Busting Myths About Halifax’s Housing Market
You’ve probably heard a lot about Halifax’s housing market: out-of-control prices, wild bidding wars, Ontarians swooping in and scooping up properties, sight unseen.
Some of it is true. Some of it is changing.
Carrie Knowlton-Trider is a Halifax-based Realtor with RE/MAX nova who’s been in the business for nearly a decade.
She says the mountains of gossip and misinformation about Halifax real estate is distorting the perceptions and expectations of both buyers and sellers entering the market.
Knowlton-Trider says the market changed significantly in the last month alone, and a lot of what people are hearing out there is constantly changing on a property by property basis.
“People tell me stories about houses selling for $100,000 over asking price. And yes, that was happening often. But now it’s rarer. I’m seeing some sellers needing to drop their list price upwards of $50,000 because they overpriced their listing” she says.
Knowlton-Trider says the current market in Halifax—the real one, not the one you hear about through the grapevine—is still intimidating but not as volatile. The public assumes that homes were selling in 3-5 days but not realizing the amount of work needed to prepare your home properly to get the most out of the market.
“Sure, if you’re on the water or if your home is stunning you might be fielding dozens of offers. But if it’s not, sellers are needing to put in that effort to get their houses sold,” she says.
All things considered, however, Knowlton-Trider says the market looks a bit better for buyers right now than it has for quite a while. In the past August has always been a slower month, once school goes in we will see what happens.
“Right now, compared to the early spring it is not as chaotic,” she says.
Buyers may not find their perfect home right away, she says, but the whole process will be less stressful “and you won’t get kicked in the teeth at every turn.”
Some of her clients whom she told to wait on buying a home are now looking at places that are $50,000 to $60,000 cheaper than they would have been a few months ago because of the bidding wars.
But things are still changing. Knowlton-Trider says she has to re-educate her clients every two or three weeks as the market evolves. Because of that, she says it’s vital for anyone entering the market to find a Realtor who will be straight with them.
“If you interview a few Realtors to help sell your home and someone tells you it’s worth more and I tell you it’s worth less, you’re going to prefer the other guy better,” she says. “But I promise you it’s not all about the list price, your potential of scaring away potential buyers may be higher. Listing high in this market is dangerous, if a seller lists their home properly chances are they would receive a higher offer.”
You don’t want to put your house on the market at an inflated rate and when you don’t get offers be forced to drop your price.
“Now it’s 10 days later and everyone wants to know what’s wrong with the house and why you’re lowering the price,” she says.
“It’s kind of the same for buyers. I’ve talked a lot of clients out of buying a home this year because I didn’t think they really wanted to live there.”
When the market was at its craziest, Knowlton-Trider says lots of panicked buyers were blitzing out offers on whatever they saw. She says she often talked her clients out of doing it just because she knew they were trying to buy something they ultimately didn’t want.
“They’d be looking at a place that had maybe two of the ten features that were really important to them. And I’d say what are you doing? You don’t really want this house. Just wait a couple more months and I promise something better will come along.”
Again, she says, having someone who will tell it to you straight is huge, not someone who just tells you what you want to hear.