selling a house for $1 million based on those numbers that would be somewhere between $20,000-$35,000,' she says. Considered a 'success fee', the commission doesn't get paid until the house is sold. Marketing fees, on the other hand, are usually required to be paid upfront, she says. 'The marketing fee is an area for vendors to be wary of,' she adds. 'Stay far away': Worst place to put your money While some agencies offer to cover the cost of marketing, Denham cautions against this, explaining vendors might not get the best service under such an arrangement. Marketing is usually provided by a third party, the cost of which is usually itemised and passed on to the vendor. By doing this, the vendor can see the value they have paid for. 'The price of the marketing is very area dependent because the portals will be priced on a click per view type of model,' she says. 'If it's a very heavily searched suburb, the portal price will be more expensive than a suburb that doesn't have many clicks.' 'Generally the ranges around Australia and New Zealand will be from anywhere as low as maybe a couple of thousand dollars through to possibly $10-$15,000 or $20,000, depending on the property.' Legal fees can be anywhere from $2000-$5000 depending on state-based requirements, she says. EXTRA COSTS TO CONSIDER Another expense that many sellers don't think about is the cost of prepping their home for sale, says founder and managing director of Horwood Nolan Ben Horwood. 'The big one that most people spend the majority of their money on would be prep,' he says. In Sydney's inner west where he sells homes in the $3-4m range, vendors generally spend about $30,000-$50,000 getting their homes prepared for sale, doing things such as house washing, painting, window furnishing, floor covering and landscaping. 'Paint, landscaping and styling would be the top three that would make the most difference,' he says. 'It can be 10-20 per cent of the value of the property.' Director and principal stylist of Vault interiors Justine Wilson says the cost of staging a home can vary greatly across companies but is also dependent on the size of the home and style of the property. The average partial style usually costs between $4000 and $8000 for a small home, which is a similar price to a full style, she says. 'A partial style isn't necessarily always the cheaper option,' she says. 'Quite often we're quoting on removing and storing some of the owner's items or the vendor may be looking at their own removal and storage facility, so they're effectively paying double handling. Logistically there's more labour and time.' VALUE FOR MONEY To get the best value for money, it's important to choose your selling agent wisely, says Horwood. 'The number one thing you should be spending your money on is choosing a quality agent that's going to give you good advice around what to spend money on and what not to spend money on,' he says. In fact, by going with a low cost agent who promises a high price, it could cost you more. 'A lot of the time that can lead to extended times on the market because the property is priced too high and not prepared effectively and then it usually ends up costing them a lot more than the difference in the fees for an agent that's going to give them quality advice and get it right the first time,' he said. 'It's a very, very, very expensive mistake to make.'
