Sometimes, it’s just a matter of perspective.
It seems you can’t step outside your door, or especially pick up a newspaper, without hearing about all the disaster that surrounds the Canadian housing market right now. Analysts are starting to sound like Chicken Little, except it’s prices and not the sky that is falling. Sellers meanwhile, are thinking that they’re going to be living in their home forever, or they’re going to lose a fortune on their home. But all the panic is quite unnecessary. There is a change happening, but it’s not the end of the Canadian housing market. It’s just the end of the market as we’ve known it for the past five years or so.
A cooling market is really just another name for a buyer’s market. And yes, that is a transition from the busy seller’s market that we’ve grown so accustomed to seeing. But this change in the marketplace doesn’t spell certain disaster. It simply means that things are going to get better for buyers, while still protecting sellers from losing their shirts.
For buyers, they have the pick of the crop right now. And in areas where prices still have not come down as much as they would like, buyers there just have to wait another two or three months and they’ll see prices in their region start to slide, too. This is the group that will most benefit from the softer market, and they might be the most deserving of it. After all, these are the same people who waited on the sidelines during the entire boom, waiting for the craziness to die down some, and get a home they love for an affordable price. Now, they can.
It’s also one of the best time for investors that are on the market, and for much of the same reasons why it’s such a great place for buyers. Prices are low, and only dropping further. While it may take a couple of years to get that value back, and even multiply it just as sellers did last year when prices were sky high and it didn’t look as though they’d be leveling off any time soon. Now though, they are coming down, while interest rates are forecasted to remain at their historic lows through til 2015 (some experts say.)
Sellers might not be the group that’s going to benefit the most from this softer market, but the road they’re headed down might not be as dark as they think. They might not make the thousands upon thousands of dollars over the value of their home that they might have if they had sold it two years ago, but they’ll still get the full value from their home.
With just a little bit of perspective, this changing market may just be a good thing after all!
