Mississauga Real Estate BLOG

If you can afford it, don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

It doesn’t matter if you look at homes sold or homes for sale in Mississauga, Oakville, Etobicoke or anywhere else in the GTA, the news is always the same; sales are up, prices are up and the market is almost as hot as the hottest year ever. Interest rates are low and demand is high creating a very frustrating market for home buyers.

In the 905 area code average prices are up 8% for a detached home (average being $579,892), 10% for a semi detached (average being $400,442), 6% for a townhouse (average being $359,382) and 8% for a condo (average being $292,416). The questions still remains.. when will it stop?

No one has a crystal ball but in the short term it doesn’t look like much is going to change. Due to the European debt crisis it looks like interest rates are going to remain unchanged for a while. Even if they do start to inch up prices will go up before they start to go down. Similar to the stock market, the GTA real estate market tends to panic at the slightest bit of good or bad news. The difference is it takes a bit longer for any impact to be felt in the real estate market largely due to the fact that a property can’t be purchased on the internet in 5 minutes as can be done with stocks purchases.

If and when interest rates go up the likely scenario would be for the next month there would be an additional of surge of buyers on the market who want to take advantage of current rates before further interest rate increases are posted. These would be the buyers that were sitting on the sidelines either waiting for prices to go down or saving up more money. This surge of buyers would result in a steady increase in prices until the demand was satisfied or the buyers went back to the sidelines in frustration. At that point, and if rates continued to climb, a slow decrease in price could follow. The length of time it would take to see any meaningful decrease in price would be approximately 6 months. If rates continued to increase during that 6 months then a buyer may not be any better or worse off then had they bought a house 6 months before. It’s the damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario.

All I know is I lost 40% on my RRSPs. In my book stocks are out real estate is in. Similarly my advice would be, if you can afford it, don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

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Cynthia Shaw, is a licenced Mississauga Real Estate Agent with Sutton Group Quantum Realty Inc., Brokerage in Mississauga Ontario. Let Cynthia’s extensive knowledge in Mississauga real estate guide you in purchasing your dream home.

The basis of real estate is that a home is worth what a buyer is willing to pay.

Six months ago the word was out from various economic experts that Toronto home prices, Mississauga home prices, Oakville home prices and almost every other area in the GTA were going to decline between 10% to 30% in the upcoming year. In December those figures were revised to reflect a more modest drop of 5% – 10% in the first half of 2012. March reports indicate that the GTA market is overvalued and that some economists expect a correction of 20-25%. Seems to be a lot of confusion as to what the future holds.

I have never had an explanation of how one calculates that a home is overvalued. The basis of real estate is that a home is worth what a buyer is willing to pay. Now recently in Toronto a small bungalow was listed for $950,000 and sold for $400,000 over the list price. The sale was the talk of the neighbourhood and at first when I heard the news from my mother in law who lives in the neighbourhood I thought she must be mistaken. The news that night reported the sale exactly as had been reported by the neighbourhood grape vine. Turns out the home was purchased by Chinese immigrants. The news report on this sale went further to explain that the purchases by immigrating Chinese are on the rise as they find Toronto home prices, Oakville home prices and Mississauga homes prices to be a good deal. In the context of “a home is worth what a buyer is willing to pay”, in China that $950,000 home would be somewhere around $7 million U.S. dollars. Obviously then to someone from China that small bungalow is a real deal at $1,250,000. We are living in the best country in the world and in one of the best cities in the world. In comparison to other world class cities property in the GTA is still very reasonable.

Let’s look at the market itself. New listing activity is very tight. Although there seems to be a slight increase in the amount of homes coming on the market, the number of buyers entering the market continues to surpass the number of new listings. This has been the case quite regularly for the past year. Trying to find a home in Mississauga for a buyer is a full time job. Either the home is a wreck or there are 5 people wanting to put an offer in at the same time.

Economically there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel for the U.S. economy. Maybe it’s just a blip but in the long term that can only be a positive factor for the Canadian economy. When the economy is good there is always a positive impact on housing and the real estate market. It either puts upward pressure on the prices or keeps it stable. I never heard of prices of prices going down in a good economy.

I suppose these economists who predict the decreases in home prices are using historical figures and very complicated formulas to determine where real estate prices are going to go. I guess I view that process like the providing a weather forecast. This winter was to be unusually cold and stormy weather. For some parts of the country that meant a frigid climate; while for others, it’s lots of rain and snow. It was to be a winter of “clime and punishment” with cold to very cold temperatures. Winter really never arrived and neither will those decreases.

Looking to buy or sell your home in Mississauga, Oakville, Toronto area? Don’t hesitate to contact the best Mississauga Real Estate Agent Cynthia Shaw.

Mississauga real estate market conditions look very promising with the strong sales levels and record low intereste rates!

January is typically the time of year when the real estate market tends to slow down as buyers and sellers take a moment to plan their year, pay their Christmas bills and focus on getting back to a day to day routine after the festive December season. In spite of many predictions that the market for 2012 is going to slow down the sales results for the first month of the year thru out Mississauga and the rest of the GTA are quite the contrary.

Sales recorded by the Toronto MLS system were up by 8.8% over January 2011. The average price paid for a home was $463,534 which is up by almost 9% over the average posted in January of 2011. There is strong interest in all different price ranges with the most popular range falling between $400,000 and $500,000 and homes in the $300,000—$400,000 coming in at a close second.

The specific sales number in Mississauga were up 17% whereas Oakville and Etobicoke were up 23%.

The continued strong sales figures can in part be attributed to the record low fixed interest rates that lending institutions are offering. Currently 5 year fixed rates are available at 2.99% and 4 year rates at 2.89% both lower then the current prime rate of 3%. Variable rates are much of a deal at the moment with the average discount being offered at .10% below prime or at prime.

With the strong sales levels, low inventory of homes for sale in Mississauga, Etobicoke, West Toronto and the expectation that interest rates will remain low into 2015, the year ahead in real estate looks very promising.