It’s a buyer’s market in Regina right now as house prices across the city continue to drop.
Realtor Craig Adam has been showing more homes lately, since it’s getting more difficult to sell a home in the Queen City.
“There is a lot of inventory and the time on the market for houses to sell (is) taking a lot longer than (it) used to,” Adam told CTV News Thursday.
Buyers have more choices as prices continue to drop and sellers aren’t getting what they paid when they originally bought the home.
According to Adam, sellers only received 70 per cent of the assessed value on 72 per cent of the homes sold in the last 30 days.
“When the assessments were done in 2015, that was certainly at a high point in the market,” Adam said. “Now that our market has declined, a lot of houses are selling less than what the assessed value is.”
The Association of Regina Realtors says home sales in Regina and the surrounding area in August were at the lowest level since 2008. As of the end of last month, only 1,762 homes have sold in the city this year — down from 1,898 last year.
“There’s quite a number of buyers that have started to look around and then had to leave the market all together,” said Gord Archibald, CEO of the association.
Archibald says the number of properties listed for sale is at an all-time high. The new mortgage rules introduced in January has taken hundreds to thousands of buyers out of the market, since many are struggling to qualify for financing.
But, Adam says sellers don’t need to panic just yet.
“Price it properly, get good information of what’s going on in the market and be patient with it,” he said.
All properties in the province will be reassessed in 2021.
Based on a report by CTV Regina's Colton Wiens
