Toronto and Vancouver might be plugging away and getting a new condo building up every time a city bus drives by, but the same cannot be said for all Canadian markets. And if you’re currently looking for a Sudbury mortgage on a new home, you might find that it’s getting more difficult, as the city continues to see fewer and fewer housing starts.
The data comes from the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC,) the Crown organization that not only issues mortgage insurance but also keeps a very close eye on different Canadian housing markets throughout the year. And the report that they released this past Wednesday shows some data that might be surprising, and disappointing, for those who are looking for increased activity in the Sudbury market. That’s because even though surrounding areas, such as the Oakville mortgage and housing market, are doing well, Sudbury continues to plod along at a snail’s pace – at least when it comes to the number of housing starts they continue to show.
The most recent report shows that Sudbury had only 13 starts in the first quarter of this year, a number that’s down from 15 units in the first quarter of 2011. And what might be even more discouraging than that for builders, investors, and buyers, is that this number is the lowest that the Greater Sudbury Area has seen in the past five quarters; and it’s significantly lower – by a whopping 70%! Warren Philp, the Northern Ontario Market Analyst at CMHC said when releasing the information, “Despite a milder winter than normal, only nine single-detached starts and four semi-detached homes got underway in the first three months of 2012 in Greater Sudbury. The thirteen units were nearly 70% behind the average for the last five years.”
So does this mean that things are all bad in Sudbury? Not at all. What the area is most likely seeing is the slow-down that is soon going to start happening around the country, as interest rates are bound to rise, prices are going to fall, and people are going to slowly be leaving the market. The fact that it’s starting in Subdury, a smaller town than say, the Greater Toronto Area, is also normal as these markets tend to be slower and be the first ones to show signs that the market is beginning to cool.
